September 1939

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Contents:
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This article covers breaking news and events in September 1939.

Daily events

Friday September 1st

Aerial victory in Poland, deployment of Stukas ( Ju 87 )

• Republic of Poland : Beginning of the Second World War (without a declaration of war) with Germany's war against Poland , often referred to as a military Polish campaign by the German side .
  • Wieluń : The early morning air raid on Wieluń is considered by historians to be the Wehrmacht's first war crime in World War II because of the high number of civilian casualties .
  • The German attack on the Vistula railway bridge in Tczew / Dirschau fails.
  • German troops advance into the Republic of Poland along the entire western and southern borders.
  • Appeal of the Polish President Mościcki : "Tonight began ... that the whole people concentrated in the defense of their freedom, around the Commander in Chief and the armed forces ... to complete victory."
• Free City of Gdansk :
  • Massive shelling of the Westerplatte , a Polish military ammunition depot on the outskirts of the city then administered by the League of Nations , begins . Infantry attacks follow. The attack is often referred to as one of the first military actions in World War II. The Westerplatte memorial, inaugurated in 1966, commemorates the Polish defenders of the depot .
  • At the same time, SS Heimwehr Danzig and police troops from the Free City of Danzig attacked the Polish post office in Danzig .
  • In the city, Poles are arrested by members of the NSDAP according to prepared lists.
  • With the beginning of the war, Albert Forster took over the legislative power in the city area as the head of state appointed by an alleged "Senate law" and as Gauleiter with the repeal of the Danzig constitution. By a so-called state constitution of the same day he declared the area of ​​the Free City of Danzig to be part of the German Empire .
  • The Army High Command 3 of the Wehrmacht ( OB Gen. Küchler ) received executive power over Danzig.
  • On the same day, Danzig is annexed by the German Reich through a Reich law in the session of the Reichstag and the High Commissioner of the League of Nations , Carl Jacob Burckhardt , is expelled.
• Germany :
  • Gleiwitz : After the fake attack on the Gleiwitz transmitter , who disguised themselves as Polish partisans, the advance of the Wehrmacht is filmed here, but a barrier is also removed for the media, although there are roads without border installations leading to Poland in the immediate vicinity.
  • Wünsdorf : The Wehrmacht High Command receives reports that the plan is being carried out successfully.
  • Berlin : At 10:10 am, Chancellor Hitler explains his alleged reasons for the war in a speech in front of the Reichstag that was broadcast directly across the Reich and also filmed for the weekly newsreels . Hitler's time of the actions, 5.45 a.m., is a slip of the tongue or a mistake, as hostilities had already occurred about an hour earlier.
  • In a wave of arrests, the special war campaign of the Gestapo throughout the Reich, numerous former leading representatives of the broken opposition parties and trade unionists are brought to concentration camps and imprisoned without a legal basis.
  • Berlin : With the government ordinance on extraordinary broadcasting measures, listening to foreign radio broadcasts becomes a criminal offense, and in special cases death is threatened for broadcasting tapped messages . The forbidden channels are designated as enemy channels . In the law gazette of 7.9. proclaimed.
  • Berlin: Aktion T4 (murders of the sick 1939ff, also under the Nazi expression “Aktion Gnadentod”) , is justified retrospectively with a letter of authorization from Hitler dating back to the beginning of the war (cf. Philipp Bouhler , Karl Brandt , Viktor Brack , Herbert Linden ). The backdating is to be seen as an indication of the war-related conversion of the welfare facilities as hospitals .
  • As a new institution of civil defense, the NSDAP Gauleiter are appointed Reich Defense Commissioners by ordinance in the 18 military districts.
• Slovak Republic : The state structure that has existed since September 1938, a dictatorship dependent on the German Reich, is involved economically (armaments) and as a military ally of the Axis powers in the German attack on Poland.
• United Kingdom and France : The federal states are calling on the German Reich to withdraw from Poland immediately. Otherwise they announce a declaration of war.
• The Soviet Union introduces conscription.
• The Baltic states, Finland , Norway and Switzerland declare their neutrality.
• Prague , Czechoslovakia / the now so-called Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia : 250 children are prevented from leaving Prague. Most of them come from Jewish families. a. evacuated by British Nicholas Winton for fear of German attacks, as he had previously done for 669 other children. A total of around 10,000 Jewish children from Europe had been exiled by September 1939 (Kindertransporte) . A continuation is not possible due to the state of war.
• USA: President Franklin D. Roosevelt appoints General George C. Marshall as Chief of Staff of the United States Army. In 1938/39 he was deputy for this position. He remained chief until 1945, now as General of the Army . The post-war Marshall Plan also bears his name .

