[Doug64]

November 9, Thursday

Gestapo arrests British bomb suspects

Two British agents in Holland who believed that they were in contact with army officers plotting to overthrow Hitler are today kidnapped and carried off into Germany. For the past month Captain S. Payne Best and Major Richard Stevens had been meeting a Major Schaemmle at Venlo, five miles (eight km) from the German border.

To prove his bona fides Captain Best arranged for a special news item to be broadcast on the BBC German Service. Major Schaemmle then promised to produce the general who was leading the plotters. When Best and Stevens turn up at Venlo this afternoon, they are told the Germans are afraid of venturing too far inside Holland. The British agree to rendezvous at a café a few yards from the German border. There they notice that the German barrier hasd been lifted. The next moment their car is hit by machine-gun fire and they are seized by a posse of Germans.

“Major Schaemmle,” it turns out, is in fact a Gestapo officer, Walther Schellenberg. Immediately after the Munich bomb, Himmler had ordered Schellenberg to kidnap the Britons.

[Doug64]

November 11, Saturday

Queen wants women to keep up their “vital work” at home

Queen Elizabeth broadcasts an Armistice Day message to the women of the Empire from Buckingham Palace tonight, while the king listens on a radio in another room. “War has at all times called for the fortitude of women,” she says, “but now we, no less than men, have real and vital work to do. To us also is given the proud privilege of serving our country in her hour of need.

“The tasks you have undertaken cover every field of national service. But these tasks are not for every woman. It is the worries and irritations of carrying on wartime life in ordinary homes which are often so hard to bear. Many of you have had to see your family life broken up, your husband going off to his allotted task, your children evacuated to places of greater safety.

“The king and I know what it means to be parted from our children and we can sympathize with you.” (The two princesses have remained at Balmoral since the outbreak of the war.) “All this has meant sacrifice and I would say to those who are feeling the strain: You are taking your part in keeping the Home Front, which will have dangers of its own, stable and strong.”

So far 45,000 women have been recruited as volunteers for the women’s services—the WRNS (3,400), the ATS (24,000), the WAAF (8,800) and the nursing services (8,000). Recruiting for the WRNS (Women’s Royal Naval Service) has been halted because the waiting lists are already so long. The ATS (Auxiliary Territorial Service) takes women from the ages of 18 to 43. The age limit for the WAAF (Women’s Auxiliary Air Force) has been raised to 50 for those with experience. Women pilots are being accepted in the Air Transport Auxiliary which flies planes from factories to their squadrons.

Recruiting has also been suspended for the Women’s Land Army, for which 25,000 women have registered. Only a proportion of those who have completed training have yet been found work. The Marchioness of Reading, who founded the Women’s Voluntary Service for Civil Defence (the WVS) last year, says that nearly 50,000 women have volunteered for it.

[Doug64]

November 12, Sunday

Allies turn deaf ear to royal peace plea

In his Sunday evening broadcast Mr. Churchill tells his listeners that the first ten weeks of the war have gone well for the Allies. But no one supposes it is going to be a short or easy war. “It may be that at any time violent and dire events will open,” says the First Lord of the Admiralty. “If so, we shall confront them with fortitude.” He disregards the peace appeal issued last week by King Leopold of the Belgians and Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands. The two sovereigns offered “in the spirit of friendly understanding” to assist in seeking “the elements of an agreement” before war begins in western Europe. The appeal is seen as a forlorn attempt to avert a German invasion.

ENSA gives its first concert of the war

The first concert given by ENSA (Entertainment National Service Association) takes place “somewhere in France” with the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) behind the Front today. ENSA—which has been organized by Basil Dean, the theater director—is a union of professional organizations of actors and musicians. The veteran actor-manager Sir Seymour Hicks is master of ceremonies and appears in a sketch with Claire Luce. Gracie Fields is the star. There are also songs from Dennis Noble, conjuring by Duveen, and tap dancing by the Three Astors.

[Doug64]

November 13, Monday

Luftwaffe bombs Shetland Islands

German bombers appear out of the mist today and drop bombs on British soil for the first time in this war. Damage is confined to a deserted crofter’s cottage and a rabbit. The bombers—which had flown nearly 600 miles (960 kms)—miss naval vessels and anchored flying boats. The Germans claim hits on a cruiser and two aircraft. “This is only the beginning,” says their spokesman.

