FEBRUARY 22 - DAILY CHRONICLES OF HISTORY

FEBRUARY 22 

1933

Nazi Germany:  40,000 SS and SA men were sworn in as auxiliary police.  The SS or Schutzstaffel was originally known as Saal-Schutz ("Hall Security") and was made up of NSDAP volunteers to provide security for party meetings in Munich. After Himmler joined the unit in 1925, the SS, under his direction, became one of the most powerful organizations in Nazi Germany and it grew from a small paramilitary formation to one of the most powerful police units.  It consisted of two divisions; the Allgemeine SS (General SS) which was responsible for enforcing the racial policy of Nazi Germany and general policing;  and Waffen-SS (Armed SS) consisted of combat units of troops within Nazi Germany's military. Other units of the SS were the SS-Totenkopfverbände (SS-TV) which ran the concentration camps and extermination camps, and additional subdivisions that included the Gestapo and the Sicherheitsdienst (SD) organizations. They were assigned to detect actual (or potential) enemies of the Nazi state, to destroy all opposition, police the German people in their allegiance to the Nazi ideology and engage in domestic and foreign intelligence.  The Sturmabteilung (SA) called the "brownshirts" were the original paramilitary wing of the Nazi Party (NSDAP). They played an integral role in Adolf Hitler's rise to power in the 1920s and 1930s.  Among their tasks were providing protection for Nazi rallies, disrupting meetings of opposition parties, and opposing paramilitary units, in particular, the Red Front Fighters League of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD). They also intimidated Slavic and Romani people, unionists, and especially the Jews (for example, during the Nazi boycott of Jewish businesses.)  In the event called the Night of the Long Knives, the SA became disempowered after Adolf Hitler ordered the "blood purge" of 1934.)


Nazi plans were made for a detention camp in Oranienburg, the first site in Germany. It opened the following March 12.  It was  originally set up as the first detention facilities in the state of Prussia, when the Nazis gained power in 1933.  The camp imprisoned political opponents of the Nazi party from the Berlin region, which consisted primarily of members of the Communist Party of Germany and social-democrats, as well as a number of homosexual men and masses of the so-called undesirables.  The SS took over the prison on July 4, 1034, when they suppressed the SA brownshirts.  The prison was closed and replaced by the Sachsenhausen concentration camp in 1936.  When it closed,  the prison had held over 3,000 inmates, of whom 16 had died.

1939

First flights of the Famous Polish PZL.50 Jastrząb. The PZL was Polish pre-war fighter aircraft designed by Wsiewołod Jakimiuk of the PZL works. The single-seat low-wing monoplane was to serve as a multi-purpose fighter and escort to replace all other fighters in the Polish Air Force. Designed after 1936, its prototype first flew in February 1939. A further two prototypes were under construction but never entered mass production because Poland was invaded by Germany on September 1, 1939. Wsiewołod Jakimiuk evacuated to Romania, and then to France, where he became the head of the team of Polish engineers at SNCA-SE (Société Nationale des Constructions Aéronautiques - Sud Est ) in Argentueil near Paris .  Work began on modifying the SE-100 fighter and the Leo-45 bomber. But in 1940, Nazi Germany invaded France, and  Jakimiuk evacuated to England where he contacted the British De Havilland.  He was offered a position in the Canadian branch of De Havilland, and in March 1941, he gathered a team of outstanding Polish engineers to work in the aviation industry in Canada. In Toronto, Jakimiuk became a member of the prestigious Granite Club.  He launched the production of a licensed two-engined training plane Avro Anson (352 units built) then constructed with wooden wings for training NA-66 Harvard II and the development of the Menasco engine for the DH school airplane .82 Tiger Moth. In 1942, he launched the production of the DH.98 Mosquito fighter-bomber plane in Canada. Six years later, Jakimiuk moved to England to continue work at the de Havilland factory in Hatfield , where he developed the on-board jet fighter plane DH-112 Sea Venom.   In 1951 he again worked in France at the SNCA-SE label (Sud Est), where he designed the SE-5000 Baroudeur jet fighter aircraft.  Jakimiuk became one of the five commercial directors in the construction of supersonic Franco-British Concorde aircraft (flown on November 2, 1969, 16 were built)

1944

Churchill gave a speech in the House of Commons aimed at dispelling Soviet distrust. Churchill said he supported the Soviet border demands in Poland as reasonable and stated that Britain had never guaranteed any Polish border. ".... the Foreign Secretary and I together have laboured with the Polish Government in London with the object of establishing a working arrangement upon which the Fighting Forces can act, and upon which, I trust, an increasing structure of good will and comradeship may be built between Russians and Poles. I have an intense sympathy with the Poles, that heroic race whose national spirit centuries of misfortune cannot quench, but I also have sympathy with the Russian stand-point. Twice in our lifetime Russia has been violently assaulted by Germany. Many millions of Russians have been slain and vast tracts of Russian soil devastated as a result of repeated German aggression. Russia has the right of reassurance against future attacks from the West, and we are going all the way with her to see that she gets it, not only by the might of her arms but by the approval and assent of the United Nations. The liberation of Poland may presently be achieved by the Russian Armies after these Armies have suffered millions of casualties in breaking the German military machine. I cannot feel that the Russian demand for a reassurance about her Western frontiers goes beyond limits of what is reasonable or just. Marshal Stalin and I also spoke and agreed upon the need for Poland to obtain compensation at the expense of Germany both in the north and in the west."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 22nd February, 1944; Vol. 397, c. 698.] Hansard, British Parliamentary Debates.

1945

German submarine U-300 was depth charged and sunk west of Cádiz, Spain by British warships:  The U-boat was in position 36°29′N 08°20′W when it was hit by gunfire from the British  HMS Recruit and HMS Pincher, after being badly damaged by depth charges from the British armed yacht HMS Evadne on February 19th. Nine of the crew were lost, there were 41 survivors.