April 1
1899 Birth: Gustavs Celmins, politician, Latvian fascist leader. After the Soviet Union invasion in Finland he fought as a volunteer in the Winter War for the Finns. After the end of the war he moved to Germany. In July 1941 together with Nazi's he returned to Latvia and regained leadership of Perkonkrusts. On March 14, 1944 he was arrested by the Gestapo for underground activities and sent to Concentration camps. Liberated by American 5th army.
1906 Birth: Alexander Sergeyevich Yakovlev, Russian engineer and airplane designer. He designed the Yakovlev military aircraft and founded the Yakovlev Design Bureau. Yakovlev was a founder of Soviet aviation modeling, air gliding, and aviation sport. He built the AVF-10 glider in 1924 and ultralight aircraft AIR-1 in 1927. These were his very first aircraft used for sport and training.1917 WW1: From the text of German Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg's response to news that US President Woodrow Wilson is to appear before the US Congress on 2 April 1917 to seek authorisation for a declaration of war with Germany (Click here to read Britain's response to Bethmann-Hollweg's note.): "...Germany never had the slightest intention of attacking the United States of America, and does not have such intention now. It never desired war against the United States of America and does not desire it today. How did these things develop? More than once we told the United States that we made unrestricted use of the submarine weapon, expecting that England could be made to observe, in her policy of blockade, the laws of humanity and of international agreements. This blockade policy, this I expressly recall, has been called illegal and defensible..."
1917 WW1: US Ambassador to France, William Sharp, on the German Retreat to the Hindenburg Line: "...Accepting an invitation, kindly extended to me several days ago, I yesterday visited many of the French towns recently retaken in the invaded territory, making the trip in a military automobile. I was accompanied by military attaché Boyd. I regret to say that I found the various reports in circulation here, and doubtless forwarded to American newspapers, of the deplorable conditions in those towns are in no way exaggerated. With very few exceptions the places visited by me, though few in comparison, numbering upwards of thirty, had been quite destroyed by the Germans before evacuating them. The destruction wrought in the larger towns of Roye, Ham, and particularly the once thriving and attractive city Chauny, was complete. In many of the other smaller villages scarcely a house remains with its roof intact. A scene of desolation reigns everywhere over the reconquered territory. This is true not alone where the possibly excusable military operations carried out by the Germans protected their retreat, by the blowing up of all the bridges and the destruction of the means of telegraphic and telephonic connections, including portions of railway lines, and the blocking of highways by the felling of many trees, but also where, as far as the eye could see, nearly all the fruit trees had either been cut down or exploded so as to completely ruin them..."
1918 In Britain, the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Naval Air Force amalgamate to form the Royal Air Force. 1920 As part of the Red scare that is sweeping America, five members of the New York Legislature are expelled for being members of the Socialist Party. They will be legitimately reelected, but once again will be refused permission to sit in session. (THP)1922 Death: Emperor Karl I of Austria.
1924 Weimar: Hitler is sentenced to a fine of 200 Gold Marks and five years in military prison at Landsberg Fortress. Hitler's compatriots, Weber, Kriebel, and Poehner, are also condemned to five years' imprisonment, while the slippery General Ludendorff is found not guilty and retires to his home in the country. Note: Hitler reads the second edition of the textbook, Menschliche Erblichkeitslehre und Rassenhygiene (The principles of human heredity and race-hygiene), written by E. Baur, E. Fischer, and F. Lenz, while imprisoned in Landsberg, and subsequently incorporates many of the racial ideas found there into his own book, Mein Kampf. (THP)
1925 On Mt. Scopus in Jerusalem, British statesman Lord Arthur James Balfour dedicates Hebrew University.
1930 Death: Cosima Wagner, daughter of Franz Liszt and wife of Richard Wagner. Although her mother was a descendant of well known Jewish family Bethmann, Cosima was a notorious anti-Semite, even much more than Wagner. She directed the Bayreuth Festival from the death of Richard Wagner (1883) to the outbreak of World War I in 1914. When the Festival re-opened in 1924, it was under the direction of her son Siegfried. She died at age 92 at Bayreuth.
