December 16

1773 The Boston Tea Party: In Boston Harbor, a group of Massachusetts colonists disguised as Mohawk Indians board three British tea ships and dump 342 chests of tea into the harbor.

The midnight raid, popularly known as the "Boston Tea Party," was in protest of the British Parliament's Tea Act of 1773, a bill designed to save the faltering East India Company by greatly lowering its tea tax and granting it a virtual monopoly on the American tea trade. The low tax allowed the East India Company to undercut even tea smuggled into America by Dutch traders, and many colonists viewed the act as another example of taxation tyranny.

1907 Volkishness: Max Altmann begins to publish the widely popular Zentralblatt fuer Okkultismus, which was edited by D. Georgiewitz-Weitzer, who wrote his works on modern Rosicrucians, alchemy and occult medicine under the pseudonym G.W. Surya. (THP)

1912 First Balkan War: Austria-Hungary engages in conflict with Serbia.

1913 Volkishness: Jorg Lanz von Liebenfels in Ostara I, #69, interprets the holy grail as an electrical symbol pertaining to the "panpsychic" powers of the pureblooded "Aryan" race. The quest of the "Templeisen" (Templars) for the grail is a metaphor, Lanz declares, for the strict eugenic practices of the Templar Knights designed to breed god-men. (THP)

1914 World War I: Various:

France: The French offensive under Petain begins in Artois.

Germans bombard English ports of Hartlepool and Scarborough:

At approximately 8 o'clock in the morning, German battle cruisers from Franz von Hipper's Scouting Squadron catch the British navy by surprise as they begin heavy bombardment of Hartlepool and Scarborough, English port cities on the North Sea.

The bombardment lasted for about one and a half hours, killing more than 130 civilians and wounding another 500. It would unleash a damning response from the British press, which pointed to the incident as yet another example of German brutality. The German navy, however, saw the two port cities as valid targets due to their fortified status.

1916 Death: Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin—also known as "the Mad Monk"—who had exercised considerable influence over the Russian Imperial family.

1917 World War I: The text of the preliminary armistice agreed to this day by Bolshevik Russia and Germany:

Between the representatives of the higher command of Russia on the one hand and of Bulgaria, Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Turkey on the other hand, for the purpose of achieving a lasting and honourable peace between both parties, the following armistice is concluded: The armistice shall begin on December 17th at 2 o'clock in the afternoon and continue until January 14th.  The contracting parties have the right to break the armistice by giving seven days' notice.  Unless notice is given the armistice automatically continues. The armistice embraces the land and aerial forces on the front from the Baltic to the Black Sea and also the Russo-Turkish front in Asia Minor. During the armistice the parties concerned obligate themselves not to increase the number of troops on the above fronts or on the islands in Moon Sound, or to make a regrouping of forces. Neither side is to make operative any transfers of units.

1922 Death: Gabriel Narutowicz: first President of Poland:

Only five days after taking office, on 16 December 1922, Narutowicz was assassinated while attending an art exhibition, in the National Gallery of Art "Zacheta". The assassin was a painter, Eligiusz Niewiadomski, who had connections with the right wing National Democratic Party. Narutowicz's murder was the culmination of an aggressive propaganda campaign vilifying him.

1931 Weimar: The Iron Front (German: Eiserne Front) was an anti-Nazi, anti-monarchist, and anti-Stalinist paramilitary organization formed in Germany on 16 December 1931 by the Social Democratic Party (SPD) with the Catholic Centre Party and others, originally to counter the right-wing Harzburg Front formed by the National Socialist German Workers Party, the Stahlhelm and the German National People's Party. The organization sought to engage the old Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold, the SPD youth organization, and labor and liberal groups as a united front. The SPD rallied to the Iron Front, held mass demonstrations, fought fascists in the streets, and armed themselves. This is more than the SPD leaders wanted, but SPD workers grew increasingly revolutionary. In 1933 the organization was banned.

1933 Volkishness: Jorg Lanz von Liebenfels leaves Hungary and relocates to Switzerland where he issues a new series of his writings from Lucerne. In Germany Lanz's works are printed at Barth near the Darss peninsula and distributed from the nearby Hertesburg under Georg Hauerstein's auspices until 1935. (THP)

1938 A remarkable editorial in The New York Daily News says that the Bill of Rights means only "that our government shall not officially discriminate against any religion. It does not mean that Americans are forbidden to dislike other Americans or religions or any other group. Plenty of people just now are exercising their right to dislike the Jews."

1940 World War II: Various:

East Africa: British troops carry out an air raid on Italian Somalia.

Germany: The British bomb Mannheim.

1941 World War II: Various:

Sarawak is occupied by the Japanese.

