TIMEBASE 1939

1939 January The Ahnenerbe is officially incorporated into the SS and its leaders absorbed into Himmler's personal staff. At that time it has 50 branches under the direction of Professor Wurst, an expert on ancient sacred texts who had taught Sanskrit at Munich University. (Pauwels)

1939 January 1 A decree is published eliminating Jews from the German economy.

1939 January 5 Polish Foreign Minister Joseph Beck confers with Hitler at Berchtesgaden. Hitler says he is considering a formula that would make Danzig politically German and economically Polish, and that he is ready to give a formal and clear guarantee for the German-Polish frontiers. (Sturdza)

1939 January 6 Beck and Ribbentrop meet in Munich. Ribbentrop asks for "the reunion of Danzig with Germany" and proposes a number of guarantees.

1939 January 9 The Reich Office of Racial Research exempts Karaites from antisemitic legislation. (Edelheit)

1939 January 10 Neville Chamberlain and Lord Halifax arrive in Rome to meet with Mussolini.

1939 January 11 The Danzig Senate orders 1,000 of the 4,000 Jews still in Danzig to leave by the end of the month.

1939 January 14 Pope Pius XI urges foreign diplomats at the Vatican to grant as many visas as possible to victims of German and Italian racial prejudice. (Edelheit)

1939 January 17 Denmark, Latvia and Estonia sign a nonagression pact with Germany. Norway, Sweden and Finland insist on strict neutrality.

1939 January 17 Slovakian premier, Father Tiso, declares his foremost task is to solve the "Jewish question."

1939 January 17 The eighth ordinance of the Reich Citizenship Act is passed, barring Jewish dentists, veterinarians and chemists from practicing their professions. Jewish dentists may only treat Jewish patients.

1939 January 19 Hjalmar Schacht has his last meeting with George Rublee in Berlin. (Architect)

1939 January 21 Hitler dismisses Hjalmar Schacht as president of the Reichsbank and replaces him with Walter Funk. Schacht was left as an unpaid minister without portfolio until 1943. (Children)

(Note: A secret report to Hitler, prepared by Himmler, had accused Schacht of being disloyal to Nazi interests in his negotiations with George Rublee.) (Architect)

1939 January 21 Hitler tells Czech foreign minister Chvalkovsy, "We are going to destroy the Jews -- they are not going to get away with what they did on November 9, 1918. The day of reckoning has come."

1939 January 23 Chamberlain announces the introduction of National Service and says, "It is a project that must make us prepared for war."

1939 January 24 Goering orders Reinhard Heidrich to establish the Reich Central Office for Jewish Emigration is established to organize and accelerate the emigration of the Jews. Heydrich names Gestapo chief Heinrich Mueller to head the department. Almost 80,000 Jews will leave Germany in 1939. (Days)

(Note: Goering commissions Heydrich to bring the "Jewish question to as favorable a solution as present circumstances permit.") (Apparatus)

1939 January 24 Germany and Poland reach an agreement on Jewish deportees. One thousand Jews at a time may return to Germany to settle their accounts. A special proprietary account for this purpose will be set up in Germany for deposits only. (Edelheit)

1939 January 26 General Franco's forces capture Barcelona.

1939 January 27 Ribbentrop repeats Germany's Danzig proposals in Warsaw.

1939 January 28 Chamberlain tells as audience in Birmingham that Great Britain must prepare herself to defend not only her territory but also "the principle of Liberty."

1939 January 30 Hitler, in an address to the Reichstag, gives public notice of his intentions, "If international Jewry should succeed in Europe or elsewhere, in precipitating nations into a world war, the result will not be the Bolshevization of Europe and a victory for Judaism, but the extermination of the Jewish race." Hitler also comments on the lack of offers from the so-called democratic states to accept Jewish refugees.

1939 January 30 Archbishop Groeber in a pastoral letter concedes that Jesus Christ could not be made into an "Aryan," but the son of God had been fundamentally different from the Jews of his time -- so much so that they had hated him and demanded his crucifixion, and "their murderous hatred has continued in later centuries." (Lewy)

1939 January-February For the tenth anniversary of the Lateran Treaty, Pope Pius XI drafts a discourse that is said to have condemned totalitarianism in the strongest terms. After his death (February 10), his successor, Pius XII, chooses not to deliver the speech. (Lewy)

1939 February For the tenth anniversary of the Lateran Treaty, Pope Pius XI drafts a discourse that is said to have condemned totalitarianism in the strongest terms. After his death, his successor, Pius XII, chooses not to deliver the speech. (Lewy)

1939 February 3 A bomb thrown into a Budapest synagogue kills one Jewish worshipper and injures many others. (Atlas)

1939 February 5 Karl Wolff, Chief Adjutant of Himmler's person staff, informs Weisthor's SS staff by letter that Weisthor (Wiligut) has retired on his own application for reasons of age and poor health and that his SS office will be dissolved. (Berlin Document Center; Roots)

1939 February Otto Rahn unexpectedly resigns from the SS. (See February 5 and March 13) (Rahn file, Berlin Document Center; Roots)

1939 February 6 Einsatz des Juedischen Vermoegens is published, decreeing complete "Aryanization" of Jewish property in the Reich. (Edelheit)

1939 February 6 Bishop Hilfrich of Limburg is a pastoral letter writess 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." (Lewy)

1939 February 7 Alfred Rosenberg, at a press conference in Berlin, discusses a plan to settle all 15 million of the world's Jews on the island of Madegascar.

1939 February 8 Six members of the Romanian Legion of St. Michael (Iron Guard) are arrested in Romania and later murdered by Armand Calinescu's police.

1939 February 10 Pope Pius XI dies.

1939 February 11 The tenth anniversary of the Lateran Treaty.

1939 February 11 At the first meeting of the Reich Central Office for Jewish Emigration, Heydrich orders officials to proceed as if an agreement with the intergovernmental committee does not exist. (Architect)

1939 February 15 Count Pal Teleki takes office as Hungary's prime minister.

1939 February 20 A pro-Nazi rally at Madison Square Garden in New York draws 20,000 Nazi sympathizers and supporters of Father Charles Coughlin.

1939 February 21 German Jews are ordered to surrender all gold and silver, except wedding rings.

1939 February 22 Neville Chamberlain tells an audience in Blackburn, "Ships, guns and ammunition are produced by our shipyards and factories with an increased acceleration... Even if the whole world is against us we will win."

1939 February 24 Hungary joins the Anti-Comintern Pact and outlaws the Arrow Cross.

1939 February 26 The British government submits a proposal calling for an independent Palestine state allied to Britain. (Edelheit)

1939 February 27 Britain and France recognize the Franco government in Spain.

1939 March 1 Romania announces that 43,000 Jews have been denationalized.

1939 March 2 Papal Secretary of State Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli is elected to succeed Pius XI as pope. He becomes Pope Pius XII.

1939 March 4 Germany introduces a compulsory labor law for Jews, but does not allow them to become part of the German Labor Service (Arbeitdienst).

1939 March 6 Armand Calinescu becomes Prime Minister of Romania after the death of Patriarch Cristea.

1939 March 10 The Eighteenth Communist Party Congress opens in Moscow.

1939 March 10 Slovak Prime Minister Josef Tiso is dismissed by the Czech central government in Prague.

1939 March 11 Ousted Slovak Prime Minister Tiso meets with Hitler in Berlin.

1939 March 12 Prime Minister Chamberlain makes a public pledge of support for Polish sovereignty in Parliament. This speech has been called one of the most important expressions of England's support for Polish independence. (Duffy)

1939 March 13 Otto Rahn dies of overexposure while hiking in the mountains near Kufstein. (Berlin Document Center) Rumors persist that he was murdered by the SS.

1939 March 14 Monsignor Josef Tiso proclaims the independence of Slovakia and establishes an independent Axis state under the Fascist Hlinka Party. Slovak Nazis launch a wave of terror against Slovakian Jews.

(Note: After the war, Tiso will be arrested, imprisoned and executed by the Communist government in Prague.)

1939 March 15 Civil unrest forces President Hacha of Czechoslovakia to ask for German protection. German troops enter Prague, and Bohemia becomes a German Protectorate. Konstantin von Neurath is appointed "Reich Protector of Bohemia and Moravia." Some 56,000 Jews are trapped, many of them refugees from Germany and Austria who had fled to Bohemia and Moravia only the year before. Adolf Eichmann soon sets up a Jewish emigration office in Prague. (Atlas)

(Note: Britain and France complain that the German occupation of Bohemia and Moravia is a violation of the Munich Agreement but fail to take a firm stand.)

1939 March 16 Hungarian troops occupy Czechoslovakian Carpatho-Ruthenia.

1939 March 16 Hitler declares that Czechoslovakia no longer exists.

1939 March 17 Neville Chamberlain publicly accuses Hitler of breaking his promises made at the Munich Conference.

1939 March 20 The U.S. ambassador to Germany is recalled to protest the dissolution of Czechoslovakia.

1939 March 20 Reichprotector von Neurath bans all "unofficial Aryanization" of Jewish property in former Czechoslovakian territrories. All Jews are dismissed from their jobs as municipal employees.

1939 March 21 Nazis seize the Free City of Memel (Lithuania).

1939 March 21 Sir Howard Kennard, British Ambassador in Warsaw, offers in the name of his government, what is called a Pact of Consultation and Resistance that includes Great Britain, France, Poland and the Soviet Union.

1939 March 23 Germany annexes Memel and Hitler demands access to the Polish Corridor, the narrow strip of land that since the Treaty of Versailles has separated East Prussia from the rest of Germany. Nazi harassment forces thousands of Jews to flee Memel to Lithuania.

