APRIL 9 - DAILY CHRONICLES OF HISTORY

APRIL 9

1241

Battle of Legnica:  Mongol armies defeated the Polish and German armies. Just days days earlier a combined force of Poles and Moravians under the command of the Polish Duke Henry II the Pious of Silesia, supported by feudal nobility and a few knights from military orders sent by the Pope, attempted to halt the Mongol invasion of Europe. But the Mongol victory over the Hungarians came later at the much larger Battle of Mohi. The Mongols had much success in the battle by feigning their retreat. After the Polish knights detached from the main body of allied forces in pursuit of the fleeing Mongols, the invaders were able to separate the knights from the infantry and defeat them one by one. Henry II was struck down and beheaded while attempting to flee the battlefield with three bodyguards, and the Mongols paraded his head on a spear before the town of Legnica.

1936

The National Defense Fund (Poland) was established by special decree of Polish President Ignacy Mościcki.  Its objective was to collect additional sources of money, necessary for supplying shortfalls in equipment of the Polish Army. The response was overwhelming. The Fund collected over 1 Billion Zlotys. Forty million of it was given by patriotic Polish citizens from their personal savings, jewelry, precious coins, gold earrings, valuable plates and utensils, and other precious belongings.  Even school children gave their pocket money.

1940

The Battles of Narvik were fought from April 9 to June 8, 1940. The first phase was a naval battle in the Ofotfjord, followed by a battle in the mountains surrounding the north Norwegian city of Narvik (part of the Norwegian Campaign of the Second World War).  Two naval battles were fought on April 10 and 13 April  between the British Royal Navy (and its Allies) against Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine.  Among others, the Polish destroyers Grom, Burza and Błyskawica took part in these operations. Tragically,  Grom was sunk by German aircraft on May 4, 1940, with the loss of 59 Polish sailors. The other Battle of Narvik was a land campaign, two-months in duration, fought between Norwegian, French, British, and Polish Allied troops against German sailors, mountain troops and paratroopers. Although they were defeated at sea off Narvik, and lost control of the town of Narvik (being pushed back towards the Swedish border) the German forces eventually prevailed. ( due to the Allied evacuation from Norway in June 1940 following the Battle of France.)

1943

Exterminations at Chelmno ceased temporarily. The camp would be reactivated in the spring of 1944 to liquidate ghettos. In all,  the deaths of prisoners in Chelmno would reach 300,000.  The SS of the camp began extermination processes on December 8, 1941. Among the first transports were Jewish and Romani populations of Koło, Dąbie, Sompolno, Kłodawa, Babiak, Izbica Kujawska, Bugaj, Nowiny Brdowskie and Kowale Pańskie. A total of 3,830 Jews and around 4,000 Romani were killed by gas before February 1942. From January 1942 the transports included hundreds of Poles and Soviet prisoners of war. In addition, they included over 10,000 Jews from Germany, Austria, Bohemia, Moravia and Luxembourg, who had first been deported to the ghetto in Łódź an detained there already for weeks. In late February 1942, Stanislaw Kaszynski,  the secretary of the local Polish council in Chełmno, was arrested for trying to bring public attention to the killings in the camp. He was interrogated and executed three days later on February 28, 1942, near a church along with his wife. He wrote a secret memorandum  but it was intercepted by the SS-Sonderkommando. Today, there is an obelisk to his memory erected at Chełmno.

1945

German cruiser Admiral Scheer was sunk in a general RAF bombing raid by over 300 allied aircraft which struck the harbor in Kiel. Admiral Scheer was hit by bombs and capsized. After the end of World War Two,  she was partially broken up for scrap though part of the hull was left in place and buried with rubble from the attack in the construction of a new quay. The number of casualties from her loss is unknown.


German submarines U-804 was attacked and sunk:  (Note:  After her second patrol  U-804 returned to the port of Flensburg after 116 days at sea. Five days later she left  for Kiel, where she remained until April 4, 1945 then left for occupied Norway. The U-804, accompanied by U-843 were spotted on April 9, 1945 at Skagerrak Strait,  and attacked by over 30 De Havilland Mosquito aircraft from RAF Squadron No. 143.   Another German sub, U-1065 succeeded in shooting down one of the Allied attacking aircraft before being hit by several rockets fired by 10 Mosquitos from RAF Squadron 143 and Squadron 235. The U-boat exploded and sank with the loss of her crew of 45.

