August 1944
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This article deals with current news and events back in August 1944 .
... ongoing fights / events from the previous month :
- Operation Cobra during the landing in North West France: Americans in space Saint-Lô , Caen, Operation Bluecoat and July 31, after the tank battle of Avranches breakthrough by the German manages Western Front , Falaise pocket
-
Rastenburg (today Kętrzyn) / Berlin: the assassination attempt on July 20 by Claus Graf Schenk von Stauffenberg on Hitler and the associated military coup (" Enterprise Walküre ") fail completely (assassination attempt at Wolfsschanze headquarters in East Prussia)
- many of those involved (opposition, conspirators) , but also only those suspected of involvement, will be executed in the next few days and weeks according to express proceedings. Repression in Germany is increasing massively.
- Hungary: The Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg , who came to Budapest in July 1944, participates with other diplomats in the rescue of Hungarian Jews during the German deportations ( Shoah ).
Daily events
Tuesday 1st August
- Warsaw : Start of the Warsaw Uprising (August 1 to October 3) against the occupying forces
- The 2nd French armored division Leclerc (2nd e division blindée ) is landed in Normandy equipped with American tanks and vehicles from England and the XV. Corps of the 3rd US Army under General Patton .
Wednesday 2nd August
- Yugoslavia: Founding of the Anti-Fascist Council for the Liberation of the People of Macedonia ; the Macedonians are recognized by the Tito Partisans (Yugoslav People's Liberation Army) as a state people of Yugoslavia.
- Ankara : Turkey suspends diplomatic relations with the German Reich.
Friday 4th August
- OB Montgomery, allied ground forces, internally announces a general change in the further invasion plan. Instead of south-west, the main orientation is east.
- The Hague (occupied Netherlands) - Anne Frank and her relatives were arrested in hiding on Prinsengracht after receiving a call to the Gestapo . Three days later they were sent to the Westerbork transit camp as Jews . (On September 2, she and her family and the van Pels family were selected for the roll call to the Auschwitz concentration camp and deported there by the SS. Only her father Otto Heinrich Frank survived the imprisonment and the war.)
- Italy: Allied troops advance north to reach the Florence line
Saturday 5th August
- Warsaw : The insurgents liberate 348 Jewish forced laborers from one of the labor camps.
- Magdeburg : 683 people are killed in an Allied air strike.
- Australia : Japanese prisoners of war flee in the internment camp near Cowra . This is probably the largest outbreak of prisoners of war in history . 231 Japanese and four guards died; 108 Japanese are wounded. All those who had fled are back in custody nine days later.
Sunday 6th August
- Operation Liège : the German attack under Mayor West v. Kluge , will be stopped after two days
Thursday 10th August
- The strike of the underground and parts of the gendarmerie are the first signs of the liberation of Paris / Liberation that followed in the next few days
- After the rapid advance towards Paris, the Allied troops prepare for battles for the city. Negotiations between Eisenhower and De Gaulle on the order of advance.
Saturday, August 12th
- English Channel : Operation Pluto : oil pipeline from England to France, important for replenishment, completed
- Italy: the Allies take Florence a
- Italy: Four Waffen SS companies shoot almost all residents of the Italian village of Sant'Anna di Stazzema as reprisals after numerous partisan attacks . Most of the 560 victims are women and children.
Tuesday 15th August
- In the south of France, large American and some French troops land on the Mediterranean coast between Toulon and Cannes , the start of Operation Dragoon
Wednesday August 16
- Eastern Front, August 16-20: in Operation Doppelkopf , the German 3rd Panzer Army succeeds in temporarily re-establishing the land connection between Army Groups Center and North.
- Paris: now the postmen are also on strike. The Germans reacted to the rapidly growing resistance and a. by shooting 35 French youths at Carrefour des Cascades that night.
- China : with the battle for Guilin-Liuzhou (Henan-Hunan- Guangxi ), the Japanese succeed in capturing airfields in southeast China against troops from Chiang Kai-shek (by November 24th).
Thursday 17th August
- France: Saint-Malo is captured after bombing . Surrender of Colonel Aulock .
Friday 18th August
- Poland / Germany: the Red Army of the USSR reaches the East Prussian border
Saturday 19th August
- Paris: On the morning of August 19, resistance fighters attack German columns of cars on the Champs-Élysées. Disorganized and insufficiently armed, they occupied police stations, ministries, newspaper offices and the Hôtel de Ville .
- the strike movement expands into a general strike.
- In the evening, von Choltitz asked the Resistance to cease fire. It will be agreed by noon on August 23.
Sunday 20th August
- Romania / Operation Jassy-Kishinev : the 2nd and 3rd Ukrainian Fronts of the Red Army begin summer offensive against the Army Group of Southern Ukraine in Romania.
Monday, August 21
- Normandy: a large part of the German troops in the Falaise pocket is wiped out.
Tuesday, August 22nd
- Berlin: The wave of arrests, Action Grid, starts throughout the Reich, with many former political opponents being arrested and interned.
- India: the Japanese troops withdraw from India again
- Paris: In the evening, Mayor Dwight D. Eisenhower orders General Bradley to take Paris.
Wednesday 23 August
- Romania : After a coup in Romania , it concludes an armistice with the Allies and in turn declares war on the German Reich .
- Greece: withdrawal of the German armed forces
Thursday August 24th
- Paris: After increasingly fierce fighting between resistance fighters and Germans, around three quarters of the city was in the hands of the Resistance, but the center was still held by German troops.
- The 2nd French Armored Division Leclerc (2 e division blindée ) moves - followed by the 4th Infantry Division - on 24 and 25 to the center of Paris before. They then secure De Gaulle's position there. Their losses were about 300 men and 40 tanks.
- Dietrich von Choltitz , the German city commander of Greater Paris , surrenders almost without a fight ... and thus disregards Hitler's repeated order to "destroy Paris". After his capture, he capitulated to the Resistance and then to General Leclerc. Speech by De Gaulle from the town hall balcony.
Friday 25th August
- Paris: First Victory Parade on the Champs Elysées
- Battle of / Bataille de Toulon
- Königsberg : Second night attack by RAF bombers
Saturday, August 26th
- Bulgaria: Prime Minister II Bagrjanow declares that Bulgaria remains neutral and rejects a future alliance with the German Empire.
Monday, August 28th
- Marseille : In the city they occupied , the Wehrmacht units surrender to French troops after a week of fighting.
Tuesday, August 29th
- Occupied Hungary : The imperial administrator Miklós Horthy (temporarily sole ruler) dismisses the Sztójay government, which is collaborating with Germany, and appoints General Géza Lakatos as prime minister.
- Czechoslovakia: the military-led Slovak national uprising breaks out (is crushed on October 27).
- Second victory parade in Paris by French and American troops
See also
- For a list of people who died in August 1944, see: Nekrolog August 1944 .
- List of annually recurring commemorative and action days in August .
Web links
Commons : August 1944 - collection of pictures, videos and audio files