1939 March 23 The Polish government rejects Germany's proposals for Danzig.

1939 March 23 An economic agreement between Germany and Romania gives Hitler access to Romanian oil.

1939 March 24 Miuroslav Arciczewski, the Polish Undersecretary of State, complains to the German Ambassador about British and French intrigues in Warsaw, "which don't take into consideration the dangers to which Poland is exposed." (Sturdza)

1939 March 25 The Vatican recognizes Monseignor Tiso's recently founded Slovakia.

1939 March 26 Polish Ambassador Lipski inBerlin completely rejects Germany's proposals of October 1938. Beck refuses to even meet with Hitler, and instructs Lipski to tell Ribbentrop that if Germany continues to insist on the idea of a German Danzig... it would mean war.

1939 March 28 General Franco occupies Madrid, and the Spanish Civil War comes to an end. Franco assumes complete control.

1939 March 31 Britain and France sign an agreement with Poland guaranteeing its borders against aggression. These "unconditional" guarantees concern only Poland's western border, not its frontiers with the Soviet Union.

(Note: David Lloyd George warns the British parliament that the agreement with Poland is meaningless without Russia's cooperation.)

1939 March 31 Neville Chamberlain tells the House of Commons that the British government considers itself bound to come immediately to Poland's aid the moment the Polish government feels its existence is in danger. The news of Chamberlain's guarantee throws Hitler into a rage. (Shirer I)

1939 March 31 Germany and Spain conclude a Treaty of Friendship.

1939 April 1 Hitler tells General Keitel that it is a shame that "sly, old Marshal Pilsudski," with whom he had signed a nonaggression pact, had died so prematurely, but the same could happen to him at any time, and that is why it is so important to resolve the problem of East Prussia as soon as possible.

1939 April 2 Nazis fail to win seats in the Belgian House of Deputies.

1939 April 3 Hitler issues a war directive marked "Most Secret" and has it delivered by hand to his senior war commanders. "Since the situation on Germany's eastern frontier has become intolerable and all political possibilities have been exhausted," it began, "I have decided upon a solution by force." Preparations for the attack on Poland, "Case White" (Operation White), "must be made so that the operation can be carried out any time from September 1, 1939." (Shirer I)

1939 April 4 The Godesberg Declaration accepts the Nazis world view (Weltanschauung).

1939 April 6 Italy issues an ultimatum to King Zogu I of Albania.

1939 April 6 Polish Foreign Minister Beck signs a temporary mutual assistance pact in London, but since Beck fears the Soviets as much or more than the Nazis, it excludes any Soviet participation.

1939 April 7 Mussolini's occupies Albania, and soon annexes it to Italy.

1939 April 7 The Franco government in Spain joins Germany, Italy and Japan in the Anti-Comintern Pact.

1939 April 11 Hitler issues a directive for Operation White, a proposed plan to attack Poland.

1939 April 11 Hungary withdraws from the League of Nations.

1939 April 13 Britain and France counter Mussolini's threats with a guarantee to protect the sovereignty of Greece and Romania.

1939 April 15 President Roosevelt appeals to both Hitler and Mussolini for assurances against any further aggression, telling them both there is no need for war and to respect the independence of other nations, specifically naming thirty-one countries in Europe and the Near East. Soon afterward Hitler ridicules Roosevelt during a speech to the Reichstag by sarcastically reinterating the thirty-one nations listed in Roosevelt's appeal. The Reichstag burst into laughter at the seemingly endless list.

1939 April 15 Alfred Rosenberg opens the Institute of the Nazi Party for Research into the Jewish Question (Institut der NSDAP zur Erforschung der Judenfrage).

1939 April 16 After Franco, with the help of Hitler and Mussolini, has successfully defeated the "Loyalists," Pope Pius XII sends the Spanish Catholics his expressions of "immense joy" and "fatherly congratulations for the gift of peace and victory with which God has deigned to crown the Christian heroism of your faith and charity, proved through such great and generous sufferings." (Lewy)

1939 April 17 Britain and France reject a Soviet offer to form an anti-Nazi alliance.

1939 April 17 Soviet Ambassador Alexei Merekalov calls on Ribbentrop's chief subordinate, Baron von Weizacher and offers unmistakable signals that Russia is now willing to develop better relations with Germany.

1939 April 18 In Berlin, Hitler warns Grigore Gafencu, Romania's new Foreign Minister that "Romania will be abandoned by the covetousness of its neighbors" and again offers military aid and support against Soviet aggression.

1939 April 19 Hitler tells Gregoire Gafencu he cannot understand why the English cannot see that he only wishes to reach an agreement with them.... But if England wants war she can have it.

1939 April 20 Hitler celebrates his 50th birthday with the largest military display in German history. It is a clear warning to his enemies.

1939 April 20 Joint hearings of the U.S. House and Senate are held concerning the admission, on a non-quota basis, of 20,000 German Jewish children over a two-year period.

1939 April 24 A new Slovakian decree dismisses Jews from the civil service and corporation staffs.

1939 April 27 Britain enacts the Concsription Law, ordering compulsory military service.

1939 April 27 Hitler denounces the 1935 British-German naval agreement.

1939 April 28 In a worldwide radio broadcast from the Reichstag, Hitler rejects Roosevelt's appeal for peace and denounces what he calls Britain's new foreign policy. He also annuls the German-Plish nonagression Pact and denounces the British-Polish Pact. (See April 14)

1939 April 28 Sudeten-German Nazis incite anti-Jewish riots in Jihlava (Iglau), Czechoslovakia. Many Jewish shops and stores are damaged. (Edelheit)

1939 April 30 A new German decree causes Jews lose their right to rent protection. Landlords are sanctioned by law to evict Jewish tenants. (Persecution)

1939 April The first regular television broadcasts begin in the United States.

1939 May Hitler orders his personal physician, Dr. Karl Brandt, to devise a new program for the killing of sick and disabled German children.

1939 May The British government sets a limit of 75,000 Jewish refugees into Palestine over the next five years.

1939 May Stalin's purges have by now cut across Russian society. A total of 98 of the 139 central committee members elected in 1934 have been shot and 1,108 of the 1,966 delegates to the 17th Congress arrested. The secret-police reign of terror annihilates a large portion of every profession. Deaths have been estimated in the millions, including those who perished in concentration camps.

1939 May 3 Maxim Litvinov, a Jew and Soviet Foreign Minister for eighteen years, is replaced by Stalin with Vyacheslav M. Molotov, a gentile. Hitler is said to have been greatly pleased that Stalin seemed to be removing the last Bolshevik Jews from positions of power.

(Note: Molotov will serve as Foreign Minister from 1939-49 and again from 1953-56. Litvinov will become Soviet Ambassador to the U.S. 1941.) (Ickes)

1939 May 3 Hungary enacts antisemitic laws similar to the Nuremberg Laws. Hungarian Jews are forbidden to become Judges, lawyers, schoolteachers, or members of Parliament. Those who converted to Christianity before 1919 and Jewish war veterans are exempted.

1939 May 4 A second anti-Jewish law in Hungary deprives Jews naturalized after July 1, 1914 of their citizenship.

1939 May 4 The Housing Segregation Law is enacted in Germany. (Edelheit)

1939 May 6 Mussolini commits himself to sign an armistice with Hitler. It will be a fateful decision. (Shirer I)

1939 May 8 Spain withdraws from the League of Nations.

1939 May 12 Britain and Turkey sign a mutual assistance pact.

1939 May 13 The Hungarian Union of Jewish Communities, in response to a massive surge in conversions to Christianity, implores Jews not to abandon the faith of their fathers and the Jewish people.

1939 May 15 The S.S. St. Louis, loaded with 930 Jewish refugees, leaves Hamburg bound for Cuba.

1939 May 15 Ravensbrueck, a concentration camp for women, is established.

1939 May 17 A German census lists 330,539 Jews in Greater Germany; 138,819 males and 191,720 females. These figures include 94,530 Jews in what was formerly Austria and 2,363 in the Sudetenland.

1939 May 17 Sweden, Norway and Finland announce they will remain firmly neutral.

1939 May 18 Julius Streicher's Der Stuermer calls for the extermination of all Jews in the Soviet Union, saying it is the only way to eliminate Bolshevism.

1939 May 18 Britain reinstates compulsory military conscription.

1939 May 19 Franco's Spanish Nationalists stage a huge parade in Madrid.

1939 May 20 Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov invites German Ambassador von der Schulenburg to meet with his staff in the Kremlin. This is the beginning of Soviet plans for setting up a Soviet-German nonaggression pact.

1939 May 20 Pan American Airways launches the first commercial trans-Atlantic flight. The Yankee Clipper flies from New York to Portugal.

1939 May 22 Hitler and Mussolini sign the "Pact of Steel," proclaiming their full military alliance.

1939 May 23 The British parliament approves the so-called "White Paper" by a vote of 268 to 179. This document proposes slowing the growth of the Jewish community in Palestine by limiting Jewish immigration and cutting back Jewish purchases of land. The House of Commons approves a plan for an independent Palestinian state by 1949, but the plan is denounced by both Arabs and Jews.

1939 May 23 Hitler tells a gathering of his highest-level military officers, "The Britisher himself is proud, brave, tough, dogged and a gifted organizer. He knows how to exploit every new development. He has the love of adventure and the courage of the Nordic race... England is a world power in herself. Constant for three hundred years. Increased by alliances. This power is not only something concrete, but must also be considered as a psychological force, embracing the entire world. Add to this immeasurable wealth and the solvency that goes with it and geopolitical security and protection by a strong sea power and courageous air force." (Shirer I)

1939 May 23 Hitler orders the Military High Command to prepare for war with Poland. Goebbels propaganda machine begins accusing the Poles of committing atrocities against their German-speaking minority. (Goebbels)

1939 May 26 Ribbentrop instructs Schulenburg to inform Molotov that Germany's hostility to the Comintern will be abandoned if Hitler can be assured that the Soviets have, in fact, renounced their aggressive struggle against Germany as indicated by Stalin's recent speech.

