1931 (FRIDAY)
CHINA: Japan refuses to accept the good offices of neutral observers to establish a zone between the Chinese and Japanese armies stating, "The policy which the Japanese Government had so far consistently pursued in the true interest of good relations between China and Japan had been not to resort, in disputes capable of direct settlement with China, to the interposition of third parties."
1937 (SATURDAY)
JAPAN: Japan rejects the idea of relinquishing South Sea island mandates stating, "Maintenance of Japan's Mandate over South Sea islands which formerly belonged to Germany is the established policy of this empire. . . ." These mandates, which had been granted to Japan in 1919, are located in the Caroline, Mariana and Marshall Islands. In 1935, the Japanese prohibited foreigners from visiting these islands.
November 27th, 1939 (MONDAY)
UNITED KINGDOM: Corvette HMS Hollyhock laid down.
Destroyer HMS Kelvin commissioned.
U.S. freighter SS Effingham is detained at Ramsgate, Kent, England, by British authorities and the freighter SS Azalea City is detained at London.
GERMANY: "Aryans" are given 12 months to divorce Jewish spouses as part of a step up in the anti-Semitic measures of the Nazis. If they fail to divorce they must "face the consequences".
So what happened to these children? Russ Folsom answers:
The 'mischlinge'(a pejorative) - or the 'mixed progeny' of so-called German 'Aryans' and Jews, were, according to the Nuermberger-gesetz or racial laws of 1935, classified in a labyrinthine codification of bureaucratic officialese confusing even to the Reich lawmakers such as Secretary of State Dr. Wilhelm Stuckart of the Reich Ministry of the Interior, who originally composed and helped to implement the statutes. These included various categories of 'half' or 'partial' Jews ranging from Germans with a Jewish grandmother, or great-grandmother; a Jewish grandfather, etc.. to those with direct maternal or paternal Jewish heirs (called 'mischlinge of the 1st degree'). Each classification had various public restrictions and forms of social ostracism applicable to those which fell beneath its criterion, with the '1st degree' (or those with a direct Jewish parent) being the most vulnerable to the fate of deportation. Amazingly enough, and perhaps an indicator as to the wholly spurious nature of these racial laws, (based upon what might be arguably called 'religious' rather than actual scientific racial criteria); it was seriously considered at Wannsee in January 1942 that mischlinge who 'looked' or 'acted' Jewish, were to be deported before those who were more 'mainstream' or 'less Jewish' (a distinction wholly dependent upon local Nazi vagaries).
Dr. Stuckart, [*1] a member of the infamous Wannsee conference, apparently animated more by ministerial territoriality than concern for the 'mischlinge' themselves, argued that certain categories should be exempt from the 'final solution' proposed by the RSHA (Heydrich) and agreed that they should perhaps be sterilized en masse.
The end result was, like many another thing in Nazi Germany, wholly inconsistent with the apparent thrust of their original doctrines or subsequent planning. Mischlinge of the 1st classification were in most cases, not sterilized, but variously deported and killed in the death-camps. Mischlinge of the second degree (Jewish grandparents) were allowed to co-exist, but with strict public or societal restrictions. Bryan Mark Rigg, in his "Hitler's Jewish Soldiers", [*2] provides landmark documentation concerning the fate of so-called 'mixed-blood' soldiers in Hitler's army. Most did not recognize their 'jewishness' nor embrace it, (even after the fact), but all suffered for it. He relates a number of cases where soldiers of the Wehrmacht, some who earned the highest military awards, had fathers, mothers, or grandparents deported to death camps while they were fighting for the Reich at the front in Russia. Other examples he provides are of soldiers were both decorated (and undecorated) 'mischlinge' drummed out of the Wehrmacht, and later sent to Auschwitz, or if they were lucky, a labour camp, which was, by most standards, more survivable.
