Brest-Litovsk, Occupied Eastern Poland · September 19, 1939 Adolf Hitler’s armies stormed over Poland’s border on September 1, 1939, in what became known as the world’s first blitzkrieg—“lightning war.” Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin hastened to claim his share of the spoils under the terms of a secret protocol in the Molotov-Ribbentrop Nonaggression Treaty signed in…
Nuremberg, Germany · September 10, 1935 On this date in 1935 the Nazis convened their annual Party congress in Nuremberg completely fixated on the charismatic savior-figure Adolf Hitler, Germany’s chancellor since January 1933. The 1935 “Rally of Freedom” (Reichsparteitag der Freiheit) touted Hitler’s wildly popular reintegration of the Saar region into the German Reich (from…
Berlin, Germany · August 24, 1941 On this date in 1941 Adolf Hitler cancelled the Aktion T‑4 euthanasia program that he had personally put in place in September 1939. Normally Hitler had a policy of not issuing written instructions for policies relating to what would later be called “crimes against humanity,” but he made an…
Obersalzberg, Bavaria, Germany · August 22, 1939 Adolf Hitler’s foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop was just about to affix his signature to the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact (aka Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact) in Moscow, when, on this date in 1939, the Fuehrer summoned the commanders of his various armed forces and other officers to the Berghof, his Bavarian…
London, England · August 17, 1943 In mid-June 1943 a Royal Air Force reconnaissance mission flew over the top-secret Peenemuende Army Research Center and V‑2 rocket launch site on the German Baltic coast. Images confirmed the presence of long-range ballistic missiles at the site. A month later British Prime Minister Winston Churchill ordered an attack…
Paris, Occupied France · July 16, 1942 On June 22, 1940, representatives of Marshal Philippe Pétain, premier of the French Third Republic, signed a ceasefire with Germany, 44 days after the Wehrmacht (German armed forces) had invaded France. Early in October Pétain’s collaborationist Vichy government—named after the resort community in which his administration had settled—approved…
Berlin, Germany · July 1, 1937 On this date in 1937 the Gestapo (German secret police) arrested outspoken Lutheran theologian and pastor Martin Niemoeller. The next year Niemoeller was tried for activities against the State. Released after the trial, Niemoeller was rearrested—presumably because Deputy Fuehrer Rudolf Hess decided to take “merciless action” against the clergyman…
Paris, Occupied France · June 14, 1940 On this date in 1940 German troops marched into Paris, forcing the French government to move to Tours, then to Bordeaux, where it set up an impromptu headquarters. In a futile plea to U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the French government under Prime Minister Paul Reynaud implored the…
Berlin, Germany · June 9, 1942 On this date in 1942, with the full leadership of the Third Reich in attendance, Nazi “martyr” Reinhard Heydrich was eulogized in one of the most elaborate funerals ever staged in Berlin. (Heydrich had been added by Adolf Hitler to the “honorary list of the Fallen of the Nazi…
SHAEF HQ, Versailles, France · May 2, 1945 On this date in 1945, a rain-sodden but peaceful day in Berlin, the battle for the war-ravaged Reich capital ended when General of the Artillery Helmuth Weidling surrendered his garrison to Soviet Lt. Gen. Vasily Chuikov. The Soviets claimed to have taken 480,000 POWs, captured 1,500 enemy tanks and self-propelled…