1939 May 27 The Cuban government refuses to admit the 930 Jewish refugees onboard the S.S. St. Louis. (See May 15)

1939 May 28 The Arrow Cross Party elects 45 representatives to the Hungarian parliament.

1939 May 29 President of the Hungarian Senate, Count Julius Karolyi, resigns in opposition to his country's new anti-Jewish laws.

1939 May 31 Hundreds of commercial licenses held by Jews are cancelled after the Hungarian Ministry of Commerce applies strict numerus clausus to Jewish businesses.

1939 June 1 General Oswald Pohl is named chief administrator of the SS.

1939 June 1 Italian Jews are ordered to assume "Jewish" surnames. Collaboration between Jewish and non-Jewish professionals is prohibited. (Edelheit)

1939 June 1 The SS-Gericht, the SS Legal Head Office, is established on Himmler's orders.

1939 June 2 The Cuban government forces the S.S. St. Louis to leave Havana harbor. (See May 27)

1939 June 3-4 The U.S. government refuses to admit the 930 Jews on the S.S. St. Louis, even those with valid American quota numbers. All requests go unheeded as the ship sails northward along the Florida coast.

1939 June 6 President Roosevelt ignores a telegram sent on behalf of the Jews aboard the S.S. St. Louis. The ship, with all 930 Jews on board, is forced to return to Europe.

1939 June 7 Britain's King George VI and Queen Elizabeth arrive in America for a state visit and public relations campaign.

1939 June 12 Romania imposes a special tax on denationalized Jews, ranging from 2,000 to 10,000 lei annually.

1939 June 13 Britain, France, Belgium and the Netherlands (Holland) agree to take in the Jews aboard the S.S. St. Louis. Those who find shelter on the Continent will come under German control in the summer of 1940 and most will later be murdered in the concentration camps.

1939 June 18 A bomb explodes in a Jewish cafe in Prague, injuring 39 people.

1939 June 20 General Walther von Brauchitsch issues a directive ordering cooperation between the Wehrmacht and the Waffen-SS (SS- Verfuegungstruppen).

1939 June 20 Professor Fischer says in a lecture: "When a people wants, somehow or other, to preserve its own nature, it must reject alien racial elements, and when these have already insinuated themselves, it must suppress them and eliminate them. The Jew is such an alien and, therefore, when he wants to insinuate himself, he must be warded off. This is self-defence. In saying this, I do not characterize every Jew as inferior, as Negroes are, and I do not underestimate the greatest enemy with whom we have to fight. But I reject Jewry with every means in my power, and without reserve, in order to preserve the hereditary endowment of my people." (Science)

1939 June 22 Slovak Minister of Propaganda Aleksander Mach proclaims that with a year Slovakia with be cleansed of Jews (Judenrein).

1939 June 29 The first group of Gypsy women from Austria are sent to Ravensbrueck concentration camp. They number some 440.

1939 June 30 A fire destroys part of the Jewish district in Silal, Lithuania. Arson is suspected.

1939 Summer A public announcement is printed: "The German Society of Race-hygiene is to organize the Fourth International Congress of Eugenics in Vienna on 26-28 August 1940. The President of the Congress will be Professor Rüdin." (Science)

1939 July 4 The tenth ordinance of the Reich Citizenship Act creates the Reich Association of Jews in Germany (Reichsvereinigung der Juden in Deutschland), replacing all other Jewish organizations. All German Jews are forced to become members of the new association. (Persecution)

1939 July 6 Adolf Eichmann arrives in Prague to take charge of Jewish emigration.

1939 July 7 An editorial in the Völkischer Beobachter states that the Jewish problem in Germany will be solved only when Germany is cleansed of Jews.

1939 July 7 The ban against Action Francaise is lifted just four months after the election of Pope Pius XII, who was even more convinced of the usefulness of anti-Communist right-wing movements than his predecessor. (Lewy)

1939 July 8 Italian companies dealing with the government are prohibited from employing Jews. (Edelheit)

1939 July 9 Churchill urges a British military alliance with the Soviet Union.

1939 July 10 Niculetta Nicolescu, head of the women's branch of the Legionary Movement in Romania is arrested and and tortured. Her breasts are cut off and she is put to death after being raped. (Sturdza)

1939 July 12 Chamberlain tells the House of Commons that: "The present status of Danzig could not be considered as illegal or unjust... We hope that the Free City will prove once more that different nationalities can collaborate when their interests demand it."

1939 July 13 Italy an "Aryanization" program similar to the one in Germany.

1939 July 15 A Central Office for Jewish Emigration (Zentralstelle fuer Juedische Auswanderung) opens in Prague under the direction of Adolf Eichmann. A branch office is set up in Brno. All Jews wishiung to emigrate from the Czech Protectorate must request permission from these offices.

1939 July 16 Sir Oswald Mosley declares that one million British Fascists will refuse to fight in a "Jewish war."

1939 July 17 Cardinal Bertram sends instructions marked "Top Secret" to the German bishops informing them where priests should report for military pastoral care in case of war. (Lewy)

1939 July 23 Britain and France agree to Russia's proposal that military staff talks be held at once to spell out specifically how Hitler's armies are to be met by the three nations (See August 5). (Shirer I)

1939 July 24 A numerus clausus is instituted in Slovakia, restricting Jews in the professions to four percent. another Slovak decree dismisses all Jews from the army.

1939 July 26 The United States rescinds the 1911 trade agreement with Japan.

1939 July 29 Jews in Slovakia are forbidden to live in rural areas.

1939 July 30 Elections are held for the Twenty-first Zionist Congress to be held in Geneva.

1939 August Stalin, who has become convinced that Britain and France are conspiring to help throw the full weight of German strength against the USSR, seeks an accommodation with Hitler despite their bitterly antagonistic ideologies.

1939 August 1 The U.S. Congress passes a bill outlawing the use of uniforms and firearms by any organization conflicting with the American government. (Edelheit)

1939 August 2 After a lengthy debate the House of Commons votes itself a summer holiday. It is not scheduled to return until October 21.

1939 August 2 Albert Einstein writes a letter to President Roosevelt, warning him of the possibility that Nazi Germany might be attempting to build an atom bomb. "This new phenomena (atomic energy) would also lead to the construction of bombs. A single bomb of this type, carried by boat and exploded in a port, might very well destroy the whole port, together with some of the surrounding territory. However, such bombs might very well prove to be too heavy for transportation by air." Roosevelt soon issues orders for a U.S. effort to investigate building an atomic bomb. (Howarth)

1939 August 3 Following a secret meeting in London between German Ambassador Herbert von Dirksen and Sir Horace Wilson, head of Britain's civil service and Chamberlain's closest adviser, a message is sent to Hitler informing him that Britain is prepared to increase trade with Germany, talk constructively about Germany's need for colonies, take a helpful view of Germany's need for expansion in southeast Europe, announce jointly a cooperative program to help improve the world economic situation, look seriously at the possibility of limiting armaments (including a possible loan to Germany to offset the financial difficulties limitation would bring), and finally, not to intervene in matters concerning the Greater Reich, which would include Danzig. There was only one precondition: Germany and Britain should sign a treaty of nonaggression, in which both sides would renounce unilateral aggressive action as a policy method. (Howarth)

1939 August 3 Jews in Memel are allowed to liquidate their property without Nazi interference.

1939 August 4 The Polish government sends an ultimatum to the Danzig Senate warning it will arm its customs officers if the Senate does not stop interfering with Polish customs inspectors. Supposedly based on mistaken information, Poland's action causes great consternation among the Nazis.

1939 August 5 Britain and France's joint military mission to Russia departs Britain for Leningrad on a slow-moving, passenger-cargo ship. Discussions have been arranged with Molotov in Moscow (See July 23). (Shirer I)

1939 August 5 Albert Foerster, Nazi Gauleiter of Danzig, flies to Berchtesgaden to confer with Hitler. Meanwhile, the customs dispute in Danzig is temporarily resolved, but is seen in other countries as a Nazi capitulation, infuriating Hitler.

1939 August 6 Mussolini, fearing Germany will go to war with Poland, discusses with Count Galeazzo Ciano, his son-in-law and Foreign Minister, possible ways to evade the terms of the Pact of Steel, which commits them to aiding Germany. Mussolini believes Italy is still 3 years short of readiness for war.

1939 August 6 German authorities in Danzig tell the Poles that their customs officials can no longer work in the port.

1939 August 7 Count Ciano requests a meeting with Joachim von Ribbentrop.

1939 August 8 Winston Churchill makes a fifteen-minute radio broadcast to America, warning of the increasingly serious threat of war in Europe and the likelihood of American involvement. "This is the time to fight - to speak - to attack!"

1939 August 9 Germany issues an official warning to the Polish government in Warsaw, saying that another comminatory note to Danzig will result in strained Polish-German relations, with Poland being responsible.

1939 August 9 German Ambassador von Dirksen, preparing to depart on leave to Germany, visits British Foreign Secretary Lord Halifax. Halifax questions von Dirksen over the "sharp tone of the German press concerning Danzig." Dirksen replies that it is the fault of the Polish newspaper Czas which has published a statement that if there were any attempt to incorporate Danzig into the Reich, Polish troops would open fire on the Free City. (Howarth)

1939 August 9 The joint British-French military mission arrives in Leningrad.

1939 August 9 Jews from several Hagana units sink the British police boat Sinbad II in Palestine. (Edelheit)

1939 August 10 The Warsaw government warns Germany that "any future intervention to the detriment of Polish rights and interests in Danzig will be considered an act of aggression."

