August 13
1704 French and Bavarian forces are routed by a combined British, German and Dutch army at the Battle of Blenheim, Germany, led by Marlborough and Prince Eugene. The victors lose 6,000 soldiers compared with 21,000 French and Bavarian troops.
We have cut off great numbers of them, as well in the action as in the retreat, besides upwards of twenty squadrons of the French, which I pushed into the Danube, where we saw the greater part of them perish. Monsieur Tallard, with several of his general officers being taken prisoners at the same time, and in the village of Blenheim, which the enemy had entrenched and fortified, and where they made the greatest opposition, I obliged twenty-six entire battalions, and twelve squadrons of dragoons, to surrender themselves prisoners at discretion. We took likewise all their tents standing, with their cannon and ammunition, as also a great number of standards, kettle-drums, and colours in the action, so that I reckon the greatest part of Monsieur Tallard's army is taken or destroyed... 1867 Birth: Rudolf Georg Binding, minor German novelist and poet who, while being considered non-political, will nevertheless be a useful apologist for the Nazi regime.The further I penetrate its true inwardness the more I see the hopelessness of making it comprehensive for those who only understand life in the terms of peacetime, and apply these same ideas to war in spite of themselves. They only think that they understand it. It is as if fishes living in water would have a clear conception of what living in the air is like. When one is hauled out on to dry land and dies in the air, then he will know something about it.
So it is with the war. Feeling deeply about it, one becomes less able to talk about it every day. Not because one understands it less each day, but because one grasps it better. But it is a silent teacher, and he who learns becomes silent too. (Letter, April 1915).
1902 Birth: Felix Wankel, German engineer and inventor; Wankel rotary-piston engine. Wankel was born in Lahr, Germany, in the upper Rhine Valley. Since his mother was widowed in WW1, Wankel received no university education or even an apprenticeship. However he was able to teach himself technical subjects and conceived the idea of the Wankel engine in 1924. In the 1930's, he had a disagreement with Adolf Hitler, and was imprisoned by the Nazis for some months. During WW2, he developed seals and rotary valves for German air force aircraft and navy torpedoes. After the war, he was imprisoned by the Allies for some months, his laboratory was closed, his work confiscated, and he was prohibited from doing more work.1920 Polish-Soviet War: Battle of Warsaw begins. Note: The Battle of Warsaw was fought from 13 to 25 August 1920 as Red Army forces commanded by Mikhail Tukhachevski approach the Polish capital of Warsaw and nearby Modlin Fortress. The Red Army is defeated.
In 1918 Stresemann formed the German People's Party. After Germany's defeat Stresemann was sympathetic to the Freikorps and welcomed the defeat of the socialists and communists in the German Revolution. However, he became increasingly concerned by the use of violence of the right-wing groups and after the murders of Matthias Erzberger and Walther Rathenau, Stresemann decided to argue in favor of the Weimar Republic.
With the support of the Social Democratic Party Stresemann became chancellor of Germany in 1923. He managed to bring an end to the passive resistance in the Ruhr and resumed payment of reparations. He also tackled the problem of inflation by establishing the Rentenbank.
Stresemann was severely criticized by members of the Social Democratic Party and Communist Party over his unwillingness to deal firmly with Adolf Hitler and other Nazi leaders after the failure of the Beer Hall Putsch. Later that month the socialists withdrew from Stresemann's government and he was forced to resign as chancellor.
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/GERstresemann.htm>
1932 Weimar: Formal talks begin between Hitler, Bruning and the Catholic Center Party. The meetings drag on for weeks. (THP)
The focal point of Wewelsburg, evidently owing much to the legend of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, was a great dining hall with an oaken table to seat twelve picked from the senior Gruppenfuehrers. The walls were to be adorned with their coats of arms. Underneath this dining hall there was kept a so-called "realm of the dead", a circular well in which these coats of arms would be burnt and the ashes worshipped after the "knight" had died. (There are tales of Himmler using the severed heads of deceased SS officers to communicate with ascended masters.) In addition to this, each knight had his own room, "decorated in accordance with one of the great ancestors of Aryan majesty." Himmler’s own room was dedicated to a Saxon King Henry the Fowler, whose ghost Himmler sometimes conversed with.
http://greyfalcon.us/Wewelsburg.htm>
In spite of the presence of Lord Runciman as head of an unofficial British mission in Czechoslovakia, Germany started in August to mobilize her army to the strength of one million men, to hold army maneuvers not far distant from the Czechoslovak border, and to rush the building of most modern and impregnable fortifications along her Western frontier.
http://preview.tinyurl.com/encarta-461500344>>
1941 WW2: From a letter from the Bishop of Limburg to the Reich Minister of Justice:
About 8 kilometers from Limburg, in the little town of Hadamar, on a hill overlooking the town, there is an institution which had formerly served various purposes and of late had been used as a nursing home; this institution was renovated and furnished as a place in which, by consensus of opinion, the above-mentioned euthanasia has been systematically practiced for months, approximately since February 1941. The fact has become known beyond the administrative district of Wiesbaden, because death certificates from a Registry Hadamar Moenchberg are sent to the home communities...Several times a week buses arrive in Hadamar with a considerable number of such victims. School children of the vicinity know this vehicle and say, 'There comes the murder box again.' After the arrival of the vehicle, the citizens of Hadamar watch the smoke rise out of the chimney and are tortured with the ever-present thought of the miserable victims, especially when repulsive odors annoy them, depending on the direction of the wind. The effect of the principles at work here are: Children call each other names and say, 'You're crazy; you'll be sent to the baking oven in Hadamar.' Those who do not want to marry or find no opportunity say, 'Marry, never! Bring children into the world so they can be put into the bottling machine!' You hear old folks say, 'Don't send me to a state hospital! After the feeble-minded have been finished off, the next useless eaters whose turn will come are the old people.' ...The population cannot grasp that systematic actions are carried out which, in accordance with Paragraph 211 of the German criminal code, are punishable with death! Officials of the Secret State Police, it is said, are trying to suppress discussion of the Hadamar occurrences by means of severe threats. In the interest of public peace this may be well intended, But the knowledge and the conviction and the indignation of the population cannot be changed by it; the conviction will be increased with the bitter realization that discussion is prohibited with threats but that the actions themselves are not prosecuted under penal law...
1942 Holocaust: The Swiss police begin turning back Jewish refugees who manage to cross into Switzerland. (THP)
1945 WW2: An air raid on Tokyo destroys scores of Japanese aircraft while still on the ground.1946 Nuremberg Tribunal: Two Hundredth and Second Day.
1948 Berlin Airlift: The weather over Berlin becomes so stormy that American planes have their most difficult day landing supplies. They deem it 'Black Friday'.1961 The German Democratic Republic closes the border between the eastern and western sectors of Berlin, to thwart its inhabitants' attempts to escape to the West.
2004 Death: Julia Child, American chef and television personality. Civic-minded, she volunteered with the American Red Cross and, after the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941, joined the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) after being turned down by the United States Navy for being too tall (6'2"). For a year, she worked at the OSS Emergency Sea Rescue Equipment Section in Washington, DC, where she was a file clerk and also helped in the development of a shark repellent. In 1944 she was posted to Kandy, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), where she met her future husband, a high-ranking OSS cartographer, and later to China, where she received the Emblem of Meritorious Civilian Service as head of the Registry of the OSS Secretariat.
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