APRIL 8 - DAILY CHRONICLES OF HISTORY

APRIL 8

1933

Nazi Book Burning:  On April 8, 1933, the nationwide "Action Against the Un-German Spirit" was proclaimed by the German Student Union (DSt)  propaganda office. They distributed press releases to publicize the book burning rally as a literary "cleansing by fire" and invited prominent Nazi figures to speak at the rallies.  The DSt also published the "Twelve Theses" of the Nazi Party, which they equated with the ninety-five theses published by Martin Luther in 1520. (Luther was a central figure in the Protestant Reformation, whose views ran counter to that of the Catholic Church, and ultimately was excommunicated. He subsequently burned the papal bull in protest.)  There is no comparison with the Nazis,  because Luther's action was based on a symbolic protest, whereas the Nazis willfully destroyed public property, and threatened fundamental personal freedom of speech. The Nazis chose the Wartburg Festival, on its 300th anniversary of Luther's burning of the bull, to conduct their heinous acts. The German students burned tens of thousands of books from a list they compiled covering 4,000 titles.  The DSt Twelve Theses, called for the purification of the German language and culture in response to what they perceived as a world- wide Jewish smear campaign against Germany, and the Nazi affirmation of traditional values.

1934

Nazi Germany banned the film The Rise of Catherine the Great because its star and director were Jewish. On April 8, 1934, the Nazi SA units made sure that the film was banned in Germany. The 1934 film is a British historical version of the play The Czarina by Lajos Bíró and Melchior Lengyel, about the rise to power of Catherine the Great. It was directed by Paul Czinner, and stars Elisabeth Bergner as Catherine, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., as Grand Duke Peter, Dorothy Hale as Countess Olga, and Flora Robson as Empress Elizabeth. The film recounts the events that led to the rise of Catherine the Great, Empress of all the Russias. The scene opens with the arrival in 1744 of Princess Sophie Auguste Frederika – whose name would be changed to ‘Catherine’ – from her father’s court of Anhalt-Zerbst (in modern Germany) to the court of the Empress Elizabeth. "Little Catherine" is to marry the Grand Duke Peter, nephew and heir presumptive of the unmarried and childless Empress Elizabeth.

1939

Stanisław Mackiewicz was released from Bereza Kartuska Prison. He was imprisoned for having criticized the ruling elite, and was jailed for 17 days.  Bereza Kartuska camp was created on June 17, 1934 by the order of President Ignacy Mościcki,  to detain people who were viewed by the Polish state as a "threat to security, peace and social order" ( without formal charges or trial for three months, hence the possibility of prolonging the detention indefinitely). Originally, the detainees were only political opponents of the Sanacja regime, most notably communists, members of far-right parties, and Ukrainian and Belarusian nationalists, but as of October 1937, "notorious" and financial criminals were also sent to the camp. Detainees were supposed to perform penal labour, and at least 13 people died during their stay. It has been described as a concentration camp.

1940

The Polish submarine ORP Orzel, under British command, torpedoed and sunk the German troop transport MS Rio de Janeiro in the Skagerrak .  At 11.15 am, just hours before the German attack on Norway would began, a submarine surfaced and was sighted off Lillesand. The Germans thought it was a German submarine, but it turned out to be the Polish submarine ORP Orzeł, serving under British command.  Orzel had the number 85 A written on the tower (signifying that it was German-built).  Orzel signalled for Rio de Janeiro to stop, and the order was followed. Then Captain Grudzinski, of the Polish Navy, ordered the Rio de Janeiro to surrender or it would be sunk. When there was no response, Orzel torpedoed the ship. As the Rio took in water and began to sink, the crew and soldiers on board jumped overboard. At 12:40 Orzel submerged and torpedoed the ship a second time.  When the torpedo hit the ammunition depot, it caused an enormous explosion.  The few German survivors told the Allied authorities that the ship was headed for Bergen.  There were horses on board, and the dead (and survivors were wearing German military uniforms, indicated that a German invasion was  imminent.

1947

The Pohl Trial was the fourth 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 April 8 to November 3, 1947 during which 18 SS Nazi German officers were tried for war crimes and crimes against humanity.  The main charge was their active participation in carrying out the "Final Solution", the systematic extermination of the Jews. The accused were employed by the SS Main Economic and Administrative Office, ie, the "WVHA" which ran the concentration and extermination camps in German-occupied territories. The WVHA also handled the recruitment of the SS and Waffen, and the SS-Totenkopfverbande.   Four of the accused, including Oswald Pohl, were sentenced to death by hanging. Three were acquitted. The others received sentences between 10 years and life imprisonment. However, eight months later the judges received additional material presented by the defence and the court agreed to reconvene. After several weeks of re-examination the tribunal confirmed most of the sentences, made slight reductions in some of the other sentences, and changed the death sentence of Georg Lorner into life imprisonment. 

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.