1939 August 10 In Berlin: Julius Schnurre, head of the Economic Policy Department of the German Foreign Ministry, picks up discussions with Georgi Astakhov, Charge d'Affaires of the Soviet Embassy, sounding out the possibility of a pact between Germany and the Soviet Union.

1939 August 10 Delegates of the joint British-French military mission spend the day sightseeing in Leningrad.

1939 August 10 Alfred Naujocks, a young SS secret-service veteran and member of the SD since its founding in 1934, is personally ordered by Reinhard Heydrich to fake a Polish attack on the radio station at Gleiwitz near the Polish border. "Practical proof is needed for these attacks by the Poles for the foreign press as well as German propaganda," Heydrich tells Naujocks. (Alfred Naujocks, sworn affidavit, Nuremberg, November 20, 1945; Shirer I)

1939 August 10 Night-time air war exercises are conducted over England on a larger scale than any time since WWI. 500 aircraft (bombers with fighter support) sweep in from the east to attack Birmingham, Rochester, Bedford, Brighton and Derby. 800 defenders take off to challenge the attackers. Defending forces are largely successful in beating off the attacking forces. Bombers approaching London have particular difficulty because of a balloon barrage above the capital.

1939 August 11 The British-French military mission finally arrives in Moscow. It is agreed to start talks the next day; by then it will be too late. Approaches are already quietly underway between Germany and Russia (See August 19). (Shirer I)

1939 August 11 The British Foreign Office learns that Germany will be in a state of complete military readiness on August 15.

1939 August 11 Karl Burckhardt, Commissioner of the League of Nations in Danzig, is summoned to see Hitler at Berchtesgaden.

1939 August 11 Italian Foreign Minister Ciano and Ribbentrop meet in Salzburg. When Ciano asks Ribbentrop whether Germany wants the "Polish Corridor" or Danzig, Ribbentrop replies, "Not that any more.We want war." (Howarth)

1939 August 11 Gauleiter Foerster warns his Danzig Nazis to be prepared for anything.

1939 August 11 Jews begin to be expelled from the Czech Protectorate.

1939 August 12 The British-French military mission begins talks in Moscow. They will continue until August 19, but no agreement will be reached because of a dispute over Soviet troops being allowed in Poland. (WWIIDBD)

1939 August 12 Ciano meets with Hitler at Berchtesgaden. Hitler is pondering over his maps planning the war against Poland. Hitler believes that the war will be localized and there is not the slightest danger that Britain and France would fight. When Ciano protests that so little would be gained at such vast risk, Hitler says to him "You are a southerner, and you will never understand how much I, as a German, need to get my hands on the timber of the Polish forests." Ciano notes: "He has decided to strike, and strike he will."

1939 August 13 Ciano returns to Rome disgusted at the attitudes of Ribbentrop and Hitler. "They have betrayed us and lied to us. Now they are dragging us into an adventure which we do not want and which may compromise the regime and the country as a whole." (Ciano)

1939 August 14 New York Congressman Hamilton Fish, president of the U.S. delegation to the Interparliamentary Union Congress conference in Oslo, Norway, meets with Ribbentrop. Fish is a vocal isolationist and staunch opponent of Roosevelt. The congressman advocates better relations with Germany and hopes to solve the Danzig question during the August 15-19 conference in Norway. Ribbentrop tells Fish that Germany has lost its patience and unless Danzig is restored to Germany war will break out. (Secrets)

1939 August 14 Chamberlain and Halifax receive details of Ciano's meetings with Hitler and Ribbentrop. They consider the idea of sending a German-speaking Briton to negotiate directly with Hitler.

1939 August 14 Hitler orders Ribbentrop to telegraph Ambassador von der Schulenberg in Moscow, ordering him to secure "a speedy clarification of German-Russian relations." Ribbentrop says that he is prepared to personally fly to Moscow and present Hitler's views to Stalin "because only through such a direct discussion can a change be brought about, and it should not be impossible therefore to lay the foundation for a final settlement of German-Russian relations."

1939 August 15 German State Secretary Baron Ernst von Weizsäcker warns Sir Neville Henderson, the British Ambassador in Berlin, that the situation is extremely serious. Weizsäcker says any German diplomatic initiative is unthinkable in view of Beck's speech declaring that Poland was prepared to talk, only if Germany would first accept Poland's terms. In view of that, the ultimatum to the Danzig Senate, and the comminatory note to Germany of August 10, no further talks are possible.

1939 August 15 Churchill begins a tour of the Maginot Line, France's main land defensive barrier against Germany.

1939 August 15 Molotov meets with von der Schulenberg in Moscow and expresses great interest in Hitler's proposals. Von der Schulenberg in turn is surprised and pleased at the Russian's moderate conditions.

1939 August 15 Captain Karl Doenitz, head of the U-boat arm of the German Navy, is recalled unexpectedly early from leave.

1939 August 15 Ambassador Von Dirksen's leave in Berlin is uninterrupted. Although he wishes to see Ribbentrop, the Foreign Minister will not see him. Von Dirksen discovers that Italian Ambassador in Berlin, Bernardo Attolico, believes Hitler is about to go to war with Poland, ignoring Britain's conciliatory attitude. Von Dirksen is convinced Attolico is wrong. (See August 3)

1939 August 15 Advance mobilization orders are sent to the German railways, and plans are made to move Army headquarters to Zossen, east of Berlin. The navy reports that the pocket battleships Graf Spee and Deutschland and twenty-one submarines are ready to sail for their stations in the Atlantic. (Shirer I)

1939 August 15 The annual Nuremberg Party Rally, which Hitler proclaimed on April 1 as the "Party Rally of Peace" and which is scheduled to begin the first week in September, is secretly cancelled. (Shirer I)

1939 August 16 Ribbentrop cables von der Schulenberg, telling him that all Molotov's conditions can be met. Captain Doenitz arrives at Kiel, the main U-boat base, and begins to implement plans for Fall Weiss (Case White) the projected attack on Poland.

1939 August 16-26 The Twenty-first World Zionist Congress meets in Geneva. It strongly opposes the British White Paper and expresses concern for the fate of Jews in Germany, Poland and the rest of eastern Europe.

1939 August 17 The League of Nations' Permanent Mandate Commission rules that the British White Paper is inconsistent with provisions of the Mandate.

1939 August 17 General Halder makes a strange entry in his diary: "Canaris checked with Section I (Operations). Himmler, Heydrich, Obersalzberg: 150 Polish uniforms with accessories for Upper Silesia." (Shirer I) (See August 31, 8 PM)

1939 August 17 Molotov is highly gratified by the German's obvious haste to achieve a political agreement. Soviet Marshal Voroshilov - by now sure that neither the French nor the British mean business - dismisses their delegates for four days.

1939 August 17 Sumner Welles, U.S. Under Secretary of State, passes information concerning the German overtures to Moscow to British Ambassador Sir Ronald Lindsay, who immediately telegraphs London, confident his message will be in the Foreign Office first thing in the morning, London time. It is, but will not be deciphered for four days.

1939 August 18 Weizsäcker repeats his warning to the British and French Ambassadors. (See August 15)

1939 August 18 After learning a German attack on Poland is threatened to take place within two weeks, Sir Nevile Henderson, the British Ambassador in Berlin, implores Chamberlain to write personally to Hitler.

1939 August 18 Doenitz despatches Germany's 35 operational U-boats. 18 are sent to the eastern Atlantic and the remaining 17 to the Baltic for operations against Poland and possibly Russia.

1939 August 19 A German-Soviet economic agreement are completed and signed in Moscow. Molotov suddenly produces a draft of a Russian-German nonagression pact and invites Ribbentrop to Moscow on the 26th or 27th.

1939 August 19 Orders to sail are issued to the German Navy. The pocket battleship Graf Spee is ordered to waters off Brazil, and her sister ship, Deutschland, is directed to the North Atlantic. Twenty-one submarines are ordered to take up positions north and northwest of the British Isles. (Shirer I)

1939 August 19 At 7:10 PM, a telegram is received in Berlin from the German ambassador in Moscow: "SECRET. MOST URGENT. THE SOVIET GOVERNMENT AGREE TO THE REICH FOREIGN MINISTER COMING TO MOSCOW ON AUGUST 26 OR 27. MOLOTOV HANDED ME A DRAFT OF A NON-AGRESSION PACT." (Shirer I)

1939 August 19 Churchill and Chaim Weizmann meet in London. (Edelheit)

1939 August 20 In Moscow during the early hours of the morning an agreement in signed between Germany and the Soviet Union.

1939 August 20 Hitler, suspecting Molotov might cause delays in ratification of the nonagression pact, sends a personal message to Stalin asking him to receive Ribbentrop in Moscow as soon as possible, telling Stalin "The tension between Germany and Poland has become intolerable... A crisis may arise any day. Germany is at any rate determined from now on to look after the interests of the Reich with all the means at her disposal."

1939 August 20 The Soviet Union scores a major victory over Japan in the border conflict along the Outer Mongolia-Manchukuo frontier and Japan sues for peace. By the end of the campaign Soviet losses will be10,000 killed and wounded. Japanese losses: 52,000 to 55,000 killed and wounded.

1939 August 20 German U-boats take up positions in the North Atlantic shipping lanes.

1939 August 21 The Trade and Credit Agreement is signed between Germany and the Soviet Union. Stalin cables Hitler: "THE SOVIET GOVERNMENT HAVE INSTRUCTED ME TO INFORM YOU THAT THEY AGREE TO HERR VON RIBBENTROP'S ARRIVING IN MOSCOW ON AUGUST 23. -- J. STALIN."

1939 August 21 Neville Chamberlain arrives in London, having travelled overnight from Scotland. British Intelligence suggests that Field Marshal Hermann Goering should come to London for discussions.

