3-Oct-39: Chamberlain Rejects Various Peace Overtures; Germans Begin Troop Movements Westward; Soviets Wily Over Lithuania
Today is 3-Oct-1939, the 33rd day of World War II; there are 2,160 days left in the conflict.
The New York Times reports that British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain tells a “wildly cheering House of Commons” that Russian and German collaboration on peace initiatives will not change Great Britain’s determination to “put an end to successive acts of German aggression … no threat will ever induce this country or France to abandon the purpose for which they entered this struggle.” He adds that his government is ready to consider any proposal that holds the prospect of stable peace, but also warns that “no mere assurances from the present German government could be accepted by us.”
But a counterpoint to his speech is made by former Prime Minister David Lloyd George, who led the country to victory in the First World War, startled the House by “counseling the Allies to move slowly while there yet remained a chance of avoiding another slaughter.”
“The words of the patriarchal elder statesman, envisaging the possibility of a world conference that would include Italy, Russia and possibly the United States to discuss the restoration of Czecho-Slovakia as well as Poland in some form, the redistribution of colonies and disarmament, fell like a bombshell in the House, whose members heard him through in silence.”
Prime Minister Chamberlain is urged to make an immediate response:
“Mr. Chamberlain, who had listened carefully to one of the bitterest critics of his appeasement policy, rejected flatly the proposed closed session, and said that a discussion of peace terms that had not been submitted was ‘premature,’ pointing out that when a peace offer came it might be ‘one which no self-respecting government could consider.’”
Meanwhile in Poland, the final cohesive Polish army units surrender en masse near the city of Luck. Over 700,000 Poles are prisoners of the Germans and another 200,000 are in the hands of the Soviets, although many will escape and make their way west. Polish casualties are extremely high, but the losses to the German Wehrmacht total 10,000 dead and 30,000 injured.
Fresh from their victory, German forces begin to withdraw from Poland for rest and redeployment to the western front. The Tenth Army is the first unit to do so. The Germans also begin the assessment of the successes and failures of the campaign; official staff thinking is that tanks are useful auxiliaries, but the infantry continues to be responsible for carrying the most important load in a campaign.
On the western front itself, in order to straighten the front line, the British Expeditionary Force orders the First Corps to hold down a section of the French/Belgian border at the same time that French troops withdraw from German territory, specifically the Warndt Forest and the Saarbrucken Salient.
German Ambassador to the Soviet Union Fritz-Dietlof von der Schulenberg sends another in a series of diplomatic cables from Moscow to German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop in Berlin noting that dealing with the Soviets will be full of ups and downs over the longterm; Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov is now being difficult over Lithuania:
“Molotov summoned me to his office at 2 p. m. today, in order to communicate to me the following:
“The Soviet Government would tell the Lithuanian Foreign Minister, who arrives today, that, within the framework of an amicable settlement of mutual relations (probably similar to the one with Estonia), the Soviet Government was willing to cede the city of Vilna and its environs to Lithuania, while at the same time the Soviet Government would indicate to Lithuania that it must cede the well-known portion of its territory to Germany. Molotov inquired what formal procedure we had in mind for carrying this out. His idea was the simultaneous signing of a Soviet-Lithuanian protocol on Vilna and a German-Lithuanian protocol on the Lithuanian area to be ceded to us.
“I replied that this suggestion did not appeal to me. It seemed to me more logical that the Soviet Government should exchange Vilna for the strip to be ceded to us and then hand this strip over to us. Molotov did not seem quite in accord with my proposal but was willing to let me ask for the viewpoint of my Government and give him a reply by tomorrow noon.
“Molotov’s suggestion seems to me harmful, as in the eyes of the world it would make us appear as “robbers” of Lithuanian territory, while the Soviet Government figures as the donor. As I see it, only my suggestion enters into consideration at all. However, I would ask you to consider whether it might not be advisable for us, by a separate secret German-Soviet protocol, to forego the cession of the Lithuanian strip of territory until the Soviet Union actually incorporates Lithuania, an idea on which, I believe, the arrangement concerning Lithuania was originally based.”
Both governments continue their jockeying over eastern Europe.
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.