APRIL 23 - DAILY CHRONICLES OF HISTORY

APRIL 23

1660

Treaty of Oliwa was signed:  It was one of the peace treaties which ended the Second Northern War (1655-1660) between Sweden, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Habsburgs and Brandenburg-Prussia.  The terms of the treaty included the renunciation by John II Casimir to his claims of the Swedish crown (which his father Sigismund III Vasa had lost in 1599).  Poland also formally ceded to Sweden, Livonia and the city of Riga, which had been under Swedish control since the 1620s. The treaty settled conflicts between Sweden and Poland left standing since the War against Sigismund (1598-1599), the Polish-Swedish War (1600-1629), and the Northern Wars (1655-1660).

1935

The April Constitution of Poland was the general law passed by the act of the Polish Sejm on April 23, 1935. It introduced a presidential system of government with certain elements of authoritarianism. It was accepted in violation of the earlier March Constitution of 1921 and the Rules of the Parliament, and as such it was questioned by most of the opposition to the rule of Sanacja. (Sanacja, or Sanation was created in the interwar period, prior to Józef Piłsudski's May 1926 Coup d'État, and came to power in the wake of that coup.)

1937

The Polish Sejm declared November 11 as the National Independence Day. It was celebrated only twice before World War II broke out. After the war, the communist regime of the People's Republic removed Independence Day from the calendar. Even so, the Polish people continued to celebrate it informally. The Soviets officially replaced National Independence Day, with the "National Day of Poland's Revival as Poland's National Day" celebrated on the July 22, the anniversary of the communist PKWN Manifesto under Joseph Stalin.  When Poland emerged from communism in 1989, the original holiday, National Independence Day, on November 11th, was finally restored.

1945

The race to Berlin ended with the Soviet arrival into the capital first. The Soviet 1st Belorussian Front and 1st Ukrainian Front continued to tighten the encirclement and severing the last link between the German IX Army and the city. Elements of the 1st Ukrainian Front continued to move westward and started to engage the German XII Army moving towards Berlin.  By the next day elements of 1st Belorussian Front and 1st Ukrainian Front had completed the encirclement of the city. On April 25th, the Soviet investment of Berlin had been consolidated, with leading Soviet units probing and penetrating the S-Bahn defensive ring. It became clear that the German defence of the city could not do anything but temporarily delay the capture of the city by the Soviets. The decisive stages of the battle had already been fought and lost by the Germans outside the city. 1,100,000 Soviet personnel who took part in the capture of Berlin from April 22 to May 2, 1945 (Note:  Poland's official Flag Day is held each year on 2 May, the last day of the battle in Berlin, when a solider of the Polish Army hoisted the Polish flag on the Berlin Victory Column.)


Hermann Göring sent a message to Hitler asking for permission to assume leadership of the Third Reich. Interpreting the telegram as an act of treason, Hitler relieved Göring of his official titles and ordered his arrest. The message was translated to English, as follows: "My Fuhrer, General Koller today gave me a briefing on the basis of communications given him by Colonel General Jodl and General Christian, according to which you had referred certain decisions to me and emphasized that I, in case negotiations would become necessary, would be in an easier position than you in Berlin. These views were so surprising and serious to me that I felt obligated to assume, in case by 2200 o’clock no answer is forthcoming, that you have lost your freedom of action. I shall then view the conditions of your decree as fulfilled and take action for the well being of Nation and Fatherland. You know what I feel for you in these most difficult hours of my life and I cannot express this in words. God protect you and allow you despite everything to come here as soon as possible. Your faithful Hermann Göring" On April 25, Hitler issued a telegram to Göring telling him that he had committed "high treason" and gave him the option of resigning all of his offices in exchange for his life. Shortly thereafter, Bormann ordered the SS in Berchtesgaden to arrest Göring. When Hitler discovered, on April 28, that Heinrich Himmler was trying to discuss surrender terms with the western Allies, he ordered Himmler's arrest and had Hermann Fegelein (Himmler's SS representative at Hitler's HQ in Berlin) shot.


In one of the rare actions of the Pacific War that involved a German submarine, U-183 was sunk off the southern coast of Borneo by the American submarine Besugo. After having served in the Battle of the Atlantic,  U-183 sailed from France in July 1943, arriving at Penang on October 27. She operated in that zone for almost two years and  carried out six war patrols. On April 23, 1945, just days before Germany's surrender, she was attacked and sunk in the Java Sea by American submarine Besugo (SS-321).  Only one crew member survived.


Members of the 358th and 359th U.S. Infantry Regiments liberated Flossenbürg on April 23, 1945. Flossenburg was  a Nazi German concentration camp built in May 1938 in Bavaria, Germany, near the border with Czechoslovakia.  Before its liberation, more than 96,000 prisoners passed through the camp, around 30,000 of whom died. An American military tribunal tried 46 former staff from Flossenbürg concentration camp for crimes of murder, torture, and starving the inmates in their custody. All but 5 of the defendants were found guilty, 15 of whom were condemned to death, 11 were given life sentences, and 14 were jailed for terms varying from 1 to 30 years.