1933 Church and Reich: The Catholic Teacher Organization publishes a declaration noting with approval that Adolf Hitler and his movement have overcome the un-German spirit which triumphed in the revolution of 1918. (THP)
1933 Holocaust: The recently elected Nazis under Julius Streicher organize a one-day boycott of all Jewish-owned businesses in Germany, ushering in the series of anti-Semitic acts that will be known as the Holocaust. (THP)
1933 Holocaust: Prussian Jews are forbidden to act as notary publics.
1933 Holocaust: Himmler is appointed chief of the Bavarian Political Police.
1933 Holocaust: SA men demolish the interior of the Mannheim synagogue.
1933 All religious literature printed by Jehovah's Witnesses is banned from circulation in Germany. (THP)
1934 Holocaust: Jewish shops in Germany are again boycotted. Goebbels: "...The boycott against the international atrocity propaganda has burst forth in full force in Berlin and the whole Reich. I drive along the Tauentzien Street in order to observe the situation. All Jews' businesses are closed. SA men are posted outside their entrances. The public has everywhere proclaimed its solidarity. The discipline is exemplary. An imposing performance! It all takes place in complete quiet; in the Reich too...In the afternoon 150,000 Berlin workers marched to the Lustgarten, to join us in the protest against the incitement abroad. There is indescribable excitement in the air..." 1934 Heinrich Himmler is appointed Reichsfuehrer-SS. (THP) 1935 Austria violates the Treaty of St. Germain by re-instituting compulsory military service. Treaty Terms: 1. Italy gained the Tyrol and Trentino in the North, and Istria and Trieste in the Northeast. (She did not get Fiume.) 2. Czechoslovakia gained the Sudetenland (German speaking), the Czech provinces and Slovakia. 3.Serbia was given various states in the Balkans: Bosnia, Herzegovina, Croatia and Dalmatia, to form the Kingdom of Yugoslavia (Yugoslavia = The Southern Slavs) 4. Poland gained Galicia. 5. Austria could not unite with Germany (no Anschluss) 6. Austria was disarmed to 30,000 men plus three Danubian police boats. 7. Austria was supposed to pay reparations, but as she was bankrupt in 1920, none were paid. 1935 Jehovah's Witnesses are banned from all civil service jobs and arrested throughout Germany. Pension and employment benefits are confiscated. Marriage to a Jehovah's Witnesses becomes legal grounds for divorce. Children of Jehovah's Witnesses are banned from attending school. Some children taken from parents will be raised in Nazi homes and reform schools. (THP) 1938 Holocaust: A number of Austrian Jews are sent to Dachau concentration camp. 1938 Holocaust: Jewish patients are barred from Danzig's public hospitals and welfare institutions. All Jewish doctors and nurses are dismissed. 1939 Hitler tells General Keitel that it is a shame that "sly, old Marshal Pilsudski," with whom he had signed a nonaggression pact, had died so prematurely, but the same could happen to him at any time, and that is why it is so important to resolve the problem of East Prussia as soon as possible.1939 Hitler makes a major foreign policy speech at Wilhelmshaven. "In place of a great number of parties, social ranks, and societies, a single community now has taken its place: The German national community! To bring it to realization and to deepen it more and more is our task. I had to hurt many in this time. However, I believe that the good fortune in which the entire nation is participating today must richly compensate every single one for what he had to give up dearly on his own part. You all have sacrificed your parties, societies, and associations, but you have obtained in return a great strong Reich. And the Reich today, thank God, is strong enough to take your rights under its protection..."
1939 The United States recognizes the Franco government in Spain following the end of the Spanish Civil War. Generalísimo Francisco Franco of the Spanish State announced the end of the Spanish Civil War, when the last of the Republican forces surrendered.
