Today in History, July 17, 1917:
The British Royal family, previously know by their family name of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, linked with their cousins of the German and Russian monarchies, changed their name to Windsor, a specifically English surname.
The change was made because Britain was at war with Germany and were bombing England with a bomber named the Gotha.
Today in History, June 12, 1987:
President Ronald Reagan had taken actions that helped win the Cold War that our nation had fought for forty years, brought back our economy, and on this date traveled to Berlin. He was received by Germans with the same fervor as when Kennedy spoke there years earlier when he spoke those now famous words, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear DOWN this wall.”
Today in History, June 10, 1944:
Oradour-sur-Glane, France. Elements of the Nazi SS, acting on belief that one of their officers had been captured by members of the French Resistance, rounded up every citizen of the town and 6 hapless passersby. They locked all of the women and children in a church, then took all of the men to barns, where machine gun nests were already set up. The men were intentionally shot in the legs so that they would die more slowly…once they were all unable to move, the Nazis poured gasoline over them and set the barns afire.
They then returned to the church, where they set off an incendiary device inside. As the church burned, women and children tried to climb out of windows…where they were machine-gunned. 642 innocent civilians were slaughtered.
1944 – Distomo, Greece. In retaliation for a partisan attack, German SS troops go house to house in the village (whose residents had nothing to do with the attack), killing every man woman and child, totaling 218 dead in the end. They disemboweled one infant in front of his family and committed numerous other atrocities before burning the village.
Today in History, March 16: 1916 – German Admiral, and commander of the German Navy Alfred von Tirpitz, submits his resignation to kaiser Wilhelm, who accepts it. Tirpitz had been a trusted advisor to the kaiser, overseeing the build up of the Navy begun in 1897.
Despite his best efforts, the German surface fleet never became a match for the Royal Navy. In 1914 Tirpitz began unrestricted submarine warfare in the war zone…sinking neutral ships as well as combatants. When the Lusitania was sunk, with significant loss of neutral American lives, Wilhelm became nervous that America would enter the war, and Tirpitz, formerly a national hero, fell out of favor. Thus his resignation. The ship pictured was commissioned in 1936 and named after Tirpitz. It would be sunk by RAF bombers in 1944.
Today in History, March 7: 1936:
“If you French had intervened in the Rhineland in 1936 we should have been sunk and Hitler would have fallen” – German General Heinz Guderian, interviewed after WWII.
On this date, Germany “remilitarized” the Rhineland with a token force. It had been de-militarized after WWI to protect Germany’s neighbors.
In some skullduggery, Hitler claimed the people of the Rhineland were German peoples, and wanted the military presence. Now it was just a matter of seeing if anyone would call his hand.
In his memoirs, Hitler agreed with Guderian, saying that he had been very nervous in the 48 hours after the move.
Except for a few unheeded voices (Churchill), the governments of Europe refused to act, mostly for financial reasons. Bet they wished they could have had a “do over” on that decision.
Today in History, March 1, 1917:
The Zimmermann Telegram is made public by the United States, on the authority of President Woodrow Wilson.
The German government had sent the telegram to their envoy in Mexico City in January, in anticipation of beginning unlimited submarine warfare in the North Atlantic Ocean on February 1st.
Germany wanted the United States, and her supply of men and materiel, to stay out of the war. And, should she enter the war, Germany wanted to limit her ability to assist Great Britain.
And that is what the Zimmermann Note was all about. It was an offer to the Mexican government; if Mexico would open up a “second front” for the United States by siding with Germany, the Germans would provide monetary support and promise to return Texas, New Mexico and Arizona to Mexico.
Germany hoped the second front would distract the Americans from shipping men and equipment to Britain, and that the sinking of what ships did venture forth by U-Boats would strangle the UK, forcing her to sue for peace.
The Mexican government actually established a committee to study the proposal…things had not been good between the US and Mexico, what with Gen. John Joseph “Black Jack” Pershing chasing Poncho Villa around Northern Mexico in recent years.
Mexico decided against the offer…because America was too powerful, because she would anger her neighbors, and (I find this VERY important), because they considered the fact that the citizens in the suggested states WERE ALL ARMED.
British intelligence managed to obtain a copy of the telegram and give it to the Americans. Our ancestors in the beginning of the 20th century shared our isolationist views and were not excited about involvement in a European War.
The release of the Zimmermann Telegram and unrestricted submarine warfare against our shipping helped change public opinion…and we were soon headed “over there”.
Today in History, February 28, 1933:
The Reichstag Fire Decree. On the night of February 27, 1933, the German Parliament, or Reichstag, was burned by arsonists.
The very next day (strike while the iron is hot) German President Paul Von Hindenburg, on the “advice” of Chancellor Adolph Hitler, issues the Reichstag Fire Decree “for the protection of the people and the state.”
The order suspended basic civil liberties guaranteed by the German Constitution.
The fire was blamed on the Nazi’s enemies, Communists. However it is likely the fire was contrived to justify the order, which began Hitler’s dictatorship.
The same type of maneuver would be used by the Nazis in September, 1939, to justify the invasion of Poland.
“Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.” – Benjamin Franklin
Today in History, February 26: 1935:
Adolph Hitler secretly signed a decree creating the Luftwaffe, the German Air Force, and names Hermann Goering it’s commander. At the end of WWI the Treaty of Versailles signed between the combatants, including Germany, declared that Germany could have no military air service.
Hitler quietly built up what would become a larger, and more modern, air force while the rest of Europe and America let their forces languish.
Lufthansa, the civilian airline that was permitted, was used to provide flight training to the men that would become Luftwaffe pilots.
By September 1939 when the German Blitzkrieg swept across Poland, Denmark, Norway, Holland, Belgium and France, the Luftwaffe consisted of 1,000 modern fighter planes and 1,050 modern bombers.
This build up, and the build up of the Wehrmacht, all took place while the future allies practiced appeasement and protested verbally (the British had built up the Royal Air Force, but it was still much smaller than the Luftwaffe).
Today in History, August 31: 1939 – “I will provide a propagandistic casus belli. Its credibility doesn’t matter. The victor will not be asked whether he told the truth.” –Adolph Hitler.
The Gleiwitz incident, an assault on a German radio station, as part of Operation Himmler, takes place. The assault was conducted by GERMAN SS troops, posing as Polish troops, upon a German radio station. The ruse went so far as to leave Polish prisoners, captured previously, dead at the station as “proof” of the assault.
The next day, already prepared, German troops invaded Poland in “response” to the atrocity.
Today in History, June 9: 1915 – William Jennings Bryan, US Secretary of State, resigns. After a German U-Boat had torpedoed a British passenger ship, the Lusitania, resulting in the deaths of 128 Americans, Bryan sent a conciliatory, almost apologetic message to the German government without President Wilson’s consent. Germany felt impowered and issued an aggressive statement, to which Wilson replied in kind, leaving little doubt that America would not tolerate the sinking of non-combatants. Germany backed off, for a time, and Bryan resigned in protest, believing Wilson was leading the nation towards war. Bryan had been an impressive orator, 3 times a candidate for president, and L. Frank Baum’s inspiration for the Cowardly Lion of the Wizard of Oz in 1900.
Mark Loves History! 