This Day In History

May 27th 1941: Bismarck sunk

On this day in 1941 during World War Two, the German battleship Bismarck was sunk in the North Atlantic. Of the 2,200-man crew, only 200 survived. The ship was named after Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, the driving force behind German unification in 1871. Despite suffering heavy damage in the previous days, the cause of the ship’s sinking is disputed; some claim it was due to British torpedoes, others claim the crew deliberately sunk it. The wreck of the Bismarck was discovered in 1989 by Robert Ballard who, just four years earlier, had discovered the wreck of the Titanic.

13th May 1940: Churchill’s “blood, toil, tears and sweat” speech

On this day in 1940 British Prime Minister Winston Churchill made his famous speech in the House of Commons. The speech was his first to the Commons since becoming Prime Minister on 10th May. He gave the speech during the Battle of France of the Second World War and it provided a great morale boost in the United Kingdom.

“I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat. We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering.

You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: Victory. Victory at all costs - Victory in spite of all terror - Victory, however long and hard the road may be, for without victory there is no survival”

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 8th 1945: VE Day

On this day in 1945 at the end of the Second World War, combat ended in Europe with the Germans accepting unconditional surrender in Rheims, France. The German surrender marked the end of Hitler’s Third Reich, after the dictator’s suicide on 30th April. Germany’s surrender was led by German President Karl Dönitz, signed on 7th May and ratified on 8th May. The Western world celebrated, with huge festivities in Trafalgar Square and outside Buckingham Palace in London and in New York’s Time Square. British King George VI and Prime Minister Winston Churchill led the celebrations in their country, and US President Harry Truman dedicated the victory to his recently deceased predecessor remarking his only wish was that “Franklin D. Roosevelt had lived to witness this day”.

“This is your hour. This is your Victory”
- Winston Churchill to crowds on VE Day

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. 

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 25th 1947: The State of Prussia ceases to exist

On this day in 1947 the state of Prussia, which had existed since 1525, ceased to exist. Prussia was a German kingdom, and in the 19th century became the most powerful state, rising in strength to challenge other established European powers. Bismarck aimed to unite all German states under the domination of Prussia, which was achieved through the German Unification Wars (Austro-Prussian War 1866 & Franco-Prussian War 1870-1871). As Prussia merged with Germany it lost its distinctive identity and in 1918 the royalty abdicated and nobility lost most of its political power. Under Nazi rule, Prussia lost its identity even more, with centralisation policies removing its autonomy. Prussia lost some territory in the post-war division of Germany into zones and the Western allies sought its full abolition. This was secured in Law 46 by the Allied Control Council, citing Prussia’s association with past militarism as the reason. Former Prussian territory was then re-organised. Prussia has since been vilified by Germans as a symbol of the militarism and obedience that led to the Nazi rise to power.

February 22nd 1943: Members of the White Rose group are executed in Nazi Germany

On this day in 1943 three members of the peaceful resistance movement in Nazi Germany, the White Rose, were executed. The White Rose comprised of students from the University of Munich and their philosophy professor and distributed leaflets protesting against the regime of Adolf Hitler. On 18th February 1943, the siblings Sophie and Hans Scholl were arrested by the Gestapo for being discovered distributing these leaflets. On the 22nd, the Scholls and Christoph Probst (the founding members of the group) were tried, found guilty of treason and sentenced to death. That same day the three were executed by guillotine at Stadelheim Prison. After their executions the remaining members were arrested and killed, thus ending their resistance movement.
The group’s motto was:

“We will not be silent. We are your bad conscience. The White Rose will not leave you in peace!”

February 2nd 1943: Battle of Stalingrad ends

On this day in 1943, German troops surrendered to the Soviet Red Army in Stalingrad, thus ending the 5 months of fighting. The Battle of Stalingrad is among the bloodiest battles in the history of warfare, with nearly 2 million casualties. The Germans had attempted to invade Russia and capture Stalingrad, but the Russians fought back and cut off and surrounded the German army. The Russian winter soon set in, with sub-zero temperatures weakening the German forces. Eventually, the remaining army surrendered, and 91,000 were taken prisoner (including 22 generals). The German failure at Stalingrad was a key turning point in the Second World War, as the army never recovered from their defeat.

On this day in 1945, the Soviet Red Army liberated the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. Auschwitz was a network of concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany, and was used as the place of the “final solution of the Jewish question in Europe”. Jews and other groups were sent to the camps from 1942 onwards, where many were sent to their death in the gas chambers. Most of those who escaped the gas chambers died of starvation, disease, and execution by the Nazi guards. It is estimated that around 1.3 million people died there.

The Nazis had begun the evacuation of the camp on January 17th as the Red Army drew near. Around 7,500 remained in the camp and were liberated by the 322nd Rifle Division of the Red Army on January 27th.

Today, the site of the Auschwitz camp serves as a museum to remember the victims, and attracts thousands every year who come to pay their respects. This day is commemorated around the world as Holocaust Remembrance Day in order to remember the millions who lost their lives to the brutality of the Nazi regime under Adolf Hitler.