15-Nov-39: Czech Student’s Funeral Turns Into Bloodbath, Neurath Closes Czech Higher Education; Ribbentrop Rejects Peace Appeal; French Add Work Hours; Last Chinese Port Falls to Japanese
Today is 15-Nov-1939, the 46th day of World War II; there are 2,117 days left in the conflict.
In the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, several thousand students attend the funeral for medical student Jan Opletal, shot in the stomach by German troops during anti-occupation demonstrations in Prague on 28-Oct, who died 11-Nov.
Opletal (1-Jan-1915 – 11-Nov-1939) was a student of the Medical Faculty of the Charles University in Prague. The thousands of students attending his funeral turned it into another anti-German rally and 12 are reportedly injured.
In response, Reichsprotektor Konstantin von Neurath, governor of the former Czech lands, closes all Czech universities and colleges, and sends over 1,200 students to concentration camps; nine students will be executed on 17-Nov, which will later be commemorated as International Students Day by the International Union of Students and other groups.
Opletal’s remains are transferred to his native village of Náklo in the Olomouc Region; a post-war monument will be erected in his honor, and many Czech cities will name streets after him.
German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop issues a formal rejection of the offer of neutral mediation made by Belgian King Leopold and Dutch Queen Wilhelmina. Ribbentrop gives the news to official representatives of Belgium and the Netherlands during a meeting in Berlin. He claims the rejection is prompted by what he terms the “blunt rejection” of the German peace appeal by Britain and France. The “German government considers the matter closed,” Ribbentrop concludes.
As munitions and other war-related industries rachet up in France, the government officially adds three hours to the work week; workers will now be required to work 43 hours per week.
The south China port city of Pakhoi is captured by Imperial Japanese troops. It is the final Chinese port occupied by the Japanese since their campaign began in July 1937.
In action on the high seas, British tanker SS Africa Shell is sunk in the Mozambique Channel two miles off Portuguese East Africa in the Indian Ocean by two bombs placed in her hold by an boarding party wearing British lifebelts from a 10,000-ton German raider. Africa Shell’s crew identifies the German raider as the pocket battleship Admiral Scheer.
14-Nov-39: Allies Meet Secretly with Belgians; Dyle Plan Accepted; Dutch, Belgian Royal Peace Offers Rejected by Germany; Prague Demonstration Violently Suppressed; Sikorski Arrives in London
Today is 14-Nov-1939, the 45th day of World War II; there are 2,118 days left in the conflict.
Allied military commanders on the Western Front meet secretly with Belgian military commanders in mostly inconclusive meetings, but there is agreement that British and French troops should immediately advance to a position known as the “Meuse-Antwerp Line,” southeast of Brussels, if the Germans invade. The secret agreement is referred to as the “Dyle Plan” or “Plan D” after the Dyle River.
After negative responses are recorded in Paris and London to a previous joint offer of peace negotiations given by Netherlands Queen Wilhelmina and Belgian King Leopold II, it is noted in Berlin that the Germans are also responding in the negative. The war will continue.
In Prague, police violently disperse a Czech Fascist Party demonstration injuring 12 marchers.
Polish President-in-Exile General Wojtech Sikorski, having been based in France since the German invasion of his country, arrives in London for an official visit.
12-Nov-39: King George VI Issues Negative Reply to Peace Appeal; First ENSA Entertainment Debuts; Germans Round Up Suspected Assassination Conspirators
Today is 12-Nov-1939, the 43rd day of World War II; there are 2,120 days left in the conflict.
King George VI issues a gracious reply to a joint peace appeal issued by Dutch Queen Wilhelmina and Belgian King Leopold the previous week; he states that the onus of the war, and therefore the means to end it, lie with the Germans. The reply is thus characterized as being negative. At the same time, French President Alfred Lebrun also issues a negative reply to the Low Countries monarchs. The Dutch and Belgian foreign ministers are holding their own meetings at Breda, in the Netherlands.
British First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill announces via a BBC radio broadcast that the first campaign of the war will be won if the nation makes it through the war’s first winter without serious setbacks. British and French troops stationed in France are entertained by Maurice Chevalier and Gracie Fields in the very first concert of the war given by the Entertainments National Service Association (ENSA), which is chartered to provide such services in order to boost fighting troop morale.
German security forces arrest hundreds of dissidents and Jews as the search for the perpetrators of the 8-Nov attempted assassination of Reichskanzler Adolf Hitler in Munich heats up. Regular German citizens receive for the first time ration cards for clothing allowances.
7-Nov-09: Fall Gelb Postponed Due to Weather; Czech Exiled Government Warned of German Invasion by Double Agent; Western Polish Jews Rounded Up; Dutch, Belgian Royals Appeal for Peace, Offer to Mediate
Today is 7-Nov-1939, the 38th day of World War II; there are 2,125 days left in the conflict.
Fall Gelb (Case Yellow), the invasion of France scheduled for 12-Nov, is officially postponed by German Reichskanzler Adolf Hitler due to bad weather. It is the first of 14 such postponements extending into January of 1940.
The Czechoslovakian government-in-exile in London receives reports of Fall Gelb from a man named Paul Thummel, who will later be unmasked as a double agent.
A German edict issued previously in occupied Poland consigning Warsaw’s Jews to an official ghetto area is temporarily withdrawn, even as Jews in western Poland are rounded up for deportations to ghettos in other Polish cities.
Dutch Queen Wilhelmina in the Hague and Belgian King Leopold III in Brussels officially issue a joint appeal for peace; they an offer of mediation to both the allies and Germany.