18-Dec-39: Soviet Attacks Continue on Various Finnish Defenses; Germans Down Half of British Air Raid Bombers Over Heligoland; Hitler Meets Quisling Again, Offers Aid; Graf Spee Fallout Continues
Today is 18-Dec-1939, the 79th day of World War II; there are 2,084 days left in the conflict.
Attacks by the Soviet Red Army continue on the Mannerheim Line around Summa, along with bombing of Helsinki from the air and shelling of battery positions along the Finnish Baltic coast. The United States Navy in Washington D.C. announces that 40 aircraft will be sent to aid the Finns in their Winter War against the Soviet Union.
The last daylight raid of the British Royal Air Force for 1939 occurs and results in the Battle of the Heligoland Bight. 22 armed Wellingtons are sent by Bomber Command to reconnoiter Wilhelmshaven. They are intercepted by 50 German Luftwaffe Messerschmitt Me-109 and Me-110 fighters, which shoot down 12 of the Wellingtons. The 50% casualty rate induces Bomber Command to abandon daylight raids for over four months.
German Reichskanzler Adolf Hitler holds another meeting with Norway’s Vidkun Quisling in Berlin; the Norwegian fascist is promised financial support in return for any assistance he extends to the Germans during their upcoming invasion of Norway.
The aftermath of the Admiral Graf Spee continues to unfold; 1,039 German Kriegsmarine officers and sailors of the pocket battleship are interned by the Argentinians in Buenos Aires, while the British promote Commodore Henry Harwood of the HMS Ajax, considered the victor of the battle, to rear admiral.
28-Nov-39: Finns Say Mainila Shells Were Soviet; Soviets Cancel Pact With Finns, Issue Orders for Invasion; Germans Set Up Judenrats; British Attack German Mine-Layers
Today is 28-Nov-1939, the 59th day of World War II; there are 2,104 days left in the conflict.
The Finns announce that their investigation into the Mainila Incident has revealed that seven shells fired on the Soviet village of Mainila on 26-Nov which killed four Red Army soldiers, were actually fired by Soviet artillery. The investigation report is forwarded to the Soviet government in Moscow, which responds by officially announcing that its 1932 non-aggression pact with the Finns is cancelled. The Soviets claim that Finnish troops have fired on Red Army forces near Leningrad. Secretly, the Soviets issue orders to the military to invade Finland on 30-Nov.
In the German General Gouvernement in occupied Poland, governor Dr. Hans Frank sets up Jewish councils known as Judenrat in each ghetto in the territory; they are tasked with carrying out official German orders in their areas of responsibility. The step is part of a general intensifying of the Holocaust in Poland.
British Royal Air Force fighters attack German Luftwaffe seaplanes near Borkum in the Friesian Islands; the Germans had been laying mines.
29-Sep-39: British Lose Five Bombers in Heligoland Raid; Chamberlain Dashes Peace Hopes on Munich Pact Anniversary; US Jails American Nazi Leader
Today is 29-Sept-1939, the 29th day of World War II; there are 2,164 days left in the conflict.
A British census gets underway to help with rationing and mobilization efforts; ironically, it is the one-year anniversary of the signing of the Munich Agreement by Chamberlain, German Reichskanzler Adolf Hitler, Italian Prime Minister Benito Mussolini, and French Prime Minister Édouard Daladier, which permitted the Germans to annex the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia. The annexation was declared by Hitler to be his “last territorial demand in Europe,” and was hailed by Chamberlain as “Peace in our time.”
Rumors abound in London that private channels between British and German officials are open and may lead to formal negotiations toward a peace treaty, now that Poland has ceased to exist and Germany and the Soviet Union has carved it up between them.
However, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain lets the air out of the optimists’ balloon when he informs Parliament during a speech in the House of Commons that Britain and its ally France are at war in an all-out effort to “stop Nazi aggression” and that there is nothing happening that is changing that.
In the skies over Europe, eleven British Royal Air Force bombers make a daylight raid on Germany’s Heligoland Bight in two waves. In the first, six Hampden bombers attempted to hit two destroyers, but failed. By the time the second wave of five bombers came over, the Germans were better prepared and shot down all of the attacking planes.
In the United States, Fritz Kuhn, the Führer of the German-American Bund, is sent to prison. Born in Germany, Kuhn earned an Iron Cross as a leutnant in the German infantry during World War I. After the war, he earned a master’s degree in chemical engineering at the University of Munich, then moved to Mexico. In 1928, he moved to New York City and in 1934 became a naturalized citizen of the United States. Elected head of the Bund, Kuhn was known as the “American Führer” and was introduced to Hitler during the 1936 Berlin Olympics.
Kuhn’s imprisonment happens after New York City Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia instructs city prosecutors to investigate the Bund’s taxes in an effort to curtail its political activities. The investigation discovers that Kuhn had embezzled over $14,000 from the Bund, and that part of the money has been spent on Kuhn’s mistress. New York District Attorney Thomas E. Dewey (later the governor of New York and the Republican presidential candidate in 1944 and 1948) obtains a criminal indictment and Kuhn is convicted at trial. In spite of his guilt, the Bund’s members continue to respect him.
Although he will be released within two years, upon the outbreak of war between Germany and the U.S. in 1941, Kuhn will be arrested again, this time as an enemy agent. He will be imprisoned in an internment camp in Crystal City, Texas, until the end of the war in 1945, when he will be released, sent to Ellis Island for a short period, and then deported to Germany. He will die an obscure chemist in Munich in 1951.