December 3

1880 Birth: Fedor von Bock in Kustrin, Germany . . . . He joined the German Army and during the First World War won the Pour le Merite. By 1918, Bock had reached the rank of major.

Bock was promoted to field marshal in 1940 for his part in Germany's victorious blitzkrieg campaign against France and the Low Countries. He was subsequently given the task of capturing Moscow. In July 1941, his Army Group Center troops captured Minsk and, three weeks later, reached Smolensk. Bock was only 225 miles from Moscow when Adolf Hitler decided to divert some of his army to Leningrad and Kiev. It was not until October that Bock was able to resume his advance on Moscow.

Bad weather forced Bock to halt his advance on Moscow in December 1941. Hitler replaced Bock with Gunther von Kluge but, after only a month's rest, Bock was sent once again to the Soviet Union to take control of Army Group South after the death of Walther von Reichenau.

After Hitler escalated his campaign in Russia to a war of annihilation, widespread atrocities were committed against Soviet civilians by Reinhard Heydrich's Einzatsgruppen units. This outraged many of Bock's subordinate officers, including Army Group Center Chief of Staff and anti-Hitler conspirator Colonel Henning von Tresckow. Bock privately expressed outrage at the atrocities . . . . "Gentlemen! Let it be noted that Field Marshal von Bock protested."

Hitler told Bock to destroy Soviet forces west of the Don and to gain control of the Caucusus oil fields. He initially had success at Voronezh, but Hitler was angered by his slow progress and dismissed Bock from active service on July 15, 1942.

In 1944, Bock was approached by his nephew Henning von Tresckow about the possibility of joining the July Plot against Hitler. Bock refused, but did not pass details onto the Gestapo. After Hitler's suicide, Bock offered his services to the interim Doenitz government, but Bock and his wife and daughter were killed on May 4, 1945, during an Allied air raid on Hamburg.

1900 Richard Kuhn: Austrian Biochemist. For his work on carotenoids and vitamins Kuhn will be awarded the Nobel Prize for chemistry in 1938. Hitler however will object to the award and Kuhn will be forced to wait until the end of World War II to receive the prize,

1902 Birth: Mitsuo Fuchida: the pilot who will fly the lead plane in Japan's air attack on Pearl Harbor (7 December 1941). Through representatives of the Pocket Testament League, Fuchida will be converted to Christianity in 1950.

1912 First Balkan War ends:

Bulgaria, Serbia, Greece, and Montenegro sign an armistice with Turkey, ending the first Balkan War. During the two-month conflict, a military coalition between Greece, Serbia, Bulgaria, and Montenegro--known as the Balkan League--expelled Turkey from all the Ottoman Empire's former European possessions, with the exception of Constantinople (now Istanbul). In January 1913, a coup d'etat in Turkey led to a resumption of fighting, but the Balkan League was again victorious.

In 1913, the Second Balkan War began after Serbia and Greece demanded that Bulgaria cede to them portions of Macedonia. Serbia and Greece formed an alliance against Bulgaria, and Macedonia was partitioned between the victors. Nationalist tension persisted in the Balkans, and Serbia was particularly bitter about being forced to give up some of its conquests by the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

On June 28, 1914, hostility between Serbia and Austria-Hungary over Austria's possession of Bosnia-Herzegovina reached a breaking point when Serbian nationalist Gavrilo Princip assassinated Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo. Austria-Hungary blamed the Serbian government for the attack and hoped to use the incident as justification for settling the problem of Serbian nationalism once and for all. However, as Russia supported Serbia, an Austro-Hungarian declaration of war was delayed until its leaders received assurances from German leader Kaiser Wilhelm that Germany would support their cause in the event of a Russian intervention.

On July 28, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, and the tenuous peace between Europe's great powers collapsed. Within a week, Russia, Belgium, France, Great Britain, and Serbia had lined up against Austria-Hungary and Germany, and World War I had begun. (History.com)

1914 World War I: Balkans: Marshal Putnik's Serbian troops counterattack after receiving much needed ammunition from France.

