Third Reich
Tag
(378)1941
January
- 10
- The German–Soviet border and commercial agreementOn 10 January 1941 Germany and the USSR signed a border treaty, a trade agreement and a secret protocol selling Moscow a strip of Lithuania for $7.5 million.
- The attack on HMS IllustriousOn 10 January 1941 German Ju 87s from Sicily hit the carrier Illustrious off Malta. For two weeks the Luftwaffe tried to finish her off in the Grand Harbour.
February
March
- 01
- Himmler orders the expansion of AuschwitzOn 1 March 1941 Himmler first visited Auschwitz. He ordered the camp enlarged for 30,000 prisoners and 10,000 prisoners provided to build the IG Farben plant.
- Bulgaria joins the Tripartite PactOn 1 March 1941 Prime Minister Bogdan Filov signed Bulgaria’s accession to the Tripartite Pact in Vienna. Next day the German Twelfth Army crossed the Danube.
April
- 06
- Key eventGermany attacks YugoslaviaOn 6 April 1941 Germany invaded Yugoslavia without declaring war and the Luftwaffe bombed Belgrade. The partly mobilised army quickly fell apart.
- Key eventGermany attacks GreeceOn 6 April 1941 the 12th Army struck Greece from Bulgaria. The Metaxas Line forts beat off the first attacks; at night an ammunition ship blast wrecked Piraeus.
May
- 13
- Mihailović on Ravna GoraOn 13 May 1941 Colonel Dragoljub Mihailović and a few soldiers who rejected the capitulation reached Ravna Gora in Serbia – the birth of the Chetniks.
- Fliegerführer Irak at MosulOn 13 May 1941 the core of Fliegerführer Irak, a German air group sent via Vichy Syria to aid Rashid Ali’s government, reached Mosul.
June
- 22
- Key eventGermany invades the Soviet UnionAt dawn on 22 June 1941 Germany and its allies attacked the USSR. Operation Barbarossa broke the pact of 1939 and opened the Eastern Front.
- The June Uprising in LithuaniaOn 22 June 1941 Lithuanians rose against the Soviets and next day proclaimed a restored state in Kaunas. Germany did not recognise it; a pogrom followed.
- 23
- Hitler at the Wolf’s LairOn 23 June 1941 Hitler left Berlin for a new headquarters in a forest near Rastenburg. From the Wolf’s Lair he ran the war on the USSR for over three years.
- The Ablinga massacreOn 23 June 1941 Wehrmacht soldiers shot 42 people from the Samogitian village of Ablinga and neighbouring Žvaginiai, and burned Ablinga to the ground.
July
August
September
- 01
- The Milan Nedić governmentOn 1 September 1941 General Milan Nedić broadcast as premier of the Government of National Salvation, set up by the Germans in occupied Serbia on 29 August.
- The Star of David in the ReichOn 1 September 1941 Heydrich signed a decree requiring Jews aged six and over in the Reich and the Protectorate to wear a yellow “Jude” star from 19 September.
October
November
December
- 01
- The Stanisławów GhettoFrom 1 December 1941 some 20,000 Jews of Stanisławów were forced to move into a ghetto, which the Germans sealed off from the rest of the town on 20 December.
- The Jäger ReportOn 1 December 1941 Karl Jäger tallied Einsatzkommando 3’s executions in Lithuania: 137,346 dead, almost all Jews. He declared the “Jewish problem” solved.