Berlin, Germany · April 11, 1934 On this date in 1934 German Chancellor Adolf Hitler secretly met with German War Minister Gen. Werner von Blomberg, the unofficial representative of the officer corps of the Reichswehr (German armed forces), and reached an agreement that sealed the fate of the post-World War I Weimar Republic. Behind titular President…
Berlin, Germany · March 21, 1943 Adolf Hitler was the target of assassins on at least 30 occasions. On this date in 1943 in Berlin, German army officers made the second of two attempts in March to kill Hitler with a bomb. The week before, two staff officers had planted a bomb aboard Hitler’s private plane….
London, England · March 6, 1941 By January 1941 the Allies had lost 1,300 merchant vessels, almost half of them to German U‑boats. Following the enslavement of 120 million people in seven Western and Eastern European countries by Nazi Germany the previous year, the British were reduced to fighting Adolf Hitler’s military juggernaut alone. In alarm they…
Berlin, Germany · March 1, 1935 On this date in 1935 Adolf Hitler appointed World War I air ace (last commander of the famous “Red Baron” Richthofen Fighter Squadron) Hermann Goering to the position of Luftwaffe Commander-in-Chief. Goering held the post until the final days of the Third Reich. A faithful Nazi from the earliest days…
London, England · February 20, 1944 On this date in 1944, while Soviet armed forces were ridding their country of the Wehrmacht on the Eastern Front, U.S. and British air forces embarked on Operation Argument in the skies over the Western Front. Unofficially dubbed “Big Week,” Operation Argument was an intensive six-day air campaign that…
Berlin, Germany · February 4, 1937 On this date in 1937, in a bold, sweeping decree, Adolf Hitler assumed command of the entire German armed forces, or Wehrmacht. He abolished the Reichskriegsministerium (Ministry of War), in the act liquidating the traditional power of the army general staff as the ultimate controller and director of Germany’s…
Berlin, Germany · January 16, 1945 On this date in 1945 Adolf Hitler moved his entourage into the “Fuehrer Bunker” under the Old Reich Chancellery in Berlin, where he lived and directed the last months of the war in Europe. The bunker—a maze of living quarters, conference rooms, offices, and utilities spreading two stories deep…
When August 1 to October 2, 1944 Where Warsaw, capital of German-occupied Poland Who More than 40,000 Polish irregulars in the pro-Western Polish Home Army (Armia Krajowa) under Gen. Antoni Chrusciel (1895–1960) versus (initially) 11,000 German troops under the overall command of Lt. Gen. Reiner Stahel (1892–1955). Also, more than 5,000 SS personnel, including Waffen-SS,…
When September 1939 to May 1945 Where Atlantic Ocean, North Sea, Irish Sea, Labrador Sea, Gulf of St. Lawrence, Caribbean Sea, Gulf of Mexico, Outer Banks (U.S. coast), and Arctic Ocean Who U-boats of the Kriegsmarine (German Navy) under Rear (later Grand) Admiral Karl Doenitz (1891–1980) and aircraft of the Luftwaffe (German Air Force) under…
When Preparations completed in August 1940 Where Southeast English coast from Ramsgate and Dover (county Kent) in the north to Portsmouth (county Sussex) and Devon in the south, as well as the Isle of Wight off the south coast of Hampshire Who Staff of the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW) (English: Supreme Command of the Armed…