[Doug64]

November 16, Thursday

Finland mobilized as peace talks fail

Finland mobilizes its forces today as the talks over Russia’s demands for an exchange of territory break down in acrimony. Russia, seeking to protect its naval bases at Leningrad and Murmansk from possible attack by Germany, is demanding the cession of strategic Finnish territory and the lease of Finnish ports in exchange for land in the desolate swamps and forests of Karelia.

The Finns, fearful that this would merely be the prelude to a Soviet takeover of their country, are refusing. It is now obvious that they are prepared to go to war against their giant neighbor to defend their nation.

Spy fever grips Britain as censors check the mail for clues

Britain is in the grip of spy fever, although more than 6,000 suspected men and women have already been detained. In the first few days of the war, the entire detective force of Scotland Yard was employed in rounding up suspected enemy agents and sympathizers who had already been identified by the intelligence services. They have been detained for the duration of the war.

Hundreds of thousands of items which leave Britain by post every week for neutral countries are being examined and censored, mainly at Liverpool. A staff of 1,700 linguistic experts examines letters not only for what they say but also for messages in invisible ink.

[Doug64]

November 19, Sunday

Himmler emerges as Hitler’s henchman

The most feared man in Germany and occupied Poland is a mild-mannered former poultry farmer with a yen for astrology and violence. Heinrich Himmler has been at Hitler’s side from the earliest days of the Nazi Party. The son of a Bavarian schoolmaster, Himmler was present at the failed Munich putsch of 1923 and took over the SS in 1928. In the 1934 “Night of the Long Knives” he provided the firing squads for the killing of Ernst Rohm and other Brownshirts who were becoming a nuisance to Hitler. He organized the concentration camps and planned massacres of Jews and Poles in eastern Europe.

Himmler controls the Gestapo and the Security Service as well as the regular criminal police. As Reichsfuhrer-SS he commands the regime’s notorious Schutzstaffel, or SS, for which he has drawn up a rigid code of conduct. A member can marry only after the Gestapo has investigated a would-be bride. Himmler plans to send the SS into Britain after the German invasion. If this happens, British Jews and socialists, first among the many targets for Nazi brutality, would have no illusions about their fate: the SS has been responsible for carrying out most of the Nazis’ atrocities in occupied western Poland.

[Doug64]

November 20, Monday

If it’s teatime, it must be the rush hour

For the first time since the war began, London’s workers travel home in blackout conditions this evening. On the first business day after the change from British Summer Time the blackout begins at 4:30pm.

Many offices in the city close at 4pm to give employees a chance to get home before the lights go out. Staff have started early and cut short their lunch hours to make up the time. Shops in the West End close early as well, with only a few still serving customers after 5pm.

The change has brought the rush hour forward by an hour, and London Transport is considering adjusting services. This evening’s bright moonlight makes journeys in the darkened city more romantic than perilous.

[Doug64]

November 23, Thursday

Hitler insults army generals in speech

Hitler today gives his senior generals a dressing-down for their opposition to his plans for launching an offensive against Britain and France. Summoning them to the chancellery, he tells them that he has led the German people to great heights, while they have only shown lack of faith in him. “I am irreplaceable,” he storms at the unhappy brass-hats. “I shall attack France and England at the earliest moment. My decision is unchangeable.”

[Potemkin]

Hitler clearly believed in the power of positive thinking.

[Doug64]

Hitler clearly believed in the power of positive thinking.

The beatings will continue until morale improves!

[Doug64]

November 24, Friday

Japan takes Chinese city of Nanning

The Japanese claim today to have occupied the strategically important city of Nanning, despite fierce resistance by 100,000 Chinese Nationalist troops.

The capture of Nanning would be Japan’s first major victory since its forces advanced west into Kwangsi province in a bid to deprive the Chinese of their last remaining links with Indochina.

The loss of Nanning has effectively diverted the Chinese from their winter offensive, which the Kuomin-tang leader Chiang Kai-shek had declared would drive the Japanese back to the lower Yangtze River and the pre-1937 borders. Instead, the Chinese have now lost a key supply route and face a new threat on their southern flank. The Japanese claim that they now control the road which hitherto had been the route for 70 percent of China’s supplies from Indochina.

