1933 (SUNDAY)
AUSTRIA: Theodore Habicht demands restoration of Austrian National-Socialist party, whose aim is the union of Austria with Germany.
1936 (THURSDAY)
GERMANY: Dr. Josef Goebbels, the German Minister of Propaganda, launches a public propaganda campaign against Czechoslovakia based on the Czechoslovak-Soviet Mutual Assistance Pact of May 1935. The Germans accuse the Czechs of harboring Sovie and providing airfields to the Soviet Air Force. Despite Czech protests, the Germans expand the propaganda program and denounce the Czechoslovak government. The Czechoslovak government expands its armament program and begins the construction of strong fortifications along the German border.
September 10th, 1939 (SUNDAY)
FRANCE: British soldiers arrive at Perl near the French-Luxembourg border.GERMANY: Hitler gives permission for the Luftwaffe to extend its reconnaissance flights across the Franco-German border.
Oberst Rommel, as chief of Hitler's bodyguard, requests of the Organization TODT, a study for a suitable venue on the western frontier of France and Germany to build a heavily fortified FHQu (Führer Headquarters), by which Hitler might direct an invasion of France and the Low Countries. After a number of suggestions to places on the border Münster-Eifel region and the Rhine Valley, which Albert Speer, as Hitler's architectural confidante reviewed for the Führer, the decision was a made to capitalize upon the pre-existing structures based in and around Schloss Ziegenberg near Bad Neuheim.
The new FHQu. would henceforth be christened in official paperwork as “ADLERHORST.” I will allow Franz W. Zeidler’s description to fill in the rest of the details:
“Schloss Ziegenberg was situated on a mountainside a few hundred metres above the confluence of the Rivers Usa and Forbach and about ten kilometres east of Bad Nauheim in Hesse. In 1939 it was sorrounded by agricultural land. Five kilometres to the north lay Schloss Kransberg, which had a cafeteria very popular with day-trippers before the war. The nearby grass airfields at Merzhausen and Kirchgons were earmarked for use by the Luftwaffe: to enemy air-reconnaissance they resembled simple meadows and were ideal for FHQu.’s Fieseler Storch courier aircraft. At both Ziegenberg and Kransberg, bunkers and signal installations could be excavated into the mountainside. A valley a mile or so north-west of Ziegenberg and known today as Wiesental appeared to offer a good location for Hitler’s accommodation bunkers. Schloss Ziegenberg, including the farmland, was he property of he von Schaffer-Bernstein family but had been confiscated in September 1939 under the ‘Schutzbereich’ law of 11 October, 1935. The owners of the Kransberg estate, the Homburg family von Scheidlein, were dispossessed with effect from 1 October 1939 and compensated in the sum of 269,400 Reichsmark.
The project lasted from September 1939 until August 1940, OT organizing three shifts around the clock to ge the underground workings completed. the original workforce of 2000 rose to a maximum of 4500 in December of 1939 and then declined gradually to 1000 by June 1940. It was accommodated mainly in camps of wooden barracks, although a few workers were provided lodgings in private rooms and halls. Private busses were laid on to transport workers to and from the sites. OT built the four subterranean work and accommodation bunkers, two air-raid shelters and three air-raid cellars at Ziegenberg/Kransberg and bored 300 metres of running galleries with a combined floor surface of 900 square metres. Spoil amounted to 72,000 cubic metres. A total of 38,000 cubic square metres of bunker floor space was split down into living and work space (55 percent), corridors, gas traps, and galleries, side rooms, and air-raid cellars. In all 4,600 squre metres of masonry was used in blending the bunkers, while the landfill amounted to 9,000 cubic metres.”
- “Hitler’s Secret Headquarters” by Franz W. Zeidler, pgs. 50-52.
(Russell Folsom)
POLAND:
Warsaw: Many fires are started by the bombardment including one at the Transfiguration Hospital with several hundred wounded inside.
German Panzers now begin a second pincer movement toward the east
The Polish army attacks the Germans along the river Bzura near Poznan and Poles still hold out at the Hel Peninsula. In the south near Kutno the German 30th Infantry Division suffered heavy losses when its overextended left flank and wide front were attacked by several Polish divisions.
General Halder noted in his diary though that "SS artillery of the Armd. Corps herded Jews into a church and massacred them."
CANADA:
Ottawa: W.L. Mackenzie King announces that Canada is now at
war with Germany. Canada makes her own declaration of war for the first
time. King notes that there are currently 4,500 soldiers in the Canadian
Army (+60,000 reserves); 4,500 in the RCAF;
1,800 in the RCN
As Canada declares war on Germany. United States neutrality laws extend to
Canada.
Sidney Allinson tells us what was headline news in Canada that day:
The Globe and Mail (newspaper) that day had the large headline, CANADA DECLARES WAR!
Proclamation Issued Following Solid Vote In Parliament
Dominion Committed To Stand With Britain Against Hitler
A secondary story was headed,
Dominions, Colonies, India, Arabs, Jews, Tribal Chiefs Answer Empire's Call.
London, Sept 10 - With the declaration of a state of war on Germany by
Canada
today, the British Empire, with its 13,909,780 square miles, and its
population of almost 600,000,000 is now, with the single exception of Eire,
lined up in war against Germany. The greatest Empire the world has ever
known has completed the roll call....
The next column has this heading,
U.S. Neutrality Ban Extended To Dominion
Washington, Sept. 10 - President Roosevelt applied the United
States
Neutrality Law to Canada today, and therefore placed an embargo upon
shipments of arms and munitions to the Dominion of Canada...
The Royal Canadian Air Force is comprised of 20 squadrons, 12
of them Auxiliary (reserve) units; five of the reserve squadrons are not
equipped with any aircraft and the other seven have biplane trainers. The
RCAF has 20 types of aircraft totalling 270 machines; over half, 146, are
training and transport types and only 124 could be classified as operational
types. The only first-line aircraft are 19 Hurricane Mk. I fighters and nine
Battle Mk. I day bombers; the other 242 aircraft are obsolete.
The first mission by the RCAF is carried out by No.
5 (General Reconnaissance) Squadron based at Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. A
Supermarine Stranraer biplane seaplane, serial number 908, is dispatched on
a reconnaissance patrol of the approaches to Halifax; five vessels are
sighted but no enemy activity is seen.
Minesweeper (ex fishing vessel) HMCS Mitchell Bay commissioned.
UNITED STATES: An article in THE NEW YORK TIMES refers to the conflict in Poland as the "Second World War."
ATLANTIC OCEAN: The US freighter SS Hybert is stopped by a German U-boat. After 2-hours, she is released but the captain is warned not to use his radio for 24 hours.
Norwegian Sea off Obrestad: The submarine HMS Oxley (Oxley Class submarine) is mistaken for a U-boat and torpedoed by the submarine HMS Triton, the first British Royal Navy loss of the war. The submarines had been in regular contact when HMS Triton spotted an unidentified submarine. Believing it might be HMS Oxley, Triton flashed recognition signals. No reply came and after several challenges Triton fired two torpedoes that sunk Oxley. Triton found Oxley's captain, and two other survivors. A Board of Enquiry found that Oxley had made a navigational error and drifted off station into the adjacent patrol area of HMS Triton. Despite being surfaced and using signal lamps to flash a challenge and then following up with a rifle grenade, Oxley made no reply before Triton fired two torpedoes, the reply being described as indeterminable flashing. Two survivors picked up by Triton were found to be the Commander and an AB from Oxley. was some way out of position and that Triton had acted correctly. (Jack McKillop and Alex Gordon)(108)
U-13
sank SS Magdapur.
U-15 sank SS Goodwood.