1915 Espionage: The United States expels German attaches on spy charges.

1916 World War I: Various:

Nivelle replaces Joffre as French commander:

As part of a general upheaval within the French government and military due in part to demoralizing losses at Verdun and the Somme, the formidable General Joseph-Jacques-Césaire Joffre is dismissed as commander in chief of the French forces in favor of General Robert Nivelle. [For further details, Click here.]

Gefreiter Adolf Hitler: After convalescing at the Red Cross hospital in Beelitz since October 9, is transferred to 4 Company, 1st Replacement Battalion, 16 Bavarian Infantry Regiment in Munich.

1917 World War I: Various:

Cambrai: General Haig orders a partial withdrawal from the Cambrai salient. Nonetheless, Cambrai marks a turning point in tactics on the Western Front on two counts: (1) successful assault without preliminary bombardment and (2) the mass use of tanks.

Truce is signed between the new Bolshevik government and Germany, ending hostilities on the Eastern Front, and permanently erasing Russia from the Allied ranks.

1918 World War I: Philip Gibbs on the Allied Occupation of the Rhineland:

British troops crossed the Belgian frontier and entered Germany today. Here and there some small children, watching from cottage windows or in their mothers' arms, waved their hands with the friendliness of childhood for all men on horses, and they were not rebuked. German schoolboys in peaked caps, with their hands thrust in their pockets, stared without friendliness or unfriendliness. Some girls on a hillside above the winding road laughed and waved their handkerchiefs. here was no sense as yet of passing through a hostile country where we were not wanted.

1925 Greece: The League of Nations orders Greece to pay an indemnity for its October invasion of Bulgaria.

1926 Weimar: British reports claim that German soldiers are being trained in the Soviet Union, contrary to the terms of the Treaty of Versailles.

1930 Otto Ender forms an Austrian government.

1934 Various:

North Africa: Tripoli and Cyrenaica are annexed to Libya.

Saarland: France and Germany sign a one-year agreement prohibiting discrimination against any resident of the Saar region for racial, linguistic or religious reasons.

1936 Holocaust: All Jewish charitable organizations in Germany lose their tax-exempt status.

1938 Holocaust:

A new decree orders that all Jewish enterprises and shops are now subject to compulsory "Aryanization," the forced disposal of all Jewish stores, businesses, and financial holdings. German Jews are forced to give up their driver's licenses and vehicle registration papers. They are also forced to sell their securities and jewelry.

1940 Various:

Holocaust: From a letter to Baldur von Schirach from Lammers [above]:

To the Reich Governor in Vienna, Gauleiter Von Schirach: As Reichsleiter Bormann informs me, the Fuehrer has decided, after receipt of one of the reports made by you, that the 60,000 Jews still residing in the Reichsgau Vienna will be deported most rapidly to the Government General, because of the housing shortage prevalent in Vienna. I have informed the Governor General in Krakow, as well as the Reichsfuehrer SS, about this decision of the Fuehrer and I request you also to take cognizance of it.--Lammers

World War II: Albania: Italian defense lines crumble.

1941 World War II Various:

Countdown to Infamy: From the diary of Mussolini's son-in-law, Count Galeazzo Ciano, Foreign Minister of Italy:

Sensational move by Japan. The Ambassador asks for an audience with the Duce and reads him a long statement on the progress of the negotiations with America, concluding with the assertion that they have reached a dead end. Then invoking the appropriate clause in the Tripartite Pact, he asks that Italy declare war on America immediately after the outbreak of hostilities and proposes the signing of an agreement not to conclude a separate peace. The interpreter translating this request was trembling like a leaf. The Duce gave fullest assurances, reserving the right to confer with Berlin before giving a reply. The Duce was pleased with the communication and said, 'We are now on the brink of the intercontinental war which I predicted as early as September 1939.' What does this new event mean? In any case it means that Roosevelt has succeeded in his maneuver. Since he could not enter the war immediately and directly, he entered it indirectly by letting himself be attacked by Japan. Furthermore, this event also means that every prospect of peace is becoming further and further removed and that it is now easy-much too easy-to predict a long war. Who will be able to hold out longest? It is on this basis that the problem must be considered. Berlin's answer will be somewhat delayed because Hitler has gone to the southern Front to see General Kleist, whose armies continue to give way under the pressure of an unexpected Soviet Offensive.