So who was considered a "Jew" in Nazi Germany?:
Here is the Nuremberg Law that defined a "Jew", in 1935. (The First Regulation to the Reich Citizenship Law, dated Nov. 14, 1935.) From Raul Hilberg's THE DESTRUCTION OF THE EUROPEAN JEWS:
"Everyone was defined as a Jew who (1) descended from at least three Jewish grandparents (full Jews and three-quarter Jews), or, (2) descended from two Jewish grandparents (half-Jews) and (a) belonged to the Jewish religious community on September 15, 1935, or joined the community on a subsequent date, or (b) was married to a Jewish person on September 15, 1935, or (c) was the offspring of a marriage contracted with a three-quarter of full Jew after the Law for the Protection of German Blood and Honour had come into force (September 15, 1935), or (d) was the offspring of an extramarital relationship with a three-quarter or a full Jew, and was born out of wedlock after July 31, 1936. For the determination of the grandparents, the presumption remained that the grandparent was Jewish if he or she belonged to the Jewish religious community. "Defined *not* as a Jew but as an individual of "mixed Jewish blood" was (1) any person who descended from two Jewish grandparents (half-Jewish), but who (a) did *not* adhere (or adhered no longer) to the Jewish religion on September 15, 1935, and who did not join it at any subsequent time, and (b) was not married (or was married no longer) to a Jewish person on September 15, 1935, and who did not marry such a person at any subsequent time (such half-Jews were called Mischlinge of the first degree), and (2) any person descended from one Jewish grandparent (Mischlinge of the second degree). The designations "Mischlinge of the first degree" and "Mischlinge of the second degree" were not contained in the decree of November 14, 1935, but were added in a later ruling by the Ministry of Interior."
[*1] - Dr. Wilhelm Stuckart, Secretary of State for the Reich Ministry of the Interior, and creator of the infamous Nuremberg Racial Laws was arrested by the Allies in 1945 and sentenced to four years imprisonment. He denied any knowledge of the death camps. Stuckart died in an automobile accident near Hannover in 1953 that was rumoured to have been a revenge killing.
[*2] - "Hitler's Jewish Soldiers: The Untold Story of Nazi Racial Laws and Men of Jewish Descent in the German Military" by Bryan Mark Rigg. (University Pr of Kansas); ISBN: 0700611789.
A good film primer on the subject is the German/Austrian production known as "Der Wannseekonferenz" (1984) - which shows Stuckart, in SS uniform, arguing for the 'special status' of the mischlinge while Heydrich argues that, despite the minister's protests, all Jews will eventually fall beneath his purview, and hence, perish. Chilling.
The Scharnhorst and Gneisenau arrive back in Wilhelmshaven after a cruise in the North Atlantic where they sank the British Armed Merchant Cruiser HMS Rawalpindi. (Navy News)
NORWAY: No Nobel peace prize is to be awarded this year.
FINLAND:Today Marshal Mannerheim, the chairman of the Defence Council and the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces in event of war, tenders his resignation. Mannerheim is exasperated by the woeful material condition of the armed forces and what he thinks as the hard-headed policy of the government. Anti-aircraft- and anti-tank weaponry is almost non-existent; of 60 tanks half are outdated and the other half unarmed; of 15 planned divisions three are without equipment and one fourth without artillery. Without the material basis for a successful defence Mannerheim doesn't think he can continue in his present post. The situation is aggravated by the Minister of Defence Juho Niukkanen, who thinks that the Soviets are bluffing, and even if they aren't, the material situation isn't as bad as the old Marshal claims. There are people in the cabinet, Niukkanen included, who think that Mannerheim is too old and pessimistic for his job, therefore his resignation should be accepted.
Throughout the day there have been workers' demonstrations around the Soviet Union . They demand decisive measures to punish the Finnish adventurists, that "the Finnish kulak-bands armed by capitalists should be expelled from the neighbourhood of the Soviet border" and that "the repugnant robber-band has to be destroyed!". The units of Leningrad military district are instructed that "if the Finnish war-mongers repeat their provocation and fire at our troops, they have to fire back without delay until the shooters are destroyed."
BATTLE OF SUOMUSSALMI
The Soviet 47th Rifle Corps issues battle orders to its 163rd Rifle Division (kombrig Andrei Ivanovich Zelentsov), making it to attack Suomussalmi directly from east along the Raate Road, an advance of some 30 km (c. 20 miles) from the Fenno-Soviet border. Despite these orders, two days later (on the 29th) kombrig Zelentsov in his attack orders changes the main attack direction to Lonkka - Juntusranta - Palovaara - Hulkonvaara, thus opting for a longer flanking attack by north to Suomussalmi. The 47th Rifle Corps and 9th Army HQ's don't react to Zelentsov's changes and 163rd Rifle Division will go to war according to his plan.
POLAND: In the General Government area, where Jews are ordered to wear identifying armbands, typhus is reported to be sweeping the Jewish labour camp near Lublin, which houses some 45,000 deportees from Austria, Czechoslovakia and western Poland.
GIBRALTAR: U.S. freighter SS Excambion, detained at Gibraltar by the British since 20 November, is released.
U.S.A.: Submarine USS Sea Lion commissioned.
ATLANTIC OCEAN: U-48 sank SS Gustaf E Reuter.