1939 August 21 Soviet Marshal Voroshilov (knowing of Ribbentrop's impending arrival) indefinitely postpones any continuation of Anglo-French-Soviet talks.

1939 August 22 Chamberlain writes a letter to Hitler, warning him the German-Soviet Agreement will not alter Britain's obligation to come to the aid of Poland.

1939 August 22 Chamberlain gives a fighting speech, to be broadcast by the BBC, saying it is unthinkable that Great Britain should not carry out its obligations to Poland.

1939 August 22 Sir William Seeds, British Ambassador in Moscow, accuses Molotov of negotiating in bad faith.

1939 August 22 At Obersalzburg, Hitler tells his generals that the destruction of Poland "starts on Saturday morning" (26 August), the aim of this war is the wholesale destruction of Poland.

(Note: Hitler proclaims to the commanders of the armed services: "Our strength is in our quickness and our brutality. Genghis Khan had millions of women and children killed by his own will and with a gay heart. History sees him only as a great state builder... Thus for the time being I have sent to the East only my "Death's Head Units" with the order to kill without pity or mercy all men, women, and children of Polish race or language. Only in such a way will we win the vital space that we need. Who still talks nowadays of the extermination of the Armenians?") (Architect)

1939 August 22-4 The Fulda Bishop's Conference of 1939 includes the bishops of Austria and the Sudetenland for the first time. All are aware of the "Top Secret" instructions of July 17. (Lewy)

1939 August 23 The German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact is signed in Moscow. Sometimes called the Ribbentrop-Molotov Agreement of Non-Aggression, it sets up plans for a 10-year collaboration between Germany and Soviet Russia. Both parties agreed that if either became involved in a war, the other would give no help to the enemy; nor would either join any group against the other. There was no clause stating that withdrawal was allowed if one signatory attacked a third party, although this was customary in such treaties. A "secret protocol" to the agreement provided for the partition of Poland along the line of the rivers Pisa, Narew, Vistula and San in the event of what was referred to as a "territorial transition" taking place in Poland. The Soviet Union was allocated all the Byelorussian and Ukrainian provinces of Poland, as well as the province of Lublin and part of that of Warsaw. Germany was to take the western part of the country, though the possibility of retaining a small remnant of a Polish state was kept open. The USSR was to have a free hand in Finland, Estonia and Latvia; and Germany in Lithuania. Soviet interest in the Rumanian province of Bessarabia was recognised by Germany.)

1939 August 23 Hitler is delighted. He believes Stalin has just handed him the perfect opportunity to restore the Reich's "rightful possessions" without having to fight a war on two fronts. He is certain that this new treaty with the Russians will allow him to safely reclaim Danzig and take back the Polish Corridor. Britain and France, he tells his staff, without other major allies, will not go to war in such a situation... "especially over what everyone knows are, by all rights, German territories anyway." (Toland)

1939 August 23 Hitler sets the date for the invasion of Poland as: Saturday, August 26, at 4:30am. Colonel-General Alfred Jodl is appointed Chief of staff of the armed forces supreme command (OKW).

1939 August 23 Orders are issued to confiscate all radios belonging to German Jews. (Eyes)

1939 August 23 The British and French Special Military Mission leaves Moscow.

1939 August 23 French citizens are advised to leave Paris. Churchill leaves France and returns to London. Daladier asks the Permanent Committee for National Defence whether they can stand by and watch the disappearance of Poland and Rumania; they agree that they cannot.

1939 August 23 Sir Percy Lorain, British Ambassador to Rome, informs his government that he is confident the Italians will not fight. Mussolini declares himself ready to mediate.

1939 August 23 Hitler writes to Neville Chamberlain: "Germany was prepared to settle the questions of Danzig and of the Corridor by the method of negotiations on the basis of a truly unparalleled magnanimity, but the allegations put forth by England regarding a German mobilization against Poland, theassertion of aggressive designs toward Romania, Hungary, etc. as well as the so-called Guarantee Declarations which were subsequently given had dispelled any Polish inclination to negotiate on a basis which would have also been tolerable for Germany... The German Reich government has received information to the effect that the British government has the intention to carry out measures of mobilization which, according to the statements contained in your own letter, are clearly directed against Germany alone... I therefore inform your Excellency that in the event of these military announcements being carried into effect, I shall order the immediate mobilization of the German armed forces."

1939 August 23 Foreign Minister Beck agrees to allow passage of Soviet troops through Poland.

1939 August 23 Belgium proclaims its neutrality and mobilizes its army for defense.

1939 August 24 Poland and Great Britain formally sign a treaty of mutual assistance.

1939 August 24 The British Parliament reconvenes and passes the Emergency Powers Act. Royal Assent is given on the same day and the Royal Navy is ordered to war stations. Soon afterward a general mobilization begins.

1939 August 24 Hitler predicts the Chamberlain government will fail. Goering meets with Birger Dahlerus, a Swedish businessman and proposes that Dahlerus, who has good connections, should act as a go-between with Great Britain.

1939 August 24 President Roosevelt appeals for settlement of the Danzig crisis by mediation.

1939 August 24 Nazi Gauleiter Albert Foerster becomes head of state in Danzig.

1939 August 24 Pope Pius XII appeals for peace.

1939 August 25 Goering's friend, Swiss businessman Birger Dahlerus, lands in Croyden, England, in Goering's private plane. Dahlerus personally gives copies of Hitler's proposals for a peaceful settlement of the Danzig problem to Lord Halifax.

1939 August 25 Colonel Walery Slawek, a Polish opponent of the anti-German policies of Marshal Smigly-Rydz and President Moscicki, and a strong proponent of Marshal Pilsudski's pro-German policy, is murdered and his death ruled a suicide, even though two bullets are found in his body. (Sturdza)

1939 August 25 Hitler confers with British Ambassador Henderson, telling him that "Poland's provocations have become intolerable." Hitler then makes several new proposals to Britain, whose friendship, Hitler says, he has "always sought." In conclusion, Hitler strongly urges Henderson to leave for London that same day with these new proposals.

1939 August 25 Italian Ambassador Attolico tells Hitler that Italy will not support Germany without German help with arms. On hearing of this, Hitler cancels his invasion of Poland scheduled for 4:30 AM the following morning.

1939 August 25 The number of incidents along the Polish-German border increase. In Makeszowa, near Katowice, German soldiers take over the court house and railway station. Poles break into and wreck the offices of a German newspaper. More Polish reservists are called up and cars and horses are requisitioned.

1939 August 25 President Roosevelt once again appeals for peace.

1939 August 26 The British Chiefs of Staff advise the cabinet that the earliest possible date for any ultimatum to Germany is September 1.

1939 August 26 Dahlerus meets with Halifax again, flies back to Berlin with a letter for Goering and returns to London later that afternoon.

1939 August 26 French Ambassador Robert Coulondre sees Hitler and appeals to him as one soldier to another. When Coulondre cites the probable fate of women and children in any war, Hitler hesitates, but Ribbentrop quickly strengthens his resolve.

1939 August 26 The Polish government in Warsaw increases the pace of its military mobilization.

1939 August 26 Mussolini submits a list of Italian requirements to Ribbentrop.

1939 August 26 Palestinian Jews (IZL) assassinate two British police detectives accused on torturing suspects. Many Britons hate and fear the Jews as much as the Germans. (Edelheit)

1939 August 27 Italian Foreign Minister Ciano recommends British acceptance of Hitler's latest offer.

1939 August 27 The British Cabinet learns from Lord Halifax of "Mr D" (Birger Dahlerus) and his efforts on the Nazis behalf. Dahlerus arrives back in Berlin about midnight.

1939 August 27 Polish Foreign Minister Beck agrees to consider an exchange of population between predominantly German and predominantly Polish areas.

1939 August 28 Dahlerus has an early morning meeting with Goering and Sir George Ogilvie-Forbes, Counsellor of the British Embassy, before breakfasting again with Goering. Later that day rationing is imposed in Germany.

1939 August 28 Polish Foreign Minister Beck refuses to go to Berlin. Beck says he accepts the principle of direct negotiations, but towards midnight tells British Ambassador Kennard that Polish mobilisation is proceeding.

1939 August 28 Karl Maria Weisthor (Wiligut) officially retires from the SS. Himmler requests the return of Weisthor's SS Totenkopfring, (Deathshead ring), SS dagger, and sword. Himmler personally keeps them under lock and key. (Weisthor file, Berlin Document Center; Roots)

1939 August 28 Ambassador Henderson returns to Berlin from London. Chamberlain requests information concerning Hitler's intentions towards Poland.

1939 August 28 Slovak Premier Josef Tiso invites the Germany army to occupy Slovakia. (Edelheit)

1939 August 28 The Netherland (Holland) orders a general military mobilization.

1939 August 29 At 7.00 AM Dahlerus telephones Cadogan with news of his meeting with Goering. The Fuehrer "was in fact only considering how reasonable he could be," he said, and was about to extend an invitation to the Poles for discussions in Berlin.

1939 August 29 Chamberlain makes a firm uncompromising speech in the House of Commons, saying "The catastrophe is not yet upon us, but I cannot say that the danger of it has in any way receded." He warns the press to exercise restraint, and apologizes for not being able to give more than an outline of his communications with Hitler.

1939 August 29 Hitler meets with Henderson, repeats his friendly sentiments towards the British Empire and grudgingly accepts direct negotiations with Poland, but demands that a Polish plenipotentiary must arrive in Berlin by the end of the following day. Henderson tells Hitler that the short term of 36 hours sounds like an ultimatum. Hitler replies that this is not an ultimatum, but has the purpose of stressing the urgency of a situation where two completely mobilized armies are confronting one another. On the Western border, only five German divisions man the Siegfried Line in front of the entire French Army.