Rome to Tokyo:

Accompanied by ANDO I saw the Duce, MUSSOLINI (CIANO also was present) at 11 AM on the 3rd. I first gave him an outline of Japanese-American negotiations . . . . MUSSOLINI said he had been following the negotiations from their inception until today with the greatest attention, and my communication had caused him no surprise. There was no doubt that the present situation was the natural result of the obstinacy of the American Government and of President ROOSEVELT's policy of intervention. The plutocrats of AMERICA aimed at the economic exploitation of Eastern ASIA for their own benefit, and wanted to detach JAPAN from the Axis and intervene in the European war. He had always known from the beginning that JAPAN, who was faithful and loyal, would not respond to such an attitude on AMERICA's part, negotiations or no negotiations. As I and my predecessor knew, he was a whole-hearted supporter of JAPAN's fundamental policy for the establishment of a New Order in East ASIA, and as it was in the past, so it was in the present and would be in the future. He firmly believed that JAPAN, as a natural right, would be the leader of Greater East Asia . . . . MUSSOLINI said if that war broke out ITALY would give military support to the best of her power; that is to say she would do her best to keep the British Navy in the MEDITERRANEAN. Moreover GERMANY and ITALY together had recently established an air blockade and were trying to put further pressure an BRITAIN in the MEDITERRANEAN . . . . At this meeting MUSSOLINI asked me questions about the Russian question, and I therefore did not refer to it.

Stalin tells Sikorski that missing Polish officers (secretly murdered on his orders) may have "escaped to Manchuria."

1941 Hitler visits Poltava, Ukraine.

1943 World War II: Various:

Italy: Units from X Corps reach the top of Monte Camino, and II Corps captures Monte Maggiore, setting the stage for the Battle of Monte Cassino.

The strategic position of Monte Cassino has made it the repeated scene of battles and sieges from antiquity. In World War II, the Battle of Monte Cassino (also known as the Battle for Rome) was a costly series of battles fought by the Allies with the intention of breaking through the Gustav Line, seizing Rome and linking up with Allied forces contained within the Anzio pocket. The first battle started on January 4, 1944 and the monastery atop the hill was destroyed by Allied bombing on February 15. Allied aircraft heavily bombed the ruins of the monastery and staged an assault on March 15. During three failed attempts to take the heavily-guarded monastery of Monte Cassino (January 17-25, February 15-February 18, March 15-March 25), the forces of the USA, the UK, India, Canada, Australia, South Africa and New Zealand lost approximately 54,000 men yet did not manage to seize the city.

Poland: In Warsaw, the SS and Gestapo publicly execute a hundred tramway workers for an act of sabotage.

Cairo: Roosevelt and Churchill hold a second Cairo Conference with the President of Turkey.

Italy: The Luftwaffe bombs Allied merchant ships in the harbor at Bari, Italy. It is the worst Allied naval disaster of the war except for Pearl Harbor, and seriously delays Allied efforts to overrun Italy. During the attack, almost 100 tons of American poison gas accidentally escapes from the American merchant ship John Harvey, subjecting the entire population of Bari to the poison. The deaths of hundreds of Italian civilians becomes one of the best kept secrets of World War II.

1944 World War II: Various:

Germany: The US 5th Armor division occupies Brandenburg.

