OCTOBER 6 - DAILY CHRONICLES OF HISTORY

OCTOBER 6

1852

Bruno Abdank-Abakanowicz (dob) was a Polish mathematician, inventor, and electrical engineer.  He invented the integraph, a form of the integrator which was patented in 1880, later produced by the Swiss firm Coradi. Other patents were the parabolagraph, the spirograph, the electric bell used in trains, and an electric arc lamp of his own design.  The French government hired him to be the main engineer behind the electrification of the city of Lyon, among other places. His patents allowed him to become a very wealthy man, and he was granted the Legion d'Honneur in 1889. His daughter Zofia, who graduated from the London School of Business, and the Sorbonne, was arrested and deported during World War II, and died in Auschwitz.

1938

Italian Racial Laws:  The  decision to enact the law was finalized during a meeting of the Gran Consiglio del Fascismo, which convened October 6 to 7, 1938 in Rome, at Palazzo Venezia.  Not all Fascists supported discrimination: while the pro-German, anti-Jewish Roberto Farinacci and Giovanni Preziosi strongly pushed for them.  Italo Balbo strongly opposed the laws. The Italian racial laws prohibited Jews from having any professional profession and prohibited sexual relations and marriages between Italians and Jews and Africans.

1939

On October 6, 1939, German and Soviets annexed Poland, according to the terms of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, the treaty of Non-Aggression between Germany and the Soviet Union. It was signed on August 23, 1939 and contained a secret protocol for the joint invasion and partition of Polish territory. (Germany invaded Poland on September 1st, 1939 from the north, west and south.  On September 17, 1939, Soviet troops invaded Poland from the east. )  (Editors note: Please refer to my blog archives for the special series called, "September 1939: Invasion of Poland" for day by day account of events during the invasion).


Hitler addressed a special session of the Reichstag during which he spoke at great length of Nazi Germany's victory over Poland, and then brazenly extended an offer of peace.  His roughly 80 minutes of oratory was strewn with lies. He expounded on the "good relations" with Britain and France,  as a basis for establishing "peace", but in the same breath, threatened them with an ultimatum, otherwise,  "...this statement would have been my last...." Britain and France refused to take these overtures seriously, and consequently, the Phoney War continued for the next several months.