Saturday 2nd September

• Belgium (simultaneously mobilization) and Yugoslavia : declare their neutrality
• Italy : declares itself "non-belligerent" (under Mussolini ).
• Germany: the daily Wehrmacht report on the radio from now on provides the population with selected, brief information about combat operations during the entire war by the Wehrmacht High Command (ultimately from Hitler himself).
  • At the beginning of the war, five propaganda companies were used primarily for visual material. They are initially subordinate to the intelligence forces and later to the OKW.

Sunday 3rd September

• France and Great Britain: Ultimately, call on Germany to withdraw from Poland immediately. Otherwise they would declare war on the Greater German Reich . The declaration of war takes place on the same day. At nine o'clock, the British ambassador in Berlin, Nevile Henderson , presented the German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop with the British ultimatum, which was limited to eleven o'clock and announced that Britain would enter the war.
• Eastern Atlantic: The British passenger steamer Athenia is sunk by the German submarine U 30 without warning (122 dead). The goals of the expiring Athenia were Quebec and Montreal. In the next few days, Propaganda Minister Goebbels will blame the British for the sinking, contrary to the OKW's better judgment, and claim that it was a "provocation".
• The British government declares a naval blockade against Germany.
• Australia and New Zealand : Both governments declare war on the German Reich.
• Poland: On September 3rd and 4th in Bydgoszcz (German name: Bromberg) on the later so-called " Bydgoszcz blood Sunday " there is an armed conflict between the Polish population and the local German-speaking minority with many civilian deaths (especially the minority), which is used by German propaganda in the further course of the war.
• Germany, in the annexed area of ​​Gdansk:
  • From 1,500 arbitrarily arrested civilians on the first day of the war, about 150 to 200 people were selected by SS-Sturmbann Eimann , who were brought to Stutthof from the Victoria School camp on September 2, 1939. On the 3rd they are forced to work on the buildings of the former old people's home and future prison camp. Of the several hundred Jews from Danzig who were imprisoned here until around mid-September 1939, most died within a few weeks. The camp later becomes the Stutthof concentration camp . The SS-Sturmbann Eimann is an armed SS unit that was formed by Nazi supporters in Danzig in the summer of 1939.

Monday 4th September

• Germany:
  • For women between 18 and 25 years of age, the six-month compulsory Reich labor service is introduced.
  • The War Economy Ordinance (KWVO) is enacted and the offense of war economy crimes is introduced into Nazi jurisprudence.
  • The Royal Air Force (RAF) flies its first air raid on naval facilities in Wilhelmshaven and Brunsbüttel with 29 aircraft .
• America, New York / United States : The stateless writer Erich Maria Remarque ( nothing new in the west ) arrives on the Queen Mary America and shortly afterwards meets u. a. with Marlene Dietrich , Thomas Mann and Bertolt Brecht .
• Poland:
  • The southern Polish city of Oświęcim , (west of Krakow), is captured by German troops and annexed directly by the German Empire under the name Auschwitz a month later . Until 1945 the location of a large and almost constantly enlarged concentration camp and many sub-camps, it is often described as a death factory. The city itself and some places in the immediate vicinity are largely depopulated. The Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp extermination camp was built here in 1941 with four gas chamber buildings, hundreds of prisoner barracks and a large chemical plant . The death toll here alone exceeds over 1 million people.

