February 6
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1900 The international arbitration court at The Hague is created when the Netherlands' Senate ratifies an 1899 peace conference decree.
1912 Birth: Irmgard Keun, German author. Keun's first novel, Gilgi - One of Us, made her famous, as well as her next book and best-seller, The Artificial Silk Girl. In 1933/34, her books were confiscated and forbidden by the Nazis. She went into exile from 1936-1940, first to Ostende in Belgium and later to Holland.
1912 Birth: Eva Braun, mistress, and later wife, of Adolph Hitler. "...The infamous name of Eva Braun is one that resonates with some, but has been forgotten by most. This is not truthfully surprising since for most of her adult life she was kept as a fragile toy in Adolf Hitler's Austrian Alps hideaway, rarely seen or heard of in public. Most did not even know that she and Hitler were romantically involved until much closer to the end of their lives since Hitler chose to keep their relationship secret. Having met for the first time in 1929, when Eva was just 17, she and Hitler would continue their affair for over 15 years. Not much is known about Eva Braun. This is due primarily to the fact that her life was fairly uneventful even though she was so close to Hitler and in association with many top Nazi officials. Each time important political guests came to visit, Hitler banished Eva to her room. He was heard to say "that a highly intelligent man should always choose a primitive and stupid woman..."
1917 Death: Edouard A. Drumont, French anti-Semite journalist. "...Edouard Drumont’s La France Juive (Jewish France) went through 210 printings between its first publication in 1886 and 1941. An amalgamation of all the varieties of anti-Semitism: religious, racial and economic, it reached all classes. Its popularity, along with that of his newspaper La Libre Parole, made Drumont a redoubtable figure during the era of the Dreyfus Affair..."
1917 WW1: Brazil's Position on U-Boat Warfare click here. Spain's Reaction to Germany's Policy of Unrestricted Submarine Warfare: "...The attitude of strict neutrality which Spain adopted from the beginning and has maintained with loyalty and unshakable firmness gives her the right to expect that the lives of her subjects engaged in sea trade should not be placed in such grave peril. It also gives her the right to expect that that trade should not be troubled nor diminished by such an increase in the extent of the zones in which the Imperial Government insists that, in order to attain its ends, it must use all weapons and suppress all limitations which it has hitherto imposed upon its methods of naval warfare..."
1918 Birth: Lothar-Günther Buchheim, German author best known for his novel 'Das Boot.'
1919 Weimar: A new German National Assembly meets at Weimar and begins drawing up a new constitution; hence the name Weimar Republic. "...This assembly had been elected in January (while the army repressed KPD rioting) and showed a significant increase in SPD seats over the last imperial Reichstag. The three parties of the Peace Resolution of 1917 - SPD, Center, and Progressives (now Democrats) - had a large majority and formed the pro-republican "Weimar Coalition.'' The emergency constitution was modeled on the imperial constitution, with a president elected by the assembly in place of the Emperor..."
1920 Volkishness: Grand Duke Johann Albrecht of Mecklenburg (Irmin) Chancellor of the loyalist Germanenorden dies of what is described as a heart attack. His funerary notice in the Bundesarchiv in Koblenz is decorated with swastikas. Note: Irminism is the religion professed years later by Karl Maria Wiligut (K.M. Weisthor of Himmler's SS staff. (THP)
1922 Washington Naval Treaty: The Washington Conference between the United States, France, Japan, Italy and Britain ends with agreement on restricting use of poison gas and submarine warfare. "...The Signatory Powers, desiring to insure the enforcement of the humane rules of existing law declared by them with respect to attacks upon and the seizure and destruction of merchant ships, further declare that any person in the service of any Power who shall violate any of those rules, whether or not such person is under orders of a governmental superior, shall be deemed to have violated the laws of war and shall be liable to trial and punishment as if for an act of piracy..."
1928 Weimar: The German Reichstag ratifies the Kellogg Pact. "...the time has, come when a frank renunciation of war as an instrument of national policy should be made to the end that the peaceful and friendly relations now existing between their peoples may be perpetuated; Convinced that all changes in their relations with one another should be sought only by pacific means and be the result of a peaceful and orderly process..."
1930 Mussolini signs a treaty of friendship with Austria. "...At various times after 1922, Mussolini personally took over the ministries of the interior, of foreign affairs, of the colonies, of the corporations, of the army and the other armed services, and of public works. Sometimes he held as many as seven departments simultaneously, as well as the premiership. He was also head of the all-powerful Fascist party (formed in 1921) and the armed Fascist militia. In this way he succeeded in keeping power in his own hands and preventing the emergence of any rival. But it was at the price of creating a regime that was overcentralized, inefficient, and corrupt. Most of his time was spent on propaganda..."