APRIL 7 - DAILY CHRONICLES OF HISTORY

APRIL 7

1884

Bronisław Kasper Malinowski (dob) was a Polish anthropologist, often considered one of the most important 20th-century anthropologists. Malinowski originated the school of social anthropology known as functionalism. In contrast to Radcliffe-Brown's structural functionalism, Malinowski argued that culture functioned to meet the needs of individuals rather than society as a whole. He reasoned that when the needs of individuals, who comprise society, are met, then the needs of society are met. According to Malinowski, the feelings of people and their motives were crucial factors in order to understand the way their society functions.

1933

The Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service was passed in Nazi Germany. It restricted employment in the civil service to "Aryans". Consequently, Jews were not allowed to work as teachers, professors, judges, or any other government position. Soon after, Jewish doctors were forbidden to practice medicine. Also passed was The Law on the Admission to the Legal Profession forbidding the admission of Jews to the bar.

1937

Karol Szymanowski was buried at the Skalka Cemetery in Kraków.  Szymanowski was a famous Polish composer and pianist, the most celebrated Polish composer of the early 20th century. He was considered a member of the late 19th-/early 20th-century modernist movement Young Poland and widely viewed as one of the greatest Polish composers. Szymanowski's music received international recognition. In the 1920s and the 1930s, his music was immensely popular and was performed  by celebrated soloists such as Artur Rubinstein, Harry Neuhaus, Robert Casadesus, Paweł Kochański, Bronisław Huberman, Joseph Szigeti, and Jacques Thibaud and orchestras led by famous conductors including Emil Młynarski, Albert Coates, Pierre Monteux, Philippe Gaubert, Leopold Stokowski, Willem Mengelberg. European and American performances of his Stabat Mater were world-scale events. In 1994, a renowned director of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, Mr. Charles Dutoit recorded both of his Violin Concertos.  Karol Szymanowski received many important awards, including: The Officer Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta; The Officer of the Order of the Crown of Italy; The Commander of the Order of the Crown of Italy; the Knight of Legion d'Honneur; an honorary plaque at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia; The Commander Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta; The Academic Golden Laurel of the Polish Academy of Literature, Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland. He was also a Doctor Honoris Causa of the Jagiellonian University, Kraków and an honorary member of the Czech Academy of Learning, the Latvian Conservatory of Music in Riga, the St Cecilia Royal Academy in Rome, the Royal Academy of Music in Belgrade, and the International Society for Contemporary Music.

1944

Two Jewish inmates escaped from Auschwitz-Birkenau, Alfred Wetzler, and Rudolf Vrba, making it safely to Czechoslovakia.  Rudolf Vrba later submitted a report to the Papal Nuncio in Slovakia which was forwarded to the Vatican, received there in mid June. The report contains a detailed description and sketches of the layout of the camps, gas chambers and their management;  how the prisoners lived and died;  the transports that had arrived at Auschwitz since 1942;  their place of origin,  the numbers "selected" for work or the gas chambers.  Only the prisoners would have known the details, such as the process of discharge forms filled out for prisoners who were to be gassed, indicating that the Nazi Germans falsified the death rates in the camp. In a sworn deposition for the trial of SS-Obersturmbannführer Adolf Eichmann in 1961, and in his book I Cannot Forgive (1964), Vrba said that he and Wetzler obtained the information about the gas chambers and crematoria from Sonderkommando Filip Müller and his colleagues who worked there. Müller confirmed this in his Eyewitness Auschwitz (1979). Auschwitz scholar Robert Jan van Pelt wrote in 2002 that the description contains errors, but that given the circumstances, including the men's lack of architectural training, "one would become suspicious if it did not contain errors"

1945

German submarine U-1195 was depth charged and sunk southeast of the Isle of Wight by the Royal Navy destroyer HMS destroyer Watchman.  (D26), using a Hedgehog antisubmarine mortar, to the southeast of the Isle of Wight at 50°33′22.26″N 0°56′17.81″W (WGS84) in 30 metres (98 feet) of water. Fifty crew members were alive when she sank; however, only 14 survived.

1989

April Novelization (Polish: Nowela kwietniowa) referred to the constitutional amendments made to the 1952 Constitution of the People's Republic of Poland, agreed upon on April 7, 1989, in the aftermath of the Polish Round Table Agreement.  Key changes were the restoration of the Senate of Poland and the post of the president of Poland (the latter annulling the power of the Polish United Workers' Party general secretary); introduction of the National Court Council; changes to the electoral legislation, in order to make elections more free and fair; powers of the Sejm were adjusted. The 1952 constitution was reformed by the December Novelization and Small Constitution of 1992, and finally replaced in 1997 by a completely new current Constitution of Poland.