Last night Chiang Kai-shek ordered his remaining reservists into Kweichow and Yunnan to reinforce security on the Yunnan-Hanoi railway—now China’s only link with Indochina.

The Japanese High Command, however, is now intent on continuing its advance, aiming to sever China’s connection not only with Indochina but also with Burma. This would leave Soviet Russia as the only source from which the Chinese could obtain war materials.

The Japanese occupation of Nanning was preceded by a heavy aerial bombardment. Civilian casualties were slight.

Nazis seize assets of their richest friend

Fritz Thyssen, the multi-millionaire steel magnate who fled from Germany at the beginning of the war, has had all his property seized by the Nazis because he refuses to return. Thyssen, who gave millions of marks to the Nazis to help them win power, says that he fears for his life because he opposed the war and the persecution of the Jews.

Along with other Ruhr industrialists, Thyssen believed the Nazis would discipline labor and allow businesses to prosper; instead, they got state control and forced levies. “What a fool I was,” says Thyssen, in hiding in Locarno.

[Potemkin]

Nazis seize assets of their richest friend

Fritz Thyssen, the multi-millionaire steel magnate who fled from Germany at the beginning of the war, has had all his property seized by the Nazis because he refuses to return. Thyssen, who gave millions of marks to the Nazis to help them win power, says that he fears for his life because he opposed the war and the persecution of the Jews.

Along with other Ruhr industrialists, Thyssen believed the Nazis would discipline labor and allow businesses to prosper; instead, they got state control and forced levies. “What a fool I was,” says Thyssen, in hiding in Locarno.

The reactionaries in Germany put Hitler into power for the same reason the Italian ruling elite put Mussolini into power - they felt they were on the brink of a Bolshevik-style revolution in their own country, and they lacked the popular support to suppress it themselves, so they backed the first successful right-wing populist who came along. What they failed to understand was the nature of the ideology of the demagogues they were backing. Neither the Italian Fascists nor the German Nazis were standard upper-class reactionaries, and instead of allowing themselves to be controlled by the upper-class reactionaries, the Nazis ended up controlling them - the tail wagged the dog. In the event, it was Hitler and not the German Communists who ended up destroying the Junkers as a class. In retrospect, the only power the Junkers really had after 1918 was in choosing who their executioners were going to be.

[Doug64]

@Potemkin, outside of the fact that both the Fascists and Nazis were left-wing populists, not right (Mussolini started out as a Socialist and merely re-skinned his goals, and the Nazis followed the path the Fascists blazed), you’re right—the businessmen didn’t take those leaders’ rhetoric seriously and paid the price. More those in Germany than Italy, I believe, Mussolini never had the level of control that Hitler did. And even the Nazis had their limits, though that would have changed if they’d won the war.

[Potemkin]

@Doug64 we’ll just have to agree to disagree about fascism being a ‘left-wing’ ideology. The fact that Mussolini was a renegade socialist doesn’t prove that Italian fascism was a form of socialism; it just shows that Mussolini was willing to betray his political principles to gain power, wealth and status. Corporatism is not socialism.

[Rich]

@Potemkin, outside of the fact that both the Fascists and Nazis were left-wing populists, not right (Mussolini started out as a Socialist and merely re-skinned his goals, and the Nazis followed the path the Fascists blazed), you’re right

The Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei[ and the Partito Nazionale Fascista were right wing. They were supported by right wing voters,allied with other right wing parties and organisations and suppressed the left. Internationally those that were most sympathetic to them also overwhelmingly came from the right of their national politiacal spectrums and those who were most opposed came from the left of their national political spectrums. The British Labour party even over ruled their leaadership demanding greater military spending.

[Doug64]

Corporatism is not socialism.

From Wikipedia: "A fascist corporation can be defined as a governmental entity that facilitates the convergence of federations consisting of workers' and employers' syndicates affiliated with the same profession and sector, with the aim of overseeing production in a comprehensive manner." (emphasis added) Sounds like socialism to me, the difference being a matter of details over how the State is to exercise its control over the economy.

Internationally those that were most sympathetic to them also overwhelmingly came from the right of their national politiacal spectrums and those who were most opposed came from the left of their national political spectrums.