1932 Weimar: A fascist coup occurs in the Memel Territory.
1933 Socialists in England, Germany, France, Poland, Italy, Norway and Holland call for cooperation between Social Democrats and Communists in the struggle against Nazism. (THP)
1934 A political crisis in France as Fascist agitation in the Third Republic leads to rioting in the streets of Paris, almost resulting in a coup.
1935 Eva Braun celebrates her 23rd birthday and begins a new diary. Twenty-two hastily written pages will be found after the war. "...I think this must be the right day to begin this extra-special diary. I have now reached the happy age of 23. No, happy is not quite the right word. At this particular moment I am certainly not happy. The truth is that I have rather large ideas about the importance to be attached to this day: If I had a dog I would not feel so lonely, but I suppose that is asking for too much..."
1936 Holocaust: The German Ministry of the Interior decrees that a system of records be set up to cover hereditary biological data on all patients in mental hospitals and institutions. (THP)
1936 The 1936 Olympics: Feb 6-16 Hitler's Germany hosts the Winter Olympics in the resort town of Garmisch-Partenkirchen.
1938 Romanian Prime Minister Goga warns that he will not tolerate foreign interference in his domestic antisemitic policy.
1939 Holocaust: Einsatz des Juedischen Vermoegens is published, decreeing complete "Aryanization" of Jewish property in the Reich. (THP)
1939 Church and Reich: Bishop Hilfrich of Limburg is a pastoral letter writes that Jesus had been a Jew, but "the Christian religion has not grown out of the nature of this people, that is, is not influenced by their racial characteristics. Rather it has had to make its way against this people." Christianity, the bishop concludes, is not to be regarded as a product of the Jews; it is not a foreign doctrine or un-German. "Once accepted by our ancestors, it finds itself in the most intimate union with the Germanic spirit." (THP)
1940 Holocaust: German Jews lose their eligibility for clothing coupons. (THP)
1941 WW2: The Italian 10th army is destroyed during the Battle of Beda Fomm. Elements of the British 7th Armored Division had cut across the desert and set up a road block in which the retreating 10th Italian Army is ambushed. Over 25,000 prisoners, 100 tanks, 216 guns, and 1,500 other vehicles are captured.
1941 WW2: British troops conquer Bengazi, Libya. "...Then in the bazaar—they said it was safer if there were three or four of you together—masses of tall Wogs in flowing dirty white robes—some of them carrying sticks—out of the hot dusty sun into a cool dark little shop (maybe you wanted to buy some stockings or tapestries)—then out into the blinding sunshine again—Wogs with something wrong with one eye—a Wog with no legs, just wheeling himself along the street on a trolley: a trunk, two arms and a head. Sometimes he would stop and get off his cart and move himself along with a loping motion on his arms and the bottom of his trunk, the way a monkey sometimes hops along on its front legs. And small Wog eggs with a taste of their own..."
1943 WW2: General Dwight D. Eisenhower is appointed commander-in-chief of the Allied Expeditionary Forces in North Africa. He will later become Supreme Allied Commander in Europe.
1946 Nuremberg Tribunal: Fifty-Second Day: Gerthoffer's Presention of Stolen Art .
1948 Death: Robert Brasillach, French author, nazi collaborator, at 38. "...He was accused of using his position and talents to denounce opponents of the German occupation. Evidence was produced from his prolific output of journalism, including such statements as “we must separate from the Jews en bloc and not keep any little ones”, interpreted as a call for the deportation of Jewish children to concentration camps. In spite of a petition signed by numerous intellectuals, among whom were François Mauriac, Paul Valéry, and Albert Camus (who condemned Brasillach but opposed the death penalty), Brasillach was shot by a firing squad..."
1989 Death: Chris Gueffroy, last person killed escaping over the Berlin wall.
1990 West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl proposes unifying the currencies of East and West Germany.
1994 Death: Jack Kirby, American comic book writer, born Jacob Kurtzberg to Jewish-Austrian parents. Among the characters that Kirby either created or co-created were Captain America, The Fantastic Four, The X-Men, The Incredible Hulk, Boy Commandos, Kamandi, Darkseid, Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos, Challengers of the Unknown, The New Gods, Captain Victory, The Silver Surfer, The Mighty Thor and at least a hundred others.
2002 Death: Max Perutz, Austrian-born molecular biologist, Nobel Prize Laureate. During World War II, he was asked to find a way to improve the structural qualities of ice for Project Habakkuk (a secret project to build an aircraft carrier made of ice) and investigated the recently invented mixture of ice and woodpulp known as pykrete.
