OCTOBER 4 - DAILY CHRONICLES OF HISTORY

OCTOBER 4

1939

In Wilno, the NKVD incarcerated Colonel Zygmunt Berling. The NKVD was the notorious Soviet secret police organization that operated  from 1934 to 1946. It was infamous for its role in political repression, torture, murders, massacres. They carried out the Great Purge in 1936 under Stalin's command. Berling was a Polish general and politician. He fought for the independence of Poland in the early 20th century. During WW2 he was sentenced to death in absentia for desertion from the Polish Army of General Władysław Anders. The verdict was overruled by the Polish government-in-exile. Later, he became the commander of the 1st Polish Army, part of the Polish Army in the USSR, and played an important role in the post-war Polish government.

1943

Himmler Speech in Posen.  The following is an excerpt of one of Himmlers speeches regarding the Jewish Question. "….. I also want to mention a very difficult subject before you here, completely openly. It should be discussed amongst us, and yet, nevertheless, we will never speak about it in public. Just as we did not hesitate on June 30 to carry out our duty, as ordered, and stand comrades who had failed against the wall and shoot them. That was, thank God, a kind of tact natural to us, a foregone conclusion of that tact, that we have never conversed about it amongst ourselves, never spoken about it, everyone shuddered, and everyone was clear that the next time, he would do the same thing again, if it were commanded and necessary.  I am talking about the "Jewish evacuation": the extermination of the Jewish people. It is one of those things that is easily said. "The Jewish people is being exterminated," every Party member will tell you, "perfectly clear, it's part of our plans, we're eliminating the Jews..... We have the moral right, we had the duty to our people to do it, to kill this people who wanted to kill us..... We have carried out this most difficult task for the love of our people...."

1944

Operation Nordlicht ("Northern Light") was a Nazi German operation which began on October 4, 1944.   After Finland had made peace with the USSR, the German command ordered its troops to fall back to defense lines across Finnish Lapland (Operation Birke). In Operation Nordlicht, the Germans did not merely evacuate the area, but used scorched earth tactics as they retreated, destroyed almost all the buildings and boats in Finnmark, leaving nothing to the enemy.  The Germans used the same tactics in Finnish Lapland.  This operation ended on January 30, 1945.