Riga, German-Occupied Latvia • November 30, 1941 On November 25 and 29, 1941, Einsatzgruppe 3 (Special Task Group 3), one of many SS (short for Schutzstaffel) mobile death squads operating behind German front lines, murdered5,000 “Reich Jews,” that is, German- and Austrian-born Jews. These men, women, and children had arrived in the Baltic ghetto at Kaunas, Lithuania’s second…
Cairo, Egypt • August 5, 1942 On this date in 1942 British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Gen. Sir Alan Brooke, chief of the Imperial General Staff, flew into Cairo. They arrived in the Egyptian capital 44 days after the British garrison at Tobruk in Eastern Libya (Cyrenaica) had fallen to German Gen. (soon Field…
On Germany’s Eastern Front • July 27, 1941 On this date in 1941, 5 weeks after the launch of Operation Barbarossa, Nazi Germany’s surprise attack on the Soviet Union, Adolf Hitler left his East Prussian Fuehrer Headquarters, known as the Wolf’s Lair (Wolfsschanze) and which had been built specifically for the Russian campaign, to pay…
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,…
Stalingrad, Soviet Union • November 1, 1942 By one German count, over five million Red Army soldiers had been taken prisoner since Adolf Hitler unleashed Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union begun 16 months earlier. As for the number of Soviet service personnel killed and disabled, there was only a rough estimate, but clearly…
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,…
Riga, Occupied Latvia · November 30, 1941 On November 25 and 29, 1941, Einsatzgruppe 3 (Special Task Group 3), one of many SS (short for Schutzstaffel) mobile death squads operating behind German front lines, murdered 5,000 “Reich Jews,” that is, German- and Austrian-born Jews. These men, women, and children had arrived in the Baltic ghetto…
Wolf’s Lair, Fuehrer HQ, East Prussia · August 23, 1941 On this date in 1941 at his concealed East Prussian “Fuehrer Headquarters” in the Rastenburg swamps, Adolf Hitler made a decision that doomed Operation Barbarossa—his planned liquidation of the Soviet Union. Barbarossa had been launched 2 months earlier, on June 22. But after 3 weeks of disagreeing with…
Cairo, Egypt · August 5, 1942 On this date in 1942 British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Gen. Sir Alan Brooke, chief of the Imperial General Staff, flew into Cairo. They arrived in the Egyptian capital 44 days after the British garrison at Tobruk in Eastern Libya had fallen to German Gen. (soon Field Marshal) Erwin…
On the Eastern Front · July 27, 1941 On this date in 1941, five weeks after the launch of Operation Barbarossa, Nazi Germany’s surprise attack on the Soviet Union, Adolf Hitler paid a visit to the headquarters of Army Group North. Led by Field Marshal Wilhelm von Leeb (1876–1956), Army Group North had begun its…