Remembering History by day WW2

[Peter Clare]

1945 : Red Army overruns German High Command as it approaches the capital


On this day in 1945, Soviet forces fighting south of Berlin, at Zossen, assault the headquarters of the German High Command. The only remaining opposing "force" to the Russian invasion of Berlin are the "battle groups" of Hitler Youth, teenagers with anti-tank guns, strategically placed in parks and suburban streets. In a battle at Eggersdorf, 70 of these Hitler teens strove to fight off a Russian assault with a mere three anti-tank guns. They were bulldozed by Russian tanks and infantry.
Also on this day in 1945, British Guardsman Edward Charlton wins the last Victoria Cross of the war for saving the lives of several men trapped in their tank during a battle in the German village of Wistedt. He is so badly wounded during his act of heroism that he dies shortly after being taken prisoner. A total of 182 Victoria Crosses--Britain's highest honor for valor--were finally awarded for World War II.

[Peter Clare]

1944 : Americans launch Operation Persecution in the Pacific


On this day in 1944, Allied forces land in the Hollandia area of New Guinea. The Japanese occupiers, only 15,000 in number, many of whom were on administrative duty, fight for more than three months against ludicrous odds at great cost: When the battle for the northern coast of New Guinea was finally won by the Allies, 12,811 Japanese were dead, compared with 527 Americans.

[Peter Clare]

1942 : Germans begin "Baedeker Raids" on England


On this day in 1942, in retaliation for the British raid on Lubeck, German bombers strike Exeter and later Bath, Norwick, York, and other "medieval-city centres." Almost 1,000 English civilians are killed in the bombing attacks nicknamed "Baedeker Raids."
On March 28 of the same year, 234 British bombers struck the German port of Lubeck, an industrial town of only "moderate importance." The attack was ordered (according to Sir Arthur Harris, head of British Bomber Command) as more of a morale booster for British flyers than anything else, but the destruction wreaked on Lubeck was significant: Two thousand buildings were totaled, 312 German civilians were killed, and 15,000 Germans were left homeless.
As an act of reprisal, the Germans attacked cathedral cities of great historical significance. The 15th-century Guildhall, in York, as an example, was destroyed. The Germans called their air attacks "Baedeker Raids," named for the German publishing company famous for guidebooks popular with tourists. The Luftwaffe vowed to bomb every building in Britain that the Baedeker guide had awarded "three stars."

[Peter Clare]

1876 : Erich Raeder, commander in chief of the German navy, is born on this day


On this day in 1876, Erich Raeder, proponent of an aggressive naval strategy and the man who convinced Adolf Hitler to invade Norway, is born.
Raeder began his career by violating the terms of the post-World War I Treaty of Versailles, advocating the construction of submarines in 1928 to strengthen the German navy. He was made grand admiral during World War II and executed the invasion of Norway and Denmark. He fell out with Hitler over strategy and was ultimately removed from his command. He would end his career before the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg. Sentenced to life imprisonment for "instigation of the navy to violate the rules of war," he was released because of ill health in 1955.

[Peter Clare]

1945 : Americans and Russians link up, cut Germany in two


On this day in 1945, eight Russian armies completely encircle Berlin, linking up with the U.S. First Army patrol, first on the western bank of the Elbe, then later at Torgau. Germany is, for all intents and purposes, Allied territory.
The Allies sounded the death knell of their common enemy by celebrating. In Moscow, news of the link-up between the two armies resulted in a 324-gun salute; in New York, crowds burst into song and dance in the middle of Times Square. Among the Soviet commanders who participated in this historic meeting of the two armies was the renowned Russian Marshal Georgi K. Zhukov, who warned a skeptical Stalin as early as June 1941 that Germany posed a serious threat to the Soviet Union. Zhukov would become invaluable in battling German forces within Russia (Stalingrad and Moscow) and without. It was also Zhukov who would demand and receive unconditional surrender of Berlin from German General Krebs less than a week after encircling the German capital. At the end of the war, Zhukov was awarded a military medal of honor from Great Britain.