Holocaust: From closing address to a cabinet session by Hans Frank—Governor General of occupied Poland:

As far as the Jews are concerned, I want to tell you quite frankly that they must be done away with in one way or another. The Fuehrer said once: 'Should united Jewry again succeed in provoking a world war, the blood of not only the nations which have been forced into the war by them will be shed, but the Jew will have found his end in Europe.' I know that many of the measures carried out against the Jews in the Reich at present are being criticized. It is being tried intentionally, as is obvious from the reports on the morale, to talk about cruelty, harshness, etc. Before I continue, I would beg you to agree with me on the following formula: We will principally have pity on the German people only and nobody else in the whole world. The others, too, had no pity on us. As an old National Socialist I must also say: This war would be only a partial success if the whole lot of Jewry would survive it, while we would have shed our best blood in order to save Europe. My attitude towards the Jews will therefore, be based only on the expectation that they must disappear. They must be done away with. I have entered negotiations to have them deported to the East. A large conference concerning that question, to which I am going to delegate the State Secretary Dr. Buehler, will take place in Berlin in January. That discussion is to take place in the Reich Security Main Office with SS Lieutenant General Heydrich. A great Jewish migration will begin, in any case. But what should be done with the Jews? Do you think they will be settled down in the 'Ostland' in villages? This is what we were told in Berlin: Why all this bother? We can do nothing with them either in the 'Ostland' or in the 'Reichskommissariat.' So liquidate them yourselves. Gentlemen, I must ask you to arm yourselves against all feeling of pity. We must annihilate the Jews, wherever we find them and wherever it is possible, in order to maintain there the structure of the Reich as a whole. This will, naturally, be achieved by other methods than those pointed out by Bureau Chief Dr. Hummel. Nor can the judges of the Special Courts be made responsible for it because of the limitations of the frame work of the legal procedure. Such outdated views cannot be applied to such gigantic and unique events. We must find at any rate a way which leads to the goal, and my thoughts are working in that direction. The Jews represent for us also extraordinarily malignant gluttons. We have now approximately, 2,500,000 of them in the Government General, perhaps with the Jewish mixtures and everything that goes with it, 3,500,000 Jews. We cannot shoot or poison those 3,500,000 Jews; but we shall nevertheless be able to take measures which will lead, somehow, to their annihilation, and this in connection with the gigantic measures to be determined in discussions with the Reich. The Government General must become free of Jews, the same as the Reich. Where and how this is to be achieved is a matter for the offices which we must appoint and create here. Their activities will be brought to your attention in due course.

FDR to Stalin:

It is extremely important, in my view, to take immediate steps for the purpose of paving the way not only for joint operations in the coming weeks, but also for the final defeat of Hitlerism. I should like very much to see you and talk it over personally with you, but . . . . at the moment this is impossible . . . . I want to tell you once more about the genuine enthusiasm throughout the United States for the success of your armies in the defense of your great nation. I flatter myself with the hope that the preliminary conferences I have scheduled for next week will lead to a more permanent organization for the planning of our efforts.

1942 World War II Various:

FDR to Stalin:

I am not clear as to just what happened in regard to our offer of American air assistance in the Caucasus. I am fully willing to send units with American pilots and crews. I think they should operate by units under their American commanders, but each group would, of course, be under overall Russian command as to tactical objectives. Please let us know your desires as soon as possible, as I truly want to help all I can. Pursuit plane program would not be affected. What I refer to is essentially the bombing plane type which can be flown to the Caucasus.

Holocaust: Gestapo Mueller to Himmler:

In connection with the increase in the transfer of labor to the concentration camps ordered to be completed by 30 January 1943, the following procedure may be applied in the Jewish section: 1. Total number: 45,000 Jews. 2. Start of transportation 11 January 1943. And of transportation: 31 January 1943. (The Reich railroads are unable to provide special trains for the evacuation during the period from 15 December 1942 to 10 January 1943 because of the increased traffic of Armed Forcesleave trains.) 3. Composition: The 45,000 Jews are to consist of 30,000 Jews from the district of Bialystok; 10,000 Jews from the Ghetto of Theresienstadt, 5,000 of whom are Jews fit for work who heretofore had been used for smaller jobs required for the ghetto and 5,000 Jews who are generally incapable of working, also Jews over 60-years old. As heretofore only such Jews would be taken for the evacuation who do not have any particular connections and who are not in possession of any high decorations. Three thousand Jews from the occupied Dutch territories, 2,000 Jews from Berlin-45,000. The figure of 45,000 includes those unfit for work (old Jews and children). By use of a practical standard, the screening of the arriving Jews in Auschwitz should yield at least 10,000 to 45,000 people fit for work.