1939 August 29 German troops enter Slovakia on Poland's southern frontier, but Ambassadors Kennard and Nokl persuade Beck to postpone any further Polish mobilization.

1939 August 29 Ernst von Weizsäcker, State Secretary in the Foreign Ministry learns of a secret annex to the 1933 Concordat with the Vatican. It stipulates that in the event Germany introduces universal military training, students studying for the priesthood are declared exempt except in the case of general mobilization. In that event most of the diocesan clergy are to be exempt from reporting for service, while all others are to be inducted for pastoral work with the troops or into the medical corps. (Lewy)

1939 August 29 Switzerland orders full mobilization of its frontier forces.

1939 August 30 The Warsaw government orders the Polish army to fully mobilize. Drastic measures are taken to stop any possible sabotage by pro-Germans. (Edelheit)

1939 August 30 Ambassador Henderson is advised by the Home Office that Hitler's demand for the arrival of a Polish plenipotentiary that day is unreasonable. Henderson and Ribbentrop meet again, and this time come close to blows. Ribbentrop goes over Hitler's latest proposals, but Henderson claims Ribbentrop refuses to give him a copy of the text.

1939 August 30 Hitler agrees to Britain's request for a 24-hour extension to permit a Polish negotiator to meet with von Ribbentrop.

1939 August 30 Beck tells Ambassador Kennard that Polish mobilization will resume at midnight. By 4.30 PM. all Polish towns are covered with posters summoning all men up to the age of 40 to report for enlistment. (Howarth)

1939 August 30 The British Foreign Office sends a message at 5:30 PM to Berlin after it receives reports of German sabotage in Poland. It says in part, "Germany must exercise complete restraint if Poland is to do so as well."

1939 August 31 The sixth decree on implementation of the law on sterilization virtually puts an end to sterilizations in Germany. (Science)

1939 August 31 Henderson, instead of informing the Poles of Hitler's proposals and the granting of an extension, tries to dissuades Lipski from meeting with von Ribbentrop at all. Henderson, in his Final Report, writes "I suggested that he (Lipski) recommend to his government an interview between Marshal Smigly-Rydz and Goering. I felt obliged to add that I could not conceive of the success of any negotiations if they were conducted by Ribbentrop." (Sturdza)

1939 August 31 A telegram from Sir Howard Kennard, British Ambassador in Warsaw to Lord Halifax states that Polish Foreign Minister Beck has informed him that Lipski has been forbidden to receive any documents from von Ribbentrop.

1939 August 31 Lipski telegrams Beck that French Ambassador Coulondre has told him that Henderson has been informed of Germany's intention to wait until midnight August 31st. Lipski writes: "Coulondre advises me to inform the German government, only after midnight, that the Polish Embassy was always at its reach." (Sturdza)

1939 August 31 The Supreme Soviet ratifies the German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact.

1939 August 31 At half past noon, Hitler issues Directive # 1 for the conduct of the war: (1) Now that all the political possibilities of disposing by peaceful means of a situation which is intolerable for Germany are exhausted, I have determined on a solution by force. (2) The attack on Poland is to be carried out. Date of attack: September 1, 1939. Time of attack: 4:45am. (Shirer I)

1939 August 31 Polish Ambassador Lipski meets with Ribbentrop at 6:15 PM.

1939 August 31 A telegram to Beck from Lipski informs the Foreign Minister that "I have met with von Ribbentrop. I have obeyed instructions received and told him that I was not empowered to negotiate. Mr. von Ribbentrop repeated that he believed I had such powers. He told me that he would report my visit to the Chancellor."

1939 August 31 SS Sturmbannfuehrer Alfred Helmut Naujocks is said to have received the code words "Grandmama dead," thus ending a 14 day wait at the German radio station at Gleiwitz, where he and Gestapo head Heinrich Mueller are to carry out a mock attack. The "canned goods:" a dozen "condemned criminals" dressed in Polish military uniforms are believed to have been given fatal injections before being shot.

(Note: See Alfred Naujocks, sworn affidavit, Nuremberg, November 20, 1945. Shortly after signing his affidavit, Naujocks mysteriously disappeared from custody. Some Germans and numerous antisemites believe he had been forced to sign his confession and was murdered to keep him silent.)

1939 August 31 At 8 PM the German radio station at Gleiwitz near the Polish border announces it is under attack. Most contemporary historians believe Hitler staged this attack as an excuse to invade Poland. Holocaust deniers and historical revisionists, however, suggest that British or Jewish secret agents were responsible. (See August 10,15, 17, 1939)

1939 August 31 At 8.20 PM Ciano is informed by the telephone central office that London has cut its communications with Italy. (Howarth)

1939 August 31 At 9 PM all radio stations in Germany interrupt their schedules to broadcast Hitler's 16 point plan for Poland. It includes provisions for: the annexation of Danzig by Germany; a corridor across the Danzig Corridor; a plebiscite to be held in the Corridor area in 12 months time, and a later exchange of populations. The port of Gdynia is to be recognized as Polish, thus leaving Poland with access to the sea. It will not be delivered to the Polish ambassador until September 1. (Howarth; Bell)

1939 August 31 A huge banquet is held in Ribbentrop's honor at the Kremlin in Moscow. Ribbentrop, Stalin, Molotov, Voroshilov, Kaganovich, Mikoyan and Beria are all seated at the head table. The party ends at 3:00 AM.

WORLD WAR II

1939 September 1 4:45 AM, German troops cross the Polish frontier. The German military machine strikes in what is known as a Blitzkrieg (lightning war). High-speed panzer (tank) units blast holes in the Polish lines. Luftwaffe (air force) bombers destroy the Polish air force on the ground, damage communications lines, and prevent the Poles from moving reinforcements, supplies, and ammunition to the front, while German motorized units and footsoldiers quickly move forward to capture and hold the conquered ground. In all, 53 German divisions take part in the attack.

1939 September 1 An 8 PM curfew is established for all German Jews.

1939 September 1 Mussolini proposes a suspension of hostilities and the immediate convening of a Conference of the Big Powers, Poland included, to discuss terms for a peaceful settlement. Germany, France and Poland immediately accept Mussolini's proposals. Britain categorically rejects any negotiations and demands withdrawal of German troops from all occupied Polish territory (30 kilometers deep). Britain does not consult with Warsaw before making its decision.

1939 September 1 Osborne, British Ambassador at the Vatican, reports to Lord Halifax that he had suggested to Papal Secretary of State Luigi Maglione that publication of the last-minute unsuccessful peace appeal of Pope Pius XII be accompanied by an expression of regret that the German government, despite the Papal appeal, has plunged the world into war. Maglione, he says, has turned down this request as too specific an intervention into international politics. (Lewy)

1939 September 1 The Euthanasia Decree, which will not actually be written until October, is predated to go into effect on this date in Greater Germany. This decree orders that all Germans with incurable diseases are to be killed in order to free up needed hospital space and eliminate "useless eaters."

1939 September 1 Gauleiter Albrecht Foerster proclaims an anschluss (union) of Danzig with Greater Germany.

1939 September 2 Coulondre telegrams Daladier: "Stay firm, Hitler will knuckle under." France revokes its acceptance of Mussolini's peace proposals.

1939 September 2 German control is established in Danzig and a concentration camp is opened outside the city at Stutthof. Hundreds of Jews are among the first prisoners.

1939 September 2 The Gestapo orders all Jews in Germany between 16 and 55 years of age to report for compulsory labor. (Edelheit)

1939 September 3 Great Britain, France, Australia and New Zealand declare war on Germany. The British ultimatum that Germany withdraw from Poland was delivered to the German Foreign Ministry at 9 AM by Ambassador Neville Henderson. It gave Hitler two hours to begin the withdrawal or a state of war would exists between the two nations. At 11 AM the French ultimatum was delivered. It expires at 5 PM.

1939 September 3 Ten British bombers drop 13 tons of leaflets on the Ruhr. Printed on the six million sheets of paper is the message: "Your rulers have condemned you to the massacres, miseries and privations of a war they cannot ever hope to win." (Duffy)

1939 September 3 Unity Mitford shoots herself in the head with a small pistol outside a German government building in Munich. Her attempt is unsuccessful, but she will continue to live for several years after the war as an invalid.

1939 September 3 Lieutenant Colonel Nikolaus von Vormann, army liaison officer to Hitler, records in his notes of the day: "Even today the Fuehrer still believes that the Western powers are only going to stage a phony war, so to speak." (Irving I)

1939 September 3 A German U-boat is accused of sinking the Athenia, a Canadian liner bound for Montreal. The sinking results in the loss of 112 lives, including 28 Americans. During the first two months of the war, 67 British merchant ships are sunk. (See October 5)

1939 September 3 Himmler tells the Einsatzgruppe under Udo von Woyrsch that its mission is to suppress the Polish resistence movement with all available means. The overall operation of the Einsatzgruppen in Poland has been given the code-name Aktion Tannenberg. It will officially come to an end on October 25. (Architect)

(Note: It is uncertain whether this code-name referred to the Battle of Tannenberg (1914) or to the well-known Pan-German writer Otto Richard Tannenberg. (See Tannenberg, 1911)

1939 September 4 With Hitler's consent, Goering makes a speech asking for a settlement with Poland.

1939 September 4 Hitler visits Marshal Pilsudski's grave in the Krakow Cathedral. (Sturdza)

1939 September 4 British Blenheim and Wellington bombers attack the German naval facilities at Wilhelmshaven. Of the 29 bombers that took off from England, 5 failed to find the target and 7 were shot down. The only serious damage was done by a Blenheim that managed to crash into the bow of the cruiser Emden, killing a number of sailors. (Duffy)

