December 12 1862 Naval warfare: First ship to be sunk by a mine:
On December 12 . . . the Cairo was sent up the Yazoo River. As the flotilla reached a point seven miles north of Vicksburg, Confederate artillery batteries opened fire. The captain of the Cairo was Lieutenant Commander Thomas Selfridge, Jr. He ordered his men to clear for action and turned the ironclad to engage the Southern cannon. He had no way of knowing that the Confederates had anticipated a naval attack and had planned for it. "Torpedoes" (what we now call mines) had been placed in the Yazoo. As the ironclad turned to open fire on the Confederate shore batteries, electric charges were sent down the wires connecting the mines to shore and two massive explosions lifted the Cairo from the water. Water poured into the ironclad, but almost miraculously the officers and crews did not panic but instead evacuated the vessel with no lives lost. She sank to the bottom of the river in just twelve minutes, the first warship in history to be sunk by an electronic mine. [For further information, click here]
1875 Birth: Karl Rudolf von Rundstedt: Germany's most experienced general at the start of World War II; later promoted to field marshal. Rundstedt will lead his army successfully in the Polish and French campaigns of 1939-1940. But Hitler will interfere so much during his invasion of Russia in 1941 that he will give up his command and take over the German army of occupation in France. Hitler will retire him from command in July 1944, but call him back to direct "The Battle of the Bulge." 1895 French Captain Alfred Dreyfus, is wrongfully convicted of treason, and is publicly stripped of his rank. 1901 Marconi sends first Atlantic wireless transmission:
Italian physicist and radio pioneer Guglielmo Marconi succeeds in sending the first radio transmission across the Atlantic Ocean, disproving detractors who told him that the curvature of the earth would limit transmission to 200 miles or less. The message--simply the Morse-code signal for the letter "s"--traveled more than 2,000 miles from Poldhu in Cornwall, England, to Newfoundland, Canada. [For further information, click here]
1914 Stocks tank as NYSE trading resumes:
On the first day of trading since the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) reopened in November 1914 after being shut down due to the start of World War I earlier that year, the Dow Jones Industrial Average suffers its worst percentage drop (24.39 percent) since it was first published in 1896. [For further information, click here]
1915 Aircraft: The first all-metal plane, the German Junkers J1, flies for the first time. Built by German Hugo Junkers, it is known as the Tin Donkey. 1917 World War I: French soldiers killed in train accident: More than 500 French soldiers are killed when their train derails in Modane, France, on this day in 1917. The troops were returning from fighting World War I in Italy. There was ample warning that the conditions were dangerous, but the French officers ignored the expert advice and insisted that the overcrowded train proceed as scheduled. [For further information, click here]
1930 Weimar: Allied troops evacuate the Saar region of Germany. 1935 Lebensborn scheme started by SS: Lebensborn was part of the Nazi belief in a Master Race—the creation of a superior race that would dominate Europe as part of Hitler's "Thousand Year Reich." The initial success experienced by the Germans in World War Two gave the regime the opportunity to expand Lebensborn throughout Nazi-occupied Europe.
The idea of creating a Master Race was supported by Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS and one of Hitler's closest confidantes. Lebensborn was Himmler's idea. Lebensborn—meaning the "Fountain of Life"—was meant to provide Nazi Germany with elite generations for decades and centuries to come. Between 1935 and 1939, Lebensborn was restricted only to Nazi Germany. If a woman wanted to participate she had to prove her Aryan background as far back as her grandfathers and only 40% of those who applied . . . passed this racial purity test. Lebensborn enabled women to get pregnant though they were not married and the Lebensborn clinics also acted as adoption centres and they ran homes for children born as a result of Lebensborn. By 1940, about 70% of those women involved in Lebensborn were unmarried.
In total, ten Lebensborn homes were created in Nazi Germany with the first built just outside of Munich.
However, it was World War Two that gave Himmler the real opportunity to expand Lebensborn. The SS invariably followed the German military into a war zone. The SS had a variety of roles to fulfil after an area had been overrun. Its participation in the Final Solution has been well documented. However, another role given to it by Himmler was to search out for young children who fitted his idea of Aryan supremacy.