No, most of the Fascists' international support was from Progressives who adored Mussolini's "Third Way." That support only waned when Mussolini turned militarily expansionistic with the invasion of Ethiopia, and even then didn't completely vanish--it wasn't like there weren't plenty of Progressives that advocated for the domination of "lesser races"--for their own good, of course. Just like there were plenty of Progressives that preached the use of eugenics--which Mussolini rejected, but Hitler took to its logical extreme.

[Potemkin]

From Wikipedia: "A fascist corporation can be defined as a governmental entity that facilitates the convergence of federations consisting of workers' and employers' syndicates affiliated with the same profession and sector, with the aim of overseeing production in a comprehensive manner." (emphasis added) Sounds like socialism to me, the difference being a matter of details over how the State is to exercise its control over the economy.

Socialism is not just government control of the economy, @Doug64. Back in the 16th and 17th centuries, European monarchs were handing out economic monopolies to their favourite courtiers like there was no tomorrow. Did that mean Europe was socialist back then? And is mercantilism more ‘socialist’ than free trade?

No, most of the Fascists' international support was from Progressives who adored Mussolini's "Third Way." That support only waned when Mussolini turned militarily expansionistic with the invasion of Ethiopia, and even then didn't completely vanish--it wasn't like there weren't plenty of Progressives that advocated for the domination of "lesser races"--for their own good, of course. Just like there were plenty of Progressives that preached the use of eugenics--which Mussolini rejected, but Hitler took to its logical extreme.

Back in the 1920s and 1930s, pretty much everyone in Europe and the US were racist assholes. This doesn’t make racism or support for eugenics a specifically ‘left wing’ ideology.

[Tainari88]

Socialism is not just government control of the economy, @Doug64. Back in the 16th and 17th centuries, European monarchs were handing out economic monopolies to their favourite courtiers like there was no tomorrow. Did that mean Europe was socialist back then? And is mercantilism more ‘socialist’ than free trade?


Back in the 1920s and 1930s, pretty much everyone in Europe and the US were racist assholes. This doesn’t make racism or support for eugenics a specifically ‘left wing’ ideology.

Yes, they were. I get tired also of people thinking they are 'cured' from their old racist shit history. They are not cured. They need to just acknowledge that they have a racist history and they are going to take drastic steps to correct it. Otherwise, it is all just lying bullshit.

I seriously get tired of it. Spiritually and mentally tired from it. Because it is consistent. If you are a person from the 'inferior' people they will do 1000 things and more to show you how inferior you are. You have to expect the racism and have a plan for it. That is a reality for many people who are supposedly 'inferior' people. It is very very tiring.

Did you ever know how bad it gets Potemkin? Until you started noticing it in subtle ways?

[Doug64]

Socialism is not just government control of the economy, @Doug64. Back in the 16th and 17th centuries, European monarchs were handing out economic monopolies to their favourite courtiers like there was no tomorrow. Did that mean Europe was socialist back then? And is mercantilism more ‘socialist’ than free trade?

Sure, European monarch were handing monopolies to favorite courtiers, but those belonged to the courtiers rather than the government. And fundamentally, yes, Socialism is when the means of production and distribution are publicly or collectively owned or controlled.

Back in the 1920s and 1930s, pretty much everyone in Europe and the US were racist assholes. This doesn’t make racism or support for eugenics a specifically ‘left wing’ ideology.

Racism no, eugenics yes. It was the Left that was all in on eugenics rather than the Right, with the debate in Progressive circles being over whether its implementation should be limited to encouraging the "right" people to have more children or also encompass preventing the "wrong" people from having children. The latter's chosen tools were birth control (though Margaret Sanger rejected using abortion) and sterilization. The Nazis not only came down hard for the latter side of the debate but took it to its logical extreme.

[Doug64]

November 27, Monday

Germans tell Jews to wear armbands

Anti-Semitic measures are stepped up today when “Aryan” Germans are warned to divorce their Jewish spouses or face the consequences. In the General Government area of Poland, where Jews are ordered to wear identifying armbands, typhus is reported to be sweeping the Jewish labor camp near Lublin, which houses some 45,000 deportees from Austria, Czechoslovakia and western Poland.