Moscow, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics • March 13, 1940 (Finnish Time) On this date in 1940, in the Soviet capital of Moscow, Finnish and Soviet delegates initialed the Treaty (or Peace) of Moscow. The terms of the agreement, dated March 12 (Moscow time), ended the so-called Winter War the Soviets had unleashed a little…
Moscow, Soviet Union • March 5, 1940 In a proposal written on this date in 1940 to Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin and other members of the Soviet Politburo, Lavrentiy Beria, who was the unsavory head of the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD), the Soviet secret police, advocated executing all members of the Polish Officer…
Berlin, Germany • December 18, 1940 On this date in 1940 in Berlin, one day before receiving the credentials of the new Soviet ambassador to Germany, Adolf Hitler signed Fuehrer Directive 21, Operation Barbarossa (Unternehmen Barbarossa), thereby initiating the secret preparations and military operations that led to the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22,…
London, England • November 25, 1944 On this date in 1944 a German ballistic missile slammed into a crowded Woolworths store in London, England, killing 160 civilians and seriously injuring 108 more. The 42‑ft./12.8‑meter-tall, 12‑ton V‑2 (Vergeltungswaffe 2, “Retribution [or Vengeance] Weapon 2”) rocket with its 1‑ton payload of high explosives was truly a weapon of mass destruction….
Berlin, Germany • May 12, 1941 On this date in 1941, two days after Deputy Reich Fuehrer Rudolf Hess had embarked on his historic “peace mission” to England (see story below), Adolf Hitler finally confirmed June 22 as the start date for Operation Barbarossa (Unternehmen Barbarossa), the German invasion of the Soviet Union. Moving toward the…
Narvik, Norway • April 29, 1940 Copenhagen, Denmark’s capital, and Oslo, Norway’s capital, succumbed to German invaders on April 9, 1940, the first day of Operation Weseruebung. Though planning for Weseruebung had begun the previous December, Adolf Hitler did not order full speed ahead until British warships entered the territorial waters of neutral Norway in February…
Berlin, Germany • March 3, 1945 Round-the-clock bombing operations against Nazi Germany began on March 3, 1944, with a U.S. 800‑plane daylight raid that dropped 2,000 tons of bombs on Berlin. On this date in 1945 American bombers mounted a daylight raid on Berlin that left 3,000 people dead and 100,000 homeless. Luftwaffe bombers retaliated, attacking Britain for…
Adlerhorst Forward HQ, Central Hessen, Germany • December 16, 1944 “It is essential to deprive the enemy of his belief that victory is certain,” Adolf Hitler told his generals on December 12, 1944, at his rural Adlerhorst (Eagle’s Nest) headquarters near Bad Nauheim, Germany, the camouflaged western command outpost Architect of the Reich Albert Speer (pronounced “spare”)…
London, England • July 10, 1940 On this date in 1940, less than one month after France’s humiliating capitulation to Nazi Germany and just 10 days after the Germans had seized Great Britain’s Channel Islands of Jersey and Guernsey off France’s Brittany coast, Luftwaffe aircraft based in occupied France began a relentless aerial campaign targeting the…
Monte Cassino, Italy • April 17, 1944 On this date in 1944, 52,000 soldiers of the untested Polish II Corps under Maj. Gen. Wladyslaw Anders quietly moved into position under the cover of darkness and smokescreen. The Polish II Corps, part of Gen. Oliver Leese’s British Eighth Army, relieved the exhausted New Zealand II Corps, which since…