Tuesday 5th September

• Poland:
  • The battle in the Tucheler Heide in the Polish Corridor ends after five days with a German victory.
  • The German advance reached about a line north of Kraków (German Krakau) across Poland.
• USA and Japan: declare their neutrality in the European war.
• Germany: The Regulation against enemies of the people , even people pest Regulation (VVO) shall be adopted and published on 6 of the month. It extends the penalty framework for many offenses to include the death penalty.

Military situation during the month

Wednesday September 6th

• Poland: Capture of Kraków (Cracow) in southern Poland without a fight
• South Africa declares war on the German Reich.
• Romania: The Kingdom of Romania under Carol II , which had been allied with Poland until then , declared itself a neutral state in view of the rapid German advance and the lack of intervention by the Western powers.

Thursday September 7th

Poland:

• Surrender of the defending Polish troops in the Westerplatte depot
• Four days after the start of the German bombing of Łomża , ground fighting began there (Bitwa pod Łomżą).
• The photo and film reporter Julien Bryan arrives by train in Warsaw, which has not yet been enclosed, and can be there until 21.9. make authentic film and photo recordings that will soon be printed and shown in the USA (including the short film Siege (French for siege) , 11 min), which was nominated for an Oscar in the USA in 1940 in the category “Best Short Film”. Bryan also wrote the Inside Nazi Germany reports in 1938 .

Saturday 9th September

• Germany: French troops carry out the "Opération Sarre" (Saar attack) on the south-western border as a reaction and to explore the German resistance lines and occupy some border villages in the Rhine Palatinate without resistance . According to the orders, the Wehrmacht did not offer any resistance there.

Sunday 10th September

Ruins of one of the bunkers of the Battle of Wizna, now a memorial site

• Canada : Canada declares war on Germany
• Poland : The fifth day of the Battle of Wizna ends with the victory of the German troops. The Polish defense line on the Narew has thus been overcome and the complete occupation of Poland can hardly be prevented.

Monday September 11th

• Poland : The Wehrmacht occupies the city of Łomża on the border with East Prussia , which the Polish defenders had left the day before .

Tuesday September 12th

• Germany: Quartermaster General of the Wehrmacht Army Eugen Müller issues the “ Ordinance on Gun Possession ”; as a result, regular Polish soldiers fighting behind the German front in Poland are declared partisans .

Thursday September 14th

• Germany, North Atlantic: U 39 is the first German submarine to be sunk in World War II in a position southwest of neutral Ireland during an unsuccessful attack on the British aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal .

Friday 15th September

• Soviet Union: The ceasefire agreement (Molotov- Togo Agreement) after the fighting in the Japanese-Soviet border area guarantees the Soviet Union the ceasefire from September 16 in the Far East .
• Poland:
  • first German troops reach the suburbs of Warsaw.
  • The Przemyśl massacre by German security police and SD groups begins.

Saturday September 16

• Soviet Union: The Soviet government informs the Polish ambassador Waclaw Grzybowski in Moscow that it regards the Republic of Poland as no longer existing. In doing so, she is declaring war on the country.

Sunday 17th September

Poland:

• The attack and occupation of eastern Poland by the Soviet Union begins on the country's eastern border.
  • In a secret additional protocol to the Hitler-Stalin Pact (23 August 1939), a demarcation line was agreed that delimits the respective areas of interest and is now the target of the invasion (map). Josef Stalin declares that the invasion of Soviet troops serves to protect the Ukrainians and Belarusians living there from the German invasion.
• Capture of the fortress of Brest by German troops (13-17 September)

Great Britain - United King :

• The German submarine U 29 sinks the aircraft carrier HMS Courageous in the Atlantic west of the English Channel . He sinks with 518 crew members, 741 seamen are rescued by a passenger ship. The Courageous is the first British warship to be lost in World War II.

