This Day In History

May 12th 1949: Berlin Blockade ends

On this day in 1949 the Soviet Union lifted their blockade of the Allies’ access to West Berlin which was under their control. The Soviets aimed to force the Allies to give them control over the whole of Berlin by preventing the sending of supplies to West Berlin. However, the Allies organised the Berlin Airlift which dropped supplies to the people of Berlin. The airlift was successful, and after almost a year the embarrassed Soviets lifted the blockade. Thus two German states were created: West Germany (under Allied control) and East Germany (under Soviet control). The crisis is considered one of the first crises of the Cold War.

May 10th 1941: Hess parachutes into Scotland

On this day in 1941 during the Second World War, Adolf Hitler’s deputy in the Nazi Party Rudolf Hess fled Germany and parachuted into Scotland in an attempt to negotiate peace with the United Kingdom. On 10th May he took off in a plane from Augsburg, Germany, evading capture by German forces. In the evening he arrived over the UK and parachuted down near the Scottish village of Eaglesham. He told authorities he had an important message and was handed to the army who took him as a prisoner of war. Winston Churchill sent Hess to the Tower of London, making him its last inmate. After the war he was tried at the Nuremberg Trials and sentenced to life imprisonment, which he served at Spandau Prison in Berlin. Despite calls for his release Hess died in prison in 1987, supposedly due to suicide by hanging, but many claim others helped in his death.

“I do not think I could have arrived at my final choice unless I had continually kept before my eyes the vision of an endless line of children’s coffins with weeping mothers behind them, both English and German, and another line of coffins of mothers with mourning children”
- Hess on why he flew to the UK

May 7th 1915: RMS Lusitania sunk

On this day in 1915 during World War One, German submarine U-20 torpedoed and sank the British RMS Lusitania, killing 1,198 including 128 Americans. Public outcry in the United States turned many people against the Germans, thus contributing to America’s entry into World War One. The ship was supposedly targeted for its cargo which included ammunition and war supplies. US President Woodrow Wilson was initially reluctant to over-react but America eventually did enter the war on the Allied side in 1917.

May 6th 1937: Hindenburg disaster

On this day in 1937, 75 years ago, a German passenger airship called the Hindenburg caught fire near Lakehurst, New Jersey, killing 36. The ship was attempting to dock at the Lakehurst Naval Air Station but caught fire and was quickly destroyed; the cause of the fire is still unknown. Miraculously, 62 survived the blaze. The disaster was widely broadcast and the commentary of reporter Herbert Morrison highlighted the magnitude of the catastrophe and signalled the end of the era of the passenger airship. (watch footage with Morrison’s commentary here)

“Oh, the humanity!”
- Morrison reporting the disaster

May 2nd 1945: Fall of Berlin

On this day in 1945 during the Second World War, the Soviet Union announced the capture of Berlin. The Battle of Berlin was the final offensive in the European theatre of the war. As the Soviets advanced on the capital, German Chancellor Adolf Hitler retreated into his Führerbunker and on 30th April he and his wife Eva Braun committed suicide. Two days later Berlin’s defenders surrendered to the Soviets as they captured the Reichstag and famously raised a Soviet flag over the historic building. The photo above by Yevgeny Khaldei became famous as representative of the fall of Berlin and, for Soviets, the victory of the USSR. 

April 27th 1810: Beethoven composes Für Elise

On this day in 1810, the famous German composer Ludwig van Beethoven composed his piano piece Für Elise (in English: For Elise). The piece was not published until 1867, long after Beethoven’s death as the manuscript had been lost. It is now one of the most famous piano pieces of all time and one of Beethoven’s best known works.

(listen here)

March 23rd 1933: Enabling Act passed

On this day in 1933, the German Reichstag passed the Enabling Act, which made Adolf Hitler dictator of Germany. The law gave Chancellor Hitler legal powers to establish his dictatorship as it gave the Cabinet the power to enact laws independently of the legislature (the Reichstag). Its formal name was ‘Law to Remedy the Distress of People and Reich’. Hitler had been appointed Chancellor on January 30th, and just before the scheduled election, the Reichstag fire occurred. The Nazis used the incident to suggest a Communist revolution was imminent and passed the Reichstag Fire Decree which suspended civil liberties and habeas corpus. The Nazis failed to gain an absolute  majority in the Reichstag and so Hitler drafted the Enabling Act to secure his position. The Nazis pressured and threatened representatives of the Reichstag to pass the bill, positioning SA men and Nazi swastikas in and around the Reichstag. With the bill’s passing, Hitler’s dictatorship was assured, and thus began a regime which would last until 1945. As Joseph Goebbels wrote after the  passing of the act:

“The authority of the Führer has now been wholly established. Votes are no longer taken. The Führer decides. All this is going much faster than we had dared to hope.”

March 21st 1871: Otto von Bismarck becomes the first Chancellor of Germany

On this day in 1871, Otto von Bismarck became the first Chancellor the newly united German Empire. He had previously served as Minister President of Prussia, and oversaw the Austro-Prussian War (1866) and Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871) which together made up the German Unification Wars. The wars made Prussia dominant over Austria and France and allowed Bismarck to create the German Empire in 1871 out of the old Germanic states, thus essentially making him the father of Germany. Bismarck served as Chancellor until he was dismissed by the Kaiser in 1890 and during that time he had almost complete control over domestic and foreign policy and was known for his ‘revolutionary conservatism’. Bismarck has been called the greatest politician in history and has become known as the ‘Iron Chancellor’ due to his focus on military power.

“The great questions of the time will not be resolved by speeches and majority decisions…but by iron and blood.”

March 14th 1943: Kraków Ghetto is ‘liquidated’

On this day in 1943 the last Jews in the Kraków Ghetto were killed or sent to concentration camps.  Kraków was one of the five major Jewish ghettos created by Nazi Germany during the German occupation of Poland during World War Two. The purpose of the ghettos was for the persecution, terror and exploitation of Polish Jews. Life in the ghetto was unimaginably hard; 15,000 Jews were crammed into the area which was previously inhabited by 3,000 people. From May 1942 onward, the Nazis had been deporting Jews from the ghetto to concentration camps, where they would likely be murdered. On this day, the final ‘liquidation’ of Kraków was completed, under the command of SS commander Amon Göth. 8,000 Jews were deemed able to work and were taken to Plaszow labour camp. 2,000 were deemed unable to work and they were either killed in the streets of taken to Auschwitz for extermination.

February 27th 1933: Reichstag fire

On this day in 1933 the Reichstag building in Berlin (which housed the German Parliament) was set on fire in an attempted arson attack. The newly instated Nazi government, led by Adolf Hitler as Chancellor, ordered a thorough hunt for the arsonist. The police identified the perpetrator as Marinus van der Lubbe, a Dutch communist; he and four Communist leaders were arrested. The Nazis used the event as evidence of a Communist plot against the German government, and Hitler urged President Hindenburg to pass an emergency decree to counter the Communist threat. With this passed, the Nazis were able to suspend civil liberties and arrest Communists. By arresting those who held seats in the German Parliament, the Nazis became the majority party and kept this majority in the subsequent elections, thus allowing the Nazi consolidation of power. Van der Lubbe and the others were tried in March in the famous ‘Reichstag Fire Trial’; Van der Lubbe was found guilty and executed by guillotine on January 10th 1934. However, his role has been questioned by historians with some even suggesting he was not responsible and that the fire was ordered by the Nazis themselves.