[Peter Clare]

1894 : Rudolf Hess is born


Rudolf Hess, Nazi party secretary and deputy to Adolf Hitler who caused an international sensation when he parachuted into Scotland in an attempt to negotiate a truce between Britain and Germany, is born on this day in Alexandria, Egypt.
Hess joined the Nazi Party as early as 1920 and became a friend and confidant to Hitler, editing much of Mein Kampf as it was dictated to him in Landsberg Prison, where both landed after the famous, and failed, November 1923 Munich beer hall putsch. On May 10, 1941, the day Hitler planned to invade Russia, Hess parachuted into Scotland, hoping to negotiate peace with Britain, in the person of the Duke of Hamilton, whom Hess claimed to have met at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. Such a peace would have prevented Germany from fighting on two fronts and greatly increased Hess's own prestige within the Nazi regime, many of whose members saw Hess as little more than a yes-man and sycophant (his nickname was "the Brown Mouse").
Hess did, in fact, find peace--in the Tower of London, where the British imprisoned him, the last man ever to be held there under lock and key. After the war, he was sentenced to life imprisonment in Spandau prison by the Nuremberg tribunal. He died, in prison, in 1987.

[Peter Clare]

1941 : German forces enter Athens


On this day in 1941, the German army enters the Greek capital, signaling the end of Greek resistance. All mainland Greece and all the Greek Aegean islands except Crete are under German occupation by May 11. In fending off the Axis invaders, the Greeks suffer the loss of 15,700 men. Greece will not be liberated until 1944, by British troops from the Mediterranean theater.

[Peter Clare]

1945 : Mussolini is executed

On this day in 1945, "Il Duce," Benito Mussolini, and his mistress, Clara Petacci, are shot by Italian partisans who had captured the couple as they attempted to flee to Switzerland.

The 61-year-old deposed former dictator of Italy was established by his German allies as the figurehead of a puppet government in northern Italy during the German occupation toward the close of the war. As the Allies fought their way up the Italian peninsula, defeat of the Axis powers all but certain, Mussolini considered his options. Not wanting to fall into the hands of either the British or the Americans, and knowing that the communist partisans, who had been fighting the remnants of roving Italian fascist soldiers and thugs in the north, would try him as a war criminal, he settled on escape to a neutral country.

He and his mistress made it to the Swiss border, only to discover that the guards had crossed over to the partisan side. Knowing they would not let him pass, he disguised himself in a Luftwaffe coat and helmet, hoping to slip into Austria with some German soldiers. His subterfuge proved incompetent, and he and Petacci were discovered by partisans and shot, their bodies then transported by truck to Milan, where they were hung upside down and displayed publicly for revilement by the masses.

[Peter Clare]

1945 : Adolf and Eva marry


Eva Braun met Hitler while employed as an assistant to Hitler's official photographer. Of a middle-class Catholic background, Braun spent her time with Hitler out of public view, entertaining herself by skiing and swimming. She had no discernible influence on Hitler's political career but provided a certain domesticity to the life of the dictator. Loyal to the end, she refused to leave the Berlin bunker buried beneath the chancellery as the Russians closed in. The couple was married only hours before they both committed suicide.
Also on this day in 1945, the Americans liberate the concentration camp at Dachau. Five hundred German garrison troops guarding the camp are killed within an hour, some by inmates, but most by the American liberators, who are horrified by what they bear witness to, including huge piles of emaciated dead bodies found in railway cars and near the crematorium.
There were 33,000 survivors of the camp, 2,539 of them Jewish. Dachau, about 12 miles north of Munich, was the first concentration camp established by the Nazi regime, only five weeks after Hitler came to power. At least 160,000 prisoners passed through the main camp and another 90,000 through its 150 branches scattered throughout southern Germany and Austria. Medical experiments, ranging from studying the effects of freezing on warm-blooded creatures to treating intentionally inflicted malaria, were carried out on prisoners. At least 32,000 prisoners died of malnutrition and mistreatment at the camp itself; innumerable more were transported to the Auschwitz gas chambers. A memorial was established at the campsite on September 11, 1956.

[Ron Goldstein]

Peter

Thought I'd take the opportunity of thanking you for the excellent service you provide in this thread while at the same time show my own diary entry for today, 62 years ago.

Sunday 29th. April 1945
Move off due to ops going so well up North. Musso has been bumped off. Received some mags. Captain Walmsley reckons the Regiment has 'had it'.