London, England and Paris, France · September 2, 1939 Shortly after British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and French Premier Édouard Daladier confirmed for themselves the German invasion of Poland on September 1, the two leaders gave the order for general mobilization and evacuation of children and mothers from their main cities. Both leaders also prepared to…
Berlin, Germany · August 31, 1939 On August 22, 1939, Adolf Hitler told his generals he would fabricate a story to justify his planned aggression against neighboring Poland. The plan was for Nazi Party Schutzstaffel (SS) operatives to dress in Polish uniforms, attack a German customs post and a German radio transmitter station in Gleiwitz,…
London, England; Paris, France; Warsaw, Poland · August 28, 1939 Public opinion in Europe had shifted from dread of war and a longing for peace evident in the Czech Sudeten crisis of September 1938 to a fatalistic acceptance that war was now unavoidable. British and French politicians were more confident that they could take their…
Berlin, Germany; Warsaw, Poland; and London, England · August 27, 1939 On this date in 1939, one day after Adolf Hitler aborted his plan to invade his eastern neighbor, Poland, German mobilization continued. Between August 25 and 31, a further 21 infantry divisions and 2 motorized divisions were in place along the German-Polish frontier. No reserve units were…
Berlin, Germany · July 19, 1940 Military operations between France and the Axis powers—that is, Germany and Italy—ended on June 25, 1940. Three and a half weeks later, on this date in 1940 in Berlin, victorious Wehrmacht troops marched through the Brandenburg Gate for the first time since Kaiser Wilhelm I’s victory over France in the Franco-Prussian…
Warsaw, Poland · May 5, 1939 In 1923 Poland’s Baltic neighbor to the north, Lithuania, unlawfully annexed Memel Territory (now Klaipėda Region in present-day Lithuania) that had been, up to 1918, part of Prussia under Kaiser Wilhelm II. Like the Danzig enclave in Poland and the Saar Territory in the Rhineland, Memel was a League of…
London, England · October 1, 1938 The storm clouds of war in Europe seemed to have parted on this date in 1938 in London, one day after Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain had returned from his triumph in Munich. Three visits to Germany had been required to part the clouds: the first to Berchtesgaden in the…
London, England · September 3, 1939 Addressing a national audience by radio, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain intoned the following words: “This morning the British ambassador in Berlin handed the German Government a final Note stating that, unless we heard from them by 11 o’clock that they were prepared at once to withdraw their troops from Poland, a…
London, England and Paris, France · September 2, 1939 Shortly after British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and French Premier Édouard Daladier confirmed for themselves the German invasion of Poland on September 1, the two leaders gave the order for general mobilization and evacuation of children and mothers from their main cities. Both leaders also prepared…
Berlin, Germany · August 31, 1939 On August 22, 1939, Adolf Hitler told his generals he would concoct a story to justify his planned aggression against neighboring Poland. The plan was for Nazi SS operatives to dress in Polish uniforms, attack a German customs post and a German radio transmitter station in Gleiwitz, Upper Silesia…