Norway was occupied in 1940. This country especially interested Himmler because of its Viking past. Himmler had a great interest in the warriors the Vikings produced and their success as fighters. Norwegian women were encouraged or forced into sexual liaisons with SS officers regardless of whether they were married or not and nine Lebensborn homes were established in the country. Children born as a result of such liaisons were brought up in Germany by approved Nazi parents. They were baptised in a SS ceremony where their adoptive parents swore that the child would have a lifelong allegiance to Nazi beliefs. Other Lebensborn clinics were established in Western Europe—France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark and Luxemburg all had one home built.
The SS scoured occupied Eastern Europe in search of Himmler's ideal young child—blonde hair and blue eyes. Here, children were literally taken from their parents and sent to Germany where they were brought up by approved Nazi parents who also had to fit the Nazi ideal. It is thought that as many as 250,000 children were taken from Eastern Europe but the actual figure is not known as much documentation was either lost or destroyed as the war in Europe reached its end. Effectively given a new identity, their past lives were all but destroyed and it is possible that some may not have even known that they had been forcibly taken from their birth parents. It is thought that as many as 12,000 children were born as a result of the SS campaign to produce as many Aryan children as was possible.
Children born as part of the Lebensborn programme faced many difficulties once the war in Europe ended in May 1945. The Norwegian government classed such children as "rats" and their mothers as "German whores." Many feared that the children would continue believing in what their SS fathers had believed in as they had been genetically programmed to do so. The treatment of the Lebensborn children born in Norway was such that in 2008 those still alive took their plight to the European Court of Human Rights, which ordered that each person should receive GBP 2000 compensation. (HistoryLearningSite.co.uk)
1936 Resistance: Jehovah's Witnesses throughout Germany secretly distribute 200,000 copies of the Lucerne Resolution, a protest against Nazi atrocities, in two hours. Since the Jehovah's Witnesses could only operate covertly in the underground in the NS era, Frost was given the job (office) of the so called 'Servant of the Reich'. The Reich Servant was the supreme official or functionary for Jehovah's Witnesses in Germany; under him were the district servants, then those below them the area and branch officials. Now because the servants of Jehovah had rebelled boldly against the Third Reich, maintaining that Hitler Germany was also the work of the devil (Lucifer), the Fuhrer's decree after 1933 soon came upon them, i.e., complete dissolution, offices and printing presses were closed, the Society's finances were transferred to the party's own communal charity, whilst all publications were confiscated. The Witnesses were not going to be put off by such harassment's. In 1936 a Jehovah's Witness Convention in Lucerne decided to instigate a massive leaflet drop in Germany against the banning of the cult; very soon Frost was able to announce the prompt completion of the task. On the 12th December between 5 and 7 PM leaflets with the Lucerne resolution were posted through doors unnoticed in all large cities: 300,000 in all. In addition to this foreign Jehovah's Witnesses sent 20,000 telegrams of protest to His Excellency Hitler. Although it was less dangerous in other countries, Jehovah's Witnesses in Hitler's Germany refused to engage in military service. 1936 Countdown to Infamy: Chinese leader Chiang Kai-shek declares war on Japan. 1937 Various: Japanese planes bomb and sink the US gunboa Panay (PR-5) in the Yangtze River north of Nanking, China. Japan later claims it was all a mistake and agrees to pay reparations. USS Panay was one of five small, shoal-draft river gunboats that had been built about ten years earlier, primarily for patrolling the Yangtze in order to protect American commerce and American nationals during the Chinese civil war. They were used to being fired upon (and seldom hit) by irresponsible guerrilla bands of Chinese, but what happened to Panay was deliberately planned by responsible Japanese officers. On 21 November 1937, when Japanese forces were approaching Nanking, Chiang Kai-shek's foreign office notified the American Embassy that it must prepare to evacuate. The Ambassador and most of the personnel left next day in USS Luzon; the rest stuck it out for another week, when they decided to depart in Panay. Ambassador Grew so notified the Japanese government on 1 December. On the 11th the gunboat embarked the American officials together with a number of civilians, and started upriver, escorting three Standard Oil barges that also wished to escape. Two British gunboats and a few other British craft followed