Monday September 18th

• Poland / Romania : the Polish government tries to get into exile via Romania. She is interned there.
• Beginning of the Battle of Tomaszów Lubelski (1st phase), the largest tank battle of the war

Tuesday September 19th

• Poland: After the ten-day battle on the Bzura , the Wehrmacht defeated strong Polish troops . 170,000 soldiers are taken prisoner by Germany .

Wednesday September 20th

• Poland: end of the 1st phase of the battle of Tomaszów Lubelski (surrender of the Krakow army)

Thursday, September 21

• Romania : the Prime Minister Armand Călinescu (born June 4, 1893) is murdered in Bucharest by a member of the pro-Nazi group Iron Guard .
• Berlin / Germany : The head of the Reich Main Security Office, Reinhard Heydrich, instructs his associations in Poland to set up restricted areas (ghettos) for Polish Jews within larger communities or to deport them to a planned “ Jewish reservation ” near Nisko . In addition, all “Jewish” communities with fewer than 500 inhabitants are to be “dissolved”.
• Poland: start of the 2nd phase of the battle of Tomaszów Lubelski (east of a line Zamość - Tomaszów Lubelski until September 26th)

Friday September 22nd

Parade of the Wehrmacht and the Red Army in Brest ( H. Guderian , SM Kriwoschein )

• Poland: Joint parade of Wehrmacht and Red Army in Brest .

Saturday 23 September

• London - died: Sigmund Freud , Austrian neurologist, psychoanalyst and author (* 1856)

Tuesday, September 26th

• France: self-dissolution of the Communist Party

Wednesday September 27th

• Poland: Polish military found the underground movement Służba Zwycięstwu Polsce (Polish Underground State).

Thursday, September 28th

• Poland: The battle for Warsaw ends after ten days in the fourth week of the war with the German occupation of the city ​​of Warsaw . The losses of the siege amounted to 6,000 dead and 16,000 wounded soldiers on the Polish side, about 100,000 were taken into German captivity. 25,800 civilians were killed and over 50,000 injured.
• Germany and the Soviet Union: they officially sign the German-Soviet Border and Friendship Treaty , which provides for the “voluntary” resettlement of German minorities ( Bessarabian Germans , Baltic Germans and Bukovina Germans ) from the Soviet Union. The already agreed demarcation line will be changed somewhat, supposedly in order to achieve a clearer ethnic division of the areas.
• Soviet Union: it forces Estonia as the first of the three Baltic states to sign an assistance pact, which amounts to an occupation of the country with Soviet troops.

Friday September 29th

• Poland:
  • Surrender of the Polish fortress Modlin (west of Warsaw, defense from September 13-29)
  • This is followed by the permanent German occupation of Poland until 1944/1945, including the annexations of further Polish areas in violation of international law .

See also

• For a list of people who died in September 1939, see: Nekrolog September 1939 .
• List of annually recurring memorial and action days in September .
• Category: Day of commemoration, celebration or action in September (catalog with Wikipedia articles for September).

Web links

Commons : September 1939  - Collection of Pictures, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Compare the chronology of the war (events in the course of WW2) and the literature on it
2. ^ Start of the World War: "Planes, Papa, Planes!" . tagesspiegel.de . August 30, 2009. Retrieved September 18, 2016.
3. ↑ Chronicle of the 20th Century . 14th edition. Chronik Verlag , Augsburg 1995, ISBN 3-86047-130-9 , p. 543 .
4. ↑ Hundreds of children saved from the Holocaust. Winton dies in 2016 at the age of 106 . Spiegel Online . July 1, 2015. Retrieved September 29, 2016.
5. ↑ The trigger, course, consequences and number of deaths are still disputed today.
6. ↑ Erich Maria Remarque: Short biography in dates . University of Osnabrück . Retrieved September 29, 2016.
7. ^ Humiliation and exploitation of German and Polish Jews after the start of the war . Historical Society of Köngen. September 9, 2016. Retrieved September 30, 2016.