Genocide: Gypsies A decree by Himmler orders that all persons of mixed Gypsy blood be sent to Auschwitz. About 20,000 will be killed at Auschwitz, and many thousands more die at other camps. No more than one-fifth of the prewar population in German-held territories will survive the war. (THP)

Poland: Castration experiments are conducted on 90 Polish inmates of Auschwitz, who are then sent to gas chambers. (THP)

Holocaust: Leader of the Poles in exile, General Sikorksi, in a New York speech declares:

To realize the extent of the massacre of Jews, imagine Manhattan closed in by ghetto walls behind which all the Jews of the Western Hemisphere have been imprisoned and gradually and methodically are exterminated by machine-gun or in gas chambers. (THP)

Stalingrad: Soviet attack launched against Italian Eighth Army. Code-named 'Little Saturn', this is aimed at cutting across von Manstein's lines of communication and is carried out by elements of the Voronezh and South-West Fronts. The Italians are quickly annihilated, and Tatsinskaya, the main German-held airfield for resupplying Stalingrad, is overrun. (THP

Hitler orders the elimination of partisans in Russia and The Balkans.

1944 World War II: Various:

Battle of the Bulge:

On this day, the Germans launch the last major offensive of the war, Operation Mist, also known as the Ardennes Offensive and the Battle of the Bulge, an attempt to push the Allied front line west from northern France to northwestern Belgium. The Battle of the Bulge, so-called because the Germans created a "bulge" around the area of the Ardennes forest in pushing through the American defensive line, was the largest fought on the Western front.

The Germans threw 250,000 soldiers into the initial assault, 14 German infantry divisions guarded by five panzer divisions-against a mere 80,000 Americans. Their assault came in early morning at the weakest part of the Allied line, an 80-mile poorly protected stretch of hilly, woody forest (the Allies simply believed the Ardennes too difficult to traverse, and therefore an unlikely location for a German offensive). Between the vulnerability of the thin, isolated American units and the thick fog that prevented Allied air cover from discovering German movement, the Germans were able to push the Americans into retreat.

One particularly effective German trick was the use of English-speaking German commandos who infiltrated American lines and, using captured U.S. uniforms, trucks, and jeeps, impersonated U.S. military and sabotaged communications. The ploy caused widespread chaos and suspicion among the American troops as to the identity of fellow soldiers, even after the ruse was discovered. Even General Omar Bradley himself had to prove his identity three times—by answering questions about football and Betty Grable—before being allowed to pass a sentry point.

The battle raged for three weeks, resulting in a massive loss of American and civilian life. Nazi atrocities abounded, including the murder of 72 American soldiers by SS soldiers in the Ardennes town of Malmedy. Historian Stephen Ambrose estimated that by war's end, "Of the 600,000 GIs involved, almost 20,000 were killed, another 20,000 were captured, and 40,000 were wounded." The United States also suffered its second-largest surrender of troops of the war: More than 7,500 members of the 106th Infantry Division capitulated at one time at Schnee Eifel. The devastating ferocity of the conflict also made desertion an issue for the American troops; General Eisenhower was forced to make an example of Private Eddie Slovik, the first American executed for desertion since the Civil War.

The war would not end until better weather enabled American aircraft to bomb and strafe German positions. (History.com)

Belgium: A German V-2 strikes Antwerp bioscope, killing 638. [For further details, Click here.]

Hopkins to Churchill:

Public opinion here is deteriorating rapidly because of the Greek situation and your statements in Parliament about the United States and Poland. With the battle joined as it is in Europe and Asia, with every energy required on everyone's part to defeat the enemy, I confess I find myself greatly disturbed at the diplomatic turn of events, which throw into the public gaze our severe difficulties. I do not what the President or Stettinius may have to say publicly, but it may well be that one or both of them must state in unequivocal terms our determination to do all that we can to seek a free and secure world.

1945 Death: Prince Fumimaro Konoe: Japanese prime minister (1937-39, 1940-41), by ritual suicide rather than face war crimes charges. In the 1920s, he had worked to curb army powers and prevent an expansion of the war with China. He helped engineer the fall of the Tojo government in 1944 but is suspected of war atrocities.

1950 Truman declares state of emergency:

"In the wake of the massive Chinese intervention in the Korean War, President Harry S. Truman declares a state of emergency. Proclaiming that "Communist imperialism" threatened the world's people, Truman called upon the American people to help construct an 'arsenal of freedom.' " [For further information, click here]

1957 Death: Heinrich Hoffmann: Hitler's personal photographer and business partner.

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

 


 







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