Warsaw, Occupied Poland · July 29, 1944 By July 1944 Poland had been occupied by the forces of Nazi Germany for close to five years and by those of the Soviet Union for considerably less. The Polish resistance Home Army (Armia Krajowa), which was loyal to the London-based Polish government-in-exile, had long planned some form…
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….
Hamburg, Germany · July 24, 1943 On this date in 1943 over the North German city of Hamburg, the Royal Air Force kicked off Operation Gomorrah (July 24 to August 3, 1943). British retaliation for the Luftwaffe’s firebombing of the medieval city of Coventry in the English Midlands, where 500 tons of explosives and 56 tons of incendiaries over…
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…
Leipheim Air Base, Bavaria, Germany · July 18, 1942 In mid-April 1941 test flights began of what would become the world’s first operational turbojet fighter, the Messerschmitt 262 Schwalbe, or Swallow. The test was really of the airframe, because the BMW turbojets—primitive and temperamental—were nowhere close to being ready for fitting. On this date in…
The Berghof, Bavaria, Germany · July 11, 1944 Adolf Hitler had been the target of four assassination attempts before he became head of state in January 1933 and perhaps two dozen afterwards. On this date in 1944 Lt. Col. Claus von Stauffenberg arrived at the Berghof on the Obersalzberg, Hitler’s Bavarian retreat near Berchtesgaden, carrying…
London, England · July 10, 1940 On this date in 1940, less than one month after France’s capitulation to Nazi Germany and just 10 days after the Germans had seized the Channel islands of Jersey and Guernsey off the Brittany coast, Luftwaffe aircraft based in France began a relentless aerial campaign targeting the lone European…
London, England · July 8, 1941 On this date in 1941, five months before the United States was drawn into World War II, the Boeing B‑17 Flying Fortress was flown in combat for the first time, this by the Royal Air Force in an attack on the North German port of Wilhelmshaven. The first production model,…
Near Kursk, Russia · July 5, 1943 On this date in 1943 Germans and Soviets unleashed the largest tank battle in history, the Battle of Kursk. Following the surrender of the German Sixth Army at Stalingrad (January 31, 1943), Soviet advances during the first months of 1943 pushed deep into German-held territory to recapture the Ukrainian…
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…
