Berlin, Germany · September 27, 1937 On this date in 1937 the Reichssicherheitshauptamt, Reich Security Main Office (known by its acronym RSHA), was created by Reichsfuehrer-SS Heinrich Himmler through the merger of the SS (Schutzstaffel) intelligence service, the Sicherheitsdienst (SD), or Security Service, and the Sicherheitspolizei (SiPo), or Security Police. The SiPo comprised the notorious…
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 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 Pact signed in Moscow the month before,…
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—formerly a League of Nations mandate—into…
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 exception…
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 non-aggression pact (the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact), when, on this date in 1939, the Fuehrer summoned the commanders of his various armed forces and other officers to the Berghof, his Bavarian retreat on…
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 at…
New York City, New York · July 26, 1935 On this date in 1935 in New York Harbor, a group of anti-Nazi activists boarded the German passenger liner Bremen, tore from the ship’s jackstay the red, white, and black Nazi party flag, its swastika emblazoned in the center, and pitched it into the Hudson River….
Rome, Italy · July 20, 1933 On this date in 1933 in Rome, representatives of German President Paul von Hindenburg and Pope Pius XI (1922–1939), among them Vatican Secretary of State Eugenio Pacelli (later Pope Pius XII), announced that a concordat (treaty) had been forged between the Holy See and the German Reich. The Reichskonkordat was a major…
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 had invaded France. Early that October Pétain’s collaborationist Vichy government—named after the resort community in which his administration had settled—approved the first French anti-Semitic…
Berlin, Germany · July 1, 1937 On this date in 1937 the Gestapo 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 him when the court didn’t. Niemoeller…