AUGUST 27 - DAILY CHRONICLES OF HISTORY

AUGUST 27

1914

The Austrian government gave its official approval for the re-organization of the First Cadre Company (which had been established by Josef Pilsudski on August 3, 1914), and thereafter named the Polish Legions.  On August 6, 1914, the Austro-Hungarian Empire declared war on the Russian Empire.  On the same day, the First Cadre set out for the Austro-Hungarian - Russian border and crossed into Tsarist Poland.  In full battalion strength, the First Cadre captured Kielce alongside the Second Company, led by Stanisław Tessaro (pl), and the Third Company, led by Wacław Scaevola-Wieczorkiewicz.  The objective of the First Cadre was to break through Russian lines, continue north, and capture Warsaw. They hoped to set off an uprising in Tsarist Poland against the Russian regime, but the Russians checked the First Cadre just outside Kielce on August 13 resulting in the Cadre's retreat.

1941

The Hungarian Army rounded up Jews at Kamenets-Podolsk.  The city is now located in the western Ukraine, then part of the Soviet Union. During WW2 it was occupied by German forces during the invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941.  On August 27 and 28, detachments of Einsatzgruppen (mobile killing units) and troops under the command of the Higher SS and Police Leader for the southern region, SS General Friedrich Jeckeln, carried out mass killings of the Jewish deportees as well as the local Jewish population. A total of 23,600 Jews were massacred.

1942

During the last 15 days in August, 53,750 Warsaw Jews were deported to Treblinka.  Treblinka was a Nazi-German death camp located in a forest north-east of Warsaw. The camp was managed by the Nazi SS and the Trawnikis, also called Hiwi guards, who were the Soviet POWs, enlisted from camps to assist the Germans. Treblinka was composed of two camps; Treblinka I, which was a forced labor camp whose inmates worked the gravel pit or cutting trees in the forest: the other was Treblinka II, the death camp.  The Germans forced a small number of Jewish men to become the Sonderkommandos, slave-labour teams who were forced to bury the victims bodies in mass graves after they had been gassed to death.  In 1943, these bodies were exhumed and cremated on large open-air pyres along with the bodies of new victims.

1947

The I.G. Farben Trial was the sixth  of 12 trials of the United States Military Tribunal at Nuremberg (not to be confused with the Nuremberg Trials). It was also called the "Subsequent Nuremberg Trials". The trial was held from August 27, 1947 to July 30, 1948. The accused had all been directors of IG Farben, a German conglomerate of chemical companies.  During World War II, the company Degesch (42.5 per cent  of which was owned by IG Farben) held the trademark of Zyklon B, the poison gas used by the Nazi Germans to exterminate Jews.  The charges included slave labor and plundering.  Of the 24 defendants, 13 were found guilty on one or the other counts, and sentenced to prison terms ranging from one and one half to eight years, including time already served; ten defendants were acquitted of all charges. Max Brüggemann (Farben's chief legal advisor) was excused from the trial and his case discontinued on September 9, 1947 due to medical reasons.

AUGUST 3 - DAILY CHRONICLES OF HISTORY

AUGUST 3

1914

Jozef Pilsudski, Marshal of Poland, created the First Cadre Company in Cracow. It was the predecessor of the Polish Legions, and formed the core of the Polish Legions' First Brigade during World War I. On August 6, 1914, Austro-Hungary declared war on Tsarist Russia.  The First Cadre crossed into Russia and captured Kielce, then proceeded to break through Russian lines and advanced north. The Polish troops attempted to capture Warsaw so as to set off an uprising in Tsarist Poland against the Russian regime. However, on August 13,  the Russians checked the First Cadre just outside Kielce, forcing the Cadre's retreat from Kielce to Kraków.

1944

Polish Prime Minister Met with Stalin:  Polish Prime Minister Stanislaw Mikolajczyk met with Marshal Stalin in an effort to make arrangements for Mikolajczyk to travel to Warsaw and begin preparations for the establishment of a new Polish government there. Mikolajczyk added that he expected Warsaw to be free very soon to which Stalin replied, “Pray God!”   But Stalin refused his request on the grounds that the Soviet Union has broken off diplomatic relations with Poland and did not recognize the legitimacy of the Polish Government in Exile in London.

1948

Russian Spy in U.S. State Department:   Alger Hiss, an American government official,  was accused of being a Soviet spy in 1948 and convicted of perjury in connection with this charge.  On August 3, 1948, Whittaker Chambers, a former Communist Party member, appeared before the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) to denounce Alger Hiss.  Chambers asserted that he had known Hiss as a member of "an underground organization of the United States Communist Party" in the 1930s, code named the "Ware Group" and that "the purpose of this group at that time was not primarily espionage. Its original purpose was the Communist infiltration of the American government. But espionage was certainly one of its eventual objectives."  Espionage was treason, traditionally punishable by death. The distinction was not lost on the cleverest member of HUAC, Congressman Richard Nixon. He had been studying the FBI's files for five months, courtesy of J. Edgar Hoover. Nixon launched his political career in hot pursuit of Hiss and the alleged secret Communists of the New Deal.