the same course. For two miles this little flotilla was fired upon repeatedly by a shore battery commanded by Colonel Hashimoto, one of the ringleaders in the assassinations and a prominent Kodo man. His object was to provoke the United States into a declaration of war, which would eliminate civilian influence from the Japanese government and complete the "Showa Restoration." The shooting was so wild that Panay and her convoy, making slow speed against the current, pulled out of range without suffering a hit. An advanced Army unit notified naval authorities that Chinese troops were fleeing the capital in ten ships. At 1100 next morning (12 December 1937) Panay and the three tankers anchored near Hoshien, upstream from Nanking. American flags were hoisted on their masts and painted on the awnings and topsides. The day was clear, sunny and still. Panay's ate their Sunday dinner and secured. No guns were manned or even uncovered. Shortly after 1330, three Japanese Navy bombing planes flew overhead and released eighteen bombs. USSR: Communists receive 98% of the vote in the first elections to the Supreme Soviet. 1939 Holocaust: Two years forced labor is made mandatory by the Germans for all male, Polish Jews between the ages of 14 and 60. Labor camps are soon set up throughout the General Government and in the Warthegau (Wartheland). 1941 World War II: Various: France: United States seizes French liner Normandie:
On this day, the U.S. Navy takes control of the largest and most luxurious ocean liner on the seas at that time, France's Normandie, while it is docked at New York City. Shortly thereafter, the conversion for U.S. wartime use began.
The Normandie was unique in many ways. It was the first ship built, in 1931, in accordance with the guidelines laid down in the 1929 Convention for Safety of Life at Sea. It was also huge, measuring 1,029 feet long and 119 feet wide. It displaced 85,000 tons of water. It offered passengers seven accommodation classes (including the new "tourist" class, as opposed to the old "third" class, commonly known as "steerage") and 1,975 berths. It took a crew of more than 1,300 to work her. But despite its size, it was also fast: capable of 32.1 knots. The liner was launched in 1932 and made its first transatlantic crossing in 1935. In 1937, it was reconfigured with four-bladed propellers, which meant it could now cross the Atlantic in less than four days.
When France surrendered to the Germans in June 1940, and the puppet Vichy regime was installed, the Normandie was in dock at New York City. Immediately placed in "protective custody" by the Navy, it was clear that the U.S. government was not about to let a ship of such size and speed fall into the hands of the Germans, which it certainly would upon returning to France. In November 1941, Time magazine ran an article stating that in the event of the United States' involvement in the war, the Navy would seize the liner altogether and turn it into an aircraft carrier. It also elaborated on how the design of the ship made such a conversion relatively simple. When the Navy did take control of the ship, shortly after Pearl Harbor, it began the conversion of the liner-but to a troop ship, renamed the USS Lafayette (after the French general who aided the American Colonies in their original quest for independence).
The Lafayette never served its new purpose. On February 9, 1942, the ship caught fire and capsized. Sabotage was originally suspected, but the likely cause was sparks from a welder's torch. Although the ship was finally righted, the massive salvage operation cost $3,750,000--and the fire damage made any hope of employing the vessel impossible. It was scrapped--literally chopped up for scrap metal--in 1946. (History.com)
Holocaust: At a meeting with the highest ranking officials of the Nazi party in the Reich Chancellery, Adolf Hitler declared the imminent destruction of the Jewish race. This meeting was possibly more fateful than the Wannsee Conference.
Romania: Antonescu, pressured by Germany and Italy, declares war on the US.
Finland refuses to declare war on the US. 1942 World War II: Various: Stalingrad: The Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) is formed in Polesie. Holocaust: The Germans deport 757 Dutch Jews to Auschwitz. 1943 World War II: The US 36th Infantry Division attacks Monte Lungo. 1945 Nuremberg Tribunal: Beginning of Thomas Dodd's Presentation of the Case on Forced Labor. Edited by Levi Bookin (Copy editor) Click to join 3rdReichStudies FAIR USE NOTICE: This site may contain copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of historical, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, environmental, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. Please note that the list-owner and the moderators are not responsible for, and do not necessarily approve of, the random ads placed on our pages by our web server. They are, unfortunately, the price one pays for a 'free' website.
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