1939 September 5 The United States proclaims neutrality in the European war.

1939 September 6 The German command asks the Polish Command to evacuate noncombatants from Warsaw if it intends to defend the city. Poland answers: "Warsaw will be defended, nobody will be evacuated." (Sturdza)

1939 September 7 Heydrich tells his division heads that the Polish leadership must be "neutalized." The Einsatzgruppen already had lists of people considered to be hostile to Germany, which included members of Polish patriotic organizations, communists, clergymen, noblemen, and Jews. (Architect)

1939 September 7-9 French forces cross the German border at three different locations: near Saarbrücken, Saarlouis, and Zweibrücken. The French meet little resistence due to the fact that Hitler had ordered German units near the border not to engage the French units unless they were attacked and forced to return fire. The transfer of troops to Poland had left only eleven regular divisions plus the equivalent of one division of fortress troops defending the western frontier. These were supported by 35 recently-formed divisions of second-, third-, and fouth-line troops. There were no armored or motorized units facing west; they had all been tranferred to the east. (Duffy)

1939 September 9 Hitler issues an amnesty for Catholic priests accused of minor infractions of German law (See March 11, 1940). (Lewy)

1939 September 9 All Jewish men in the small Ruhr town of Gelsenkirchen are deported to the concentration camp at Sachsenhausen, near Berlin. The women and children are left to fend for themselves. (Atlas)

1939 September 12 Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, head of the Abwehr, protests to General Keitel that extensive shootings are planned in Poland, and that the nobility and intelligentsia are to be exterminated. The world, Canaris said, would hold the armed forces responsible. (Architect)

1939 September 12 The French army now occupies a 15-mile-wide front some five miles inside German territory. Although his forces have met no real opposition to its advance, General Maurice Gamelin halts his army and issues orders to prepare for a rapid retreat at the first sign of strong German opposition. (Duffy)

Note: General Gamelin brazenly lies to the beleaguered Poles when they protest the lack of French action; telling them that half of his active divisions are engaged in combat and meeting vigorous German resistence. "I have thus gone beyond my promise to take the offensive with the bulk of my forces by the fifteenth day after mobilization. It has been impossible for me to do more." Only 9 of France's 85 divisions on the frontier were employeed in the "offensive." (Shirer II)

1939 September 17 Stalin's Soviet Army invades Poland from the East.Neither England nor France chooses to break diplomatic relations with Moscow or declare war, despite Russia's obvious aggression.

Note: Churchill tried to look on the bright side, saying he saw an advantage in that it would require 25 German divisions to watch the Russians on the eastern front and he was certain that war in the Balkans would eventually result. In an early broadcast he told his listeners that "I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma; but perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interest."

1939 September 17 Charles Lindbergh makes his first anti-intervention speech on U.S. radio, arguing that Stalin is as much to be feared as Hitler. (Bookshelf)

1939 September 18 The Polish government and High Command escape into exile in France.

1939 September 21 Reinhard Heydrich tells a meeting of his department heads in the Reich Central Security Office (RSHA), an organization emcompassing the Gestapo, SS, SD, and Criminal Police, that the mass deportations of thousands of Jews, including Poles, Germans, Austrians, Czechs and Slovaks, to the eastern areas of Poland are the "first steps in the final solution" (die Endlösung).(Apparatus)

1939 September 21 Romanian Legionaries murder Armand Calinescu, who they blame for the death of Corneliu Codreanu. Nine of the assassins turn themselves in to police and all are quickly executed.

1939 September 21 The Germans decree that all Polish communities with less than 500 Jews are to be dissolved and that the Jews are hereafter to live in certain restricted areas in the larger cities, or in a special region between Lublin and Nisko, called the "Lublinland reservation." (Atlas)

1939 September 21 Cardinal August Hlond, Primate of Poland, arrives in Rome and personally reports of German atrocities against Catholic priests in Poland to the Pope. The Vatican radio and "L'Osservatore Romano" tell the story to the world. (Lewy)

1939 September 22 Four hundred Legionaries are murdered in Romania by government dead squads and their bodies left at the country's crossroads as a warning to others.

1939 September 23 All German Jews are ordered to turn in their radios to the local police. (Persecution

1939 September 23 Sigmund Freud dies at age eighty-three.

1939 September 24 Throughout the Jewish Day of Atonement, Jewish prisoners-of-war are forced to clean the latrines with their bare hands and are treated with particular brutality. (Atlas)

1939 September 24 The Luftwaffe firebombs Warsaw. (Edelheit)

1939 September 24 Synagogues throuhout Poland are burned down by Brenn-kommandos, German arson squads. The Germans accuse Jews of setting the fires and impose huge fines on the Jewish communities. (Edelheit)

1939 September 26 German local commanders in the vicinity of the German-Soviet line of demarcation issue a second order for Jews to leave their villages and cross over to the Russian side of the River San. Thousands of Jews are uprooted, robbed, and locked out of their homes and apartments. Hundreds are killed in the process. (Edelheit)

1939 September 27 The RSHA begins operation. Eventually it will become responsible for carryiing out the Endloesung der Judenfrage (final solution of the Jewish Question).

1939 September 27 Warsaw surrenders to the Germans after undergoing 36 hours of Luftwaffe bombing, strafings and artillery fire. Thousands of civilians are killed including an estimated 3,000 Jews.

1939 September 27 "Pray examine and advise upon a proposal to establish a minefiield, blocking Norwegian territorial waters at some lonely spot on the coast as far north as convenient. If the Norwegians will do this themselves, well and good. Otherwise a plan must be made for us to do it." (British First Lord to First Sea Lord and others, 27 September 1939)

1939 September 27 The Bulgarian government moves to suppress growing antisemitic violence.

1939 September 28 The Polish army surrenders. Approximately 750,000 Poles have been taken prisoner-of-war by the Germans and the Soviets.

1939 September 28 The German-Soviet Friendship Treaty is signed in order to regulate the Polish borders. Poland is in effect partitioned between Germany and the Soviet Union. Wladyslaw Raczkiewicz forms a Polish government-in-exile in France. During the fighting about 60,000 Polish soldiers have been killed, of whom some 6,000 were Jews.

1939 September 28 Lithuania annexes the Vilna region of Poland.

1939 September 28 Polish Cardinal August Hlond is allowed to broadcast a message to the Poles of the world over the Vatican Radio. The Pope, unhappy with the cardinal's presence in Rome, wants him to return to Poland, but the Germans will not allow it. (Lewy)

1939 September 28 General Wladyslaw Sikorski is named to command the new Polish army forming in France.

1939 September 28 An estimated 10,000 Polish Jews from Jaroslav (P) are driven across the River San into Soviet occupied Poland. (Edelheit)

NOTE: Pro-Germans and Holocaust deniers claim that (all along the borders) far more Jews escaped to the Soviet zone and later disappeared into the vast expanses of Russia, Siberia and the far east. This, they say, accounts for the large number of Polish Jews unaccounted for after the war, and who now are believed to have been killed in the death camps. This has never been proven.

1939 September 29 Germany and the Soviet Union officially partition Poland per their previous agreements.

1939 September 29 Food rationing is strongly enforced in Czechoslovakia.

1939 September 29 Nazi officials initiate the euthanasia program in occupied Poland. Thousands of mental patients, the chronically ill and the feeble are murdered by "medical teams."

1939 September 30 German Minister of Ecclesiastical Affairs Hanns Kerrl sends word to all church authorities suggesting that all church bells should ring during the noon hour for seven days "out of grateful commemoration of the victory (over Poland) and of the dead."

1939 September 30 About 400,000 of the 600,000 people classified as Jews in Germany have already fled the country. Of the 200,000 who remain, about 150,000 will die in the concentration camps.

1939 September 30 General Gamelin issues orders for the French army to begin withdrawing from Germany during the night. (Duffy)

1939 September-October Germany annexes the northern and western portions of German-occupied Poland, including provinces Germany had been forced to give up by the Treaty of Versailles. The southern and eastern portions become an occupied zone, in effect a German colony, designated as the Government General of Poland. (Apparatus)

1939 September-October Stalin forces the Baltic states -- Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania -- to accept garrisons of Soviet troops within their borders.

1939 September-October Simon Wiesenthal becomes a commissar for the Soviet secret police in western Poland, thereby avoiding deportation to the Siberian labor camps.

1939 October The first "euthanasia" questionnaires are distributed to mental hospitals. They are completed, in their capacity as "experts," by Professors Heyde, Mauz, Nitsche, Panse, Pohlisch, Reisch, C. Schneider, Villinger, and Zucker, all of whom are professors of psychiatry, and thirty-nine other doctors of medicine. Their payment is 5 pfennigs per questionnaire when more than 3,500 are processed per month, and up to 10 pfennigs when there are less than 500. A cross signifies death. There are 283,000 questionnaires to be processed. These experts mark at least 75,000 with a cross. (Science)

1939 October-November During this period 214 Polish priests are executed, among them the entire cathedral chapter of the bishopric of Peplin. (Broszat; Lewy)

1939 October-April Following Hitler's speedy victory in Poland, a period known as the Phony War follows in western Europe. Hitler proposes several peace conferences, all are quicklyly rejected. The British and French use this 6-month lull for strategic planning.

1939 October Stalin disappears from the Kremlin for two days to meet secretly with Hitler. (KGB Archives.)

1939 October 1 Cardinal Bertram informs all bishops that they should comply with Kerrl's suggestion of September 30, and the church bells in all dioceses in Germany ring out to celebrate Hitler's first military victory. (Lewy)

1939 October 4 All French forces except for a light screen have withdrawn from Germany and returned to French territory. (Duffy)

1939 October 5 President Roosevelt and his Cabinet discuss an official message from German Admiral Raeder to the American military attache in Berlin, warning him that the British are planning to sink the Iroquois, an American ship. Harold Ickes writes in his secret diary, "Of course no one in this country believes that the British would do a thing of this sort, but Hitler and his government have not ceased to insist that it was Churchill who personally gave the orders to sink the Athenia (September 3) for the purpose of having it blamed on the German government in the hope of embroiling us with Germany." (Ickes)

1939 October 6 Hitler calls for a new European conference to end the war, and to settle Germany's differences with England and France. Hitler declares to the Reichstag that Germany has "no further claims against France," and adds, "Nowhere have I ever acted against British interests."

