26-Oct-39: U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt Gives Fireside Chat; Soviets, British Quarrel About Shipments to Germany; Hans Frank Appointed to Head the General Government
Today is 26-Oct-1939, the 56th day of World War II; there are 2,137 days left in the conflict.
The night before the United States Senate votes on revisions to the Neutrality Act, President Franklin D. Roosevelt airs one of his famous fireside chats and tells the nation:
“In and out of Congress we have heard orators and commentators and others beating their breasts proclaiming against sending the boys of American mothers to fight on the battlefields of Europe. That I do not hesitate to label as one of the worst fakes in current history. It is a deliberate setup of an imaginary bogey.”
Former Reich Minister of Justice Hans Frank is appointed the head of the General Government region in the former Poland by Reichskanzler Adolf Hitler. Frank’s government will be headquartered in Cracow.
In Moscow, tensions between the Soviets and British rise when the Soviet government rejects a British claim on the right to stop Soviet merchant ships bound for Germany.
Meanwhile in London, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain replies to charges by German Foreign Minister Joachim on Ribbentrop that the British had planned for and instigated war on Germany. “The whole world knows that this is not true,” Chamberlain proclaims.