1940 WW2: Hitler approves final plans for the invasion of Norway.
1941 WW2: The British withdraw from Mersa Brega, abandoning one of the last defensible positions available.
1941 WW2: The Blockade Runner Badge for German navy is instituted.
1942 WW2: The US Navy begins a partial convoy system in the Atlantic.
1944 WW2: Accidental American bombing of the Swiss city of Schaffhausen.
1945 WW2: After suffering the loss of 116 planes, and damage to three aircraft carriers, 50,000 US combat troops of the 10th Army, under the command of Lieutenant General Simon B. Buckner Jr., land on the southwest coast of the Japanese island of Okinawa (Operation Iceberg), 350 miles south of Kyushu, the southern main island of Japan. Determined to seize Okinawa as a base of operations for the army ground and air forces for a later assault on mainland Japan, more than 1,300 ships converge on the island, finally putting ashore 50,000 combat troops on 1 April. The Americans quickly seize two airfields and advance inland to cut the island's waist. They battle nearly 120,000 Japanese army, militia, and labour troops under the command of Lieutenant General Mitsuru Ushijima. The Japanese surprise the American forces with a change in strategy, drawing them into the mainland rather than confronting them at the water's edge. While Americans land without loss of men, they will suffer more than 50,000 casualties, including more than 12,000 deaths, as the Japanese stage a desperate defense of the island, a defense that includes waves of kamikaze ('divine wind') air attacks. Eventually, these suicide raids will prove counterproductive, as the Japanese finally run out of planes and resolve, with some 4,000 finally surrendering. Japanese casualties will number some 117,000. Lieutenant Buckner, son of a Civil War general, is among the casualties, killed by enemy artillery fire just three days before the Japanese surrender. Japanese General Ushijima will commit ritual suicide upon defeat of his forces. (Bradley)
1945 WW2: The final Allied offensive in Italy begins.
1945 WW2: Churchill to Stalin: "…If our efforts to reach an agreement about Poland are to be doomed to failure I shall be bound to confess the fact to Parliament when they return from Easter recess. No one has pleaded the cause of Russia with more fever or conviction than I have tried to do. I was the first to raise my voice on June 22, 1941. It is more than a year since I proclaimed to a startled world the justice of the Curzon Line for Russia's western frontier, and this frontier has now been accepted by both the British Parliament and the President of the United States. It is as a sincere friend of Russia that I make my personal appeal to you and to your colleagues to come to a good understanding about Poland with the Western democracies, and not to smite down the hands of comradeship in the future guidance of the world which we now extend." 1 April 1945 Eisenhower to Churchill "…I had never lost sight of the great importance of the drive to the northernmost coast, although your telegram did introduce a new idea respecting the political importance of the early attainment of particular objectives. I clearly see your point in this matter. The only difference between your suggestions and my plan is timing…In order to assure the success of each of my planned efforts, I concentrate first in the Center to gain the position I need. As it looks to me now, the next move thereafter should be to have Montgomery cross the Elbe, reinforced as necessary by American troops, and reach at least a line including Lubeck on the coast. If German resistance from now on should progressively and definitely crumble you can see that there would be little if any difference in time between gaining central position and crossing the Elbe. On the other hand, if resistance tends to stiffen at all I can see that it is vitally necessary that I concentrate for each effort, and do not allow myself to be dispersed by attempting to do all these projects at once. Quite naturally, if at any moment collapse should suddenly come about everywhere along the front we would push forward, and Lubeck and Berlin would be included in our important targets."
1946 Nuremberg War Crimes Trials: Nazi Foreign Minister Ribbentrop testifies for the first of two days. (Maser II)
1948 Cold War: Stalin's Russia begins imposing rigid checks on road and rail traffic between Berlin and West Germany. The fear is that this will turn into a full-scale blockade to squeeze out the West from the four-power city. Britain declares it will resist any attempt to stop its trains, but cars on the road to the capital are all being delayed.