Civil war breaks out in Athens:

On this day, a civil war breaks out in Athens as communist guerillas battle democratic forces for control of a liberated Greece. Germany had occupied Greece to bail out Italy after Italy's failed invasion threatened to leave Greece open to Allied occupation. When Germany arrived, various Greek resistance forces gave battle, but two stood out as particularly important: a communist-backed resistance movement called the National Liberation Front, and a liberal, democratic movement called the Greek Democratic National Army. While both of these factions operated from different ideological frameworks, they nevertheless occasionally cooperated in fighting the common German enemy. By early 1944 though, the communist-backed National Liberation Front had taken to the hills to create a provisional government, rejecting the legitimacy of both the Greek king and his government-in-exile. It also disregarded the one remaining rival for ultimate political supremacy in Greece—the Democratic National Army.

When Germany was forced to withdraw from Greece in October 1944, victorious British forces brought together the communist and democratic factions in order to establish a coalition government. But this government collapsed after the communist Liberation Front refused to disband its guerrilla forces. So, on December 3 war broke out between the communists and the democrats—with the National Liberation Front taking control of most of Greece, with the exception of the capital and Salonika.

The British fought against the communists with the Democratic National Army, which began to move more and more to the right politically as it struggled for survival and support. By February 1945, the National Liberation Front was forced to surrender and disband its guerilla army. One month later, a general election was held, and the democrats, now also royalists, won control of the government. The communists refrained from voting altogether, preferring to bide their time. When a plebiscite elected the Greek king back to his throne in September of the same year, the communists emerged from underground-and civil war broke out again. By this time, Britain, fed up and exhausted, left the negotiation for peace to the United States, which employed the Truman Doctrine of giving massive amounts of foreign aid to governments pledged to democracy in order to keep them out of the communist/Soviet orbit. It took time, but eventually the rejuvenated—and well-funded—Greek democrats were victorious. [For further details, Click here.]

Churchill to Smuts:

In spite of Metz and Strasbourg and other successes, we have of course sustained a strategic reverse on the Western Front. Before this offensive was launched we placed on record our view that it was a mistake to attack against the whole front and that a far greater mass should have been gathered at the point of desired penetration. Montgomery's comments and predictions beforehand have in every way been borne out. I imagine some readjustments will be made giving back to Montgomery some of the scope taken from him after the victory he gained in Normandy. You must remember however that our Armies are only about one-half the size of the American and will soon be little more than one-third. All is friendly and loyal in the military sphere in spite of the disappointment sustained. We must now regroup and reinforce the Armies for a spring offensive. There is at least one full-scale battle to fight before we get to the Rhine in the north, which is the decisive axis of advance. I am trying meanwhile to have Holland cleaned up behind us. But it is not so easy as it used to be for me to get things done. 3. Our armies in Italy were delayed by "Anvil" and greatly weakened for its sake. Consequently we cleared the Apennines only to find the valley of the [river] Po [to be] a bog. Thus both in the mountains and on the plains our immense armor superiority has been unable to make itself felt, and now the bad weather in Italy, as on the Western Front, greatly diminishes the tactical air-power in which we have so great a preponderance. Hitherto in Italy we have held twenty-eight German divisions, and therefore no reproach can be made against our activities. On the contrary, General Marshall is astonished we have done so well. This is only however because the Germans delayed a withdrawal through the Brenner and Ljubljana, presumably in order to bring their forces home from the Balkans. We cannot look for any very satisfactory events in Northern Italy at present, though we are still attacking.

1946 Spain: The US government asks the UN to order dictator Franco out of Spain.

1948 The House Un-American Activities Committee announces that former Communist spy Whittaker Chambers had produced microfilm of secret documents hidden inside a pumpkin on his Maryland farm. (AP)

1989 Cold War: Various: Bush and Gorbachev suggest Cold War is coming to an end:

Meeting off the coast of Malta, President George Bush and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev issue statements strongly suggesting that the long-standing animosities at the core of the Cold War might be coming to an end. Commentators in both the United States and Russia went farther and declared that the Cold War was over. [For further information, click here]

East Germany: Egon Krenz, leader of orthodox Communist Party, and the entire party hierarchy vote themselves out of office.

Edited by Levi Bookin (Copy editor)
levi.bookin@gmail.com









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