1939 October 7 Himmler issues a new decree giving him a new title: Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of the German People (RFV). (Architect)

1939 October 9 Hitler issues Directive No 6, saying: If England and France will not end the war, then, he will go over to the offensive.

1939 October 10 President Daladier of France rejects Hitler's offer to negotiate.

1939 October 10 Churchill argues in the British Cabinet for the mining of Norwegian coastal waters to interfere with German iron ore traffic.

1939 October 10 Admiral Raeder mentions to Hitler for the first time the idea of invading Norway.

1939 October 12 Chamberlain also rejects Hitler's offer of peace. Saying it would amount to forgiving Germany for all its aggression.

1939 October 12 The Nazis begin deporting Jews from Austria and Moravia to Poland. (Persecution)

1939 October 12 Hans Frank is appointed Chief Civilian Officer in occupied Poland. (Goebbels)

1939 October 14 A German U-boat penetrates the defenses of Scapa Flow, the British naval base in the Orkney Islands, and sinks the battleship Royal Oak, killing 833.

1939 October 15 Of the 16,000 Polish civilians executed in the first six weeks of the war, 5,000 were Jewish. About 250,000 Jews escaped from the Germans into the Soviet Union. Some were immediately deported to labor camps in Siberia, where many of them later died. (Atlas)

1939 October 16 A German counterattack begins driving out the few remaining French troops in Germany, and by the following night, no French forces remain on German soil. (Duffy)

1939 October 16 Rarkowski, bishop of the German army, declares in a pastoral letter that "the Almighty God had visibly blessed the struggle against Poland that has been forced upon us." (The average German soldier had no way of knowing for sure whether Poland had indeed mistreated its German minority, or fired the first shots as claimed by Hitler.) (Lewy)

1939 October 18 President Roosevelt issues a proclamation closing U.S. offshore waters and all U.S. ports to submarines of all belligerents. (Schlessinger I)

1939 October 19 The Kristallnacht "Atonement fee" for Jews is increased to 1.25 billion RM and has to be paid by November 15, 1939. (Persecution)

1939 October 19 Hitler incorporates western Poland into the German Reich.

1939 October 25 Aktion Tannenberg. officially comes to an end. SS special task forces (Einsatzgruppen) have murdered hundreds of Jews and members of the Polish intelligentsia, burned down dozens of synagogues, and waged an all-out campaign of terror against non-German,Polish civilians. (See September 3)

1939 October 28 Starting with the town of Piotrkow, German authorities begin confining the Jews of Poland to a particular area (ghetto) of each city or town in which they live. Sometimes this area is the already prominently Jewish quarter, but often it is a poor or neglected part of th town, away from the center. Jews from the rest of the town are then forced to leave their homes, and to move into this, often much smaller area, in which even the basic amenities are unavailable. In eachof these ghetto areas, food and medical supplies are restricted. Intense overcrowding, hunger and disease lead to widespread suffering and death. (Atlas)

1939 October 28 Himmler sets off a controversy when he issues an extraordinary "order" for the entire SS and police to father as many children as possible, even outside of marriage, to compensate for the German blood lost in the war. Himmler pledges to provide generous support for all such children, regardless of their parents marital status. (Architect)

1939 October 30 Himmler orders that all Jews must be cleared out of the rural areas of western Poland within 3 months. In the Poznan region, 50 communities are immediately uprooted. (Atlas)

1939 November 3 Hitler suggests using The Protocols of the Elders of Zion abroad to demonstrate that the true instigators of the war are Jews and Freemasons. (Segel/Levy)

1939 November 4 The American Neutrality Act is modified to allow the sale of arms to billigerents on a "Cash and Carry" basis. Only the British and French can benefit because on the terms and conditions imposed.

1939 November 6 Himmler departs for Munich to prepare for the annual Blutzeuge celebration to commemorate the 1923 putsch. (Architect)

1939 November 7 Queen Wilhemina of the Netherlands and King Leopold of Belgium issue a plea for peace to England and France.

1939 November 7 Hitler postpones his attack on the west, which was scheduled for November 12. This postponement will be repeated 15 times until May 10, 1940.

1939 November 8 Hitler tells a meeting of "Old Fighters" in Munich, "What were the aims of Britain in the last war? Britain said she was fighting for justice. Britain has been fighting for justice for three hundred years. As a reward God gave her 40 million square kilometers of the world and 480 million people to dominate." (Payne)

1939 November 8 A bomb supposedly intended for Hitler explodes at the Burgebraukeller in Munich. Hitler had cut short his speech and abruptly left shortly before the explosion. Eight are killed and sixty are injured in the blast. Johann Georg Elser, a carpenter from Württemberg, is arrested a week later. The Nazis are convinced he is involved in a British plot with Otto Strasser, who was in Switzerland and returned to England soon after the explosion. (Goebbels)

Note: The British claimed Hitler, himself, staged this explosion to gain the propaganda value.

1939 November 8 Two British spies are arrested for espionage at Venlo on the Dutch-German border by the Germans, who capture a list of British agents and use it to make numerous arrests of British agents in Czechoslovakia and other occupied countries.

1939 November 8 Hans Frank becomes Governor General of Poland. He quickly encourages the persecution of the Jews.

1939 November 9 On Hitler's instructions, Goebbels cancels the Day of National Solidarity (Blutzeuge) in Munich, saying, "In these times, it is too dangerous." (Goebbels)

1939 November 10 The Papal Nunzio in Berlin delivers the special personal congratulations of Pope Pius on Hitler's miraculous escape from the assassination attempt of November 8. (Lewy)

1939 November 12 A Te Deum is sung in the Cathedral of Munich "in order to thank the divine Providence in the name of the archdiocese for the Fuehrer's fortunate escape from the criminal attempt made upon his life." ("Munchener Katholische Kirchenzeitung," Lewy)

1939 November 12 King George VI of England and President Lebrun of France reply to Queen Wilhemina and King Leopold refusing to negotiate with Hitler.

1939 November 16 Martial law is declared in Prague after shootings by anti-Fascists.

1939 November 21 The British begin blockading German exports.

1939 November 23 Mandatory wearing of the Star of David by Jews is ntroduced by the Germans in Poland. (Persecution)

1939 November 28 the USSR denounced its nonaggression pact with Finland, which had resisted Soviet pressures.

1939 November 30 The Soviets invade Finland and the Russo-Finnish war begins. The Finns put up a surprisingly spirited resistance in what is called the Russo-Finnish War, or Winter War. The Western Powers again fail to act against Russia, and later Churchill will declare war on Finland.

1939 December Hitler tells a private meeting of his Gauleiter at the end of 1939, "The Jews may deceive the world... but they cannot deceive me. I know that they are guilty of starting this war -- they alone and nobody else." (Waite)

1939 December The first euthanasia centers open in Germany. The first victims are shot, but as the program is expanded, gassing rooms disguised as showers are used. The largest of these institutions are at Grafeneck in Wuttemberg and Hadamar in Hesse.

1939 December 1 Trainloads of deportees begin rolling into the newly created Government General in eastern Poland. The administration which already has 1.4 million Jews under its jurisdiction is overwhelmed by the numbers -- an average of more than 3,000 per day. (These mass movements were designed to make room in the annexed area of Poland for ethnic Germans who were moving westward under special agreement with the Russians, from the Baltic States and other regions now under Soviet control. (Apparatus)

1939 December 2 Finland appeals to the League of Nations to mediate in their dispute with the Soviets.

1939 December 5 The Soviet Seventh Army reaches the Mannerheim Line, the main Finnish defenses.

1939 December 7 Inmates, including many Jews, at Tiegenhof asylum near Gnesen in the Polish Wartheland are said to be among the earliest victims of Nazi Germany's poison-gas technology. Bottled carbon-monoxide appears to have been used in vans. (Architect)

1939 December 8 Alfred Rosenberg introduces Hitler to Vidkun Quisling, head of the Norwegian National Unity Party.

1939 December 8 The Pope issues a pastoral letter to the clergy serving as military chaplains in the armed forces of the warring nations. The present war, Pius declared, should be seen as a manifestation of God's providence, as the will of a Heavenly Father who always turns evil into good. (Lewy)

1939 December 9-11 The League of Nations meets and agrees to intervene in the continuing dispute between Finland and the Soviet Union.

1939 December 12 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). (Atlas)

1939 December 14 The Soviets refuse to recognize League of Nations intervention and are expelled from membership. England and France continue to maintain diplomatic relations with Russia.

1939 December 17 The German pocket battleship Graf Spee is scuttled off Montevideo, Argentina, after a battle with British warships. It had already sunk nine Allied ships.

1939 December 23 The first 7,500 Canadian troops arrive in the United Kingdom.

1939 December 27 The First Indian army troops join the British Expeditionary Force in France.

1939 December 29 Spanish Falangists publish The Protocols of the Elders of Zion as a prelude to a New Year's denunciation of Jews and Freemasons by Franco.

1939 President Roosevelt appoints Edward R. Stettinius, Jr. chairman of the War Resources Board. Stettinius selects Walter Gifford of American Telephone and Telegraph, Robert Wood of Sears, Roebuck and John Lee Pratt of GM to serve with him.

1939 The He 176, the world's first jet airplane, is tested in Germany.

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