1943 in Germany

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See also:Other events of 1943
History of Germany  • Timeline  • Years

Events in the year 1943 in Germany.

Incumbents

National level

Head of State and Chancellor

  • Adolf Hitler (the Führer) (Nazi Party)

Events

Jewish prisoners being deported from the Kraków Ghetto.
This photograph, from the Stroop Report, shows captured fighters in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.
The bombing of Hamburg during 1943.
  • 18 January – World War II: Soviet officials announce they have broken the Wehrmacht's siege of Leningrad.
  • 18 January – The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising begins.
  • 27 January – World War II: 64 bombers mount the first all American air raid against Germany (Wilhelmshaven is the target).
  • 29 January – German police arrest alleged necrophiliac Bruno Ludke.
  • 29 January – Dr Ernst Kaltenbrunner succeeds the late Reinhard Heydrich as head of the RSHA SS-Reichssicherheitshauptamt controlling the Schutzstaffel Gestapo
  • 2 February – World War II: In Russia, the Battle of Stalingrad comes to an end with the surrender of the German 6th Army and its 91,000 remaining soldiers.
  • 3 February – World War II: The Four Chaplains of the U.S. Army are drowned, when their ship (Dorchester) is struck by a German torpedo.
  • 14 February – World War II: Battle of the Kasserine Pass: German General Erwin Rommel and his Afrika Korps launch an offensive against Allied defenses in Tunisia.
  • 16 February – World War II: The Soviet Union reconquers Kharkov, but is later driven out in the Third Battle of Kharkov
  • 18 February – In a speech at the Berlin Sportpalast, German Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels declare a "Total War" against the Allies.
  • 18 February – The Nazis arrest the members of the White Rose movement.
  • 22 February – Members of White Rose are executed in Nazi Germany.
  • 28 February – Operation Gunnerside: 6 Norwegians led by Joachim Ronneberg successfully attack the heavy water plant Vemork.
  • 1 March – Heinz Guderian becomes the Inspector-General of the Armoured Troops for Nazi Germany's Army.
  • 13 March – Holocaust: German forces liquidate the Jewish ghetto in Kraków.
  • 16 March – 19 March – World War II: 22 ships from Convoys HX 229/SC 122 and one U-boat are sunk in the largest North Atlantic U-boat wolfpack attack of the war.
  • 22 March – World War II: The entire population of Khatyn in Belarus is burnt alive by the German Dirlewanger Brigade in retaliation for an attack of a German convoy by Soviet partisans.
  • 26 March – Adolf Hitler writes to Benito Mussolini that Russia is so weakened by the defence of Stalingrad that it cannot possibly be a serious menace.
  • 13 April – World War II: Radio Berlin announces the discovery by Wehrmacht of mass graves of Poles killed by Soviets in the Katyn massacre.
  • 6 May – World War II: Six U-boats are sunk after sinking 12 ships from Convoy ONS 5, regarded as the turning point in the North Atlantic U-boat war.
  • 13 May – World War II: German Afrika Korps and Italian troops in North Africa surrender to Allied forces.
  • 15 May – The Comintern is dissolved in Moscow.
  • 16 May – World War II: Operation Chastise by RAF 617 Sqdn is carried out on German dams.
  • 16 May – Holocaust: The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising ends.
  • 24 May – Holocaust: Josef Mengele becomes the chief medical officer of Auschwitz.
  • 5 July – World War II: Operation Citadel commences, resulting in the Battle of Kursk – The largest tank battle in history begins, with German Panther tanks seeing combat for the first time.
  • 12 July – World War II – Battle of Prokhorovka: The Wehrmacht and the Red Army fight to a draw.
  • 24 July – World War II: Operation Gomorrah begins: British and Canadian aeroplanes bomb Hamburg by night, those of the Americans by day.
  • 27 July – World War II: Operation Gomorrah – The continued British bombing of Hamburg, initiates a firestorm. The fire rages through the night into the morning of the 28th, causing the majority of Operation Gomorrah's deaths.
  • 3 August – World War II: Operation Gomorrah closes, with an estimated 42,600 killed and 37,000 wounded; much of Hamburg is leveled.
  • 23 August – The Battle of Kursk ends with a serious strategic defeat for the German forces.
  • 24 August – World War II: – Heinrich Himmler is named Reichsminister of the Interior in Germany.
  • 29 August – World War II: Germany dissolves the Danish government after it refuses to deal with a wave of strikes and disturbances to the satisfaction of the German authorities (see Occupation of Denmark).
  • 8 September – World War II: Frascati bombing raid September 8, 1943: The USAAF bombs the German General Headquarters for the Mediterranean zone.
  • 12 September – World War II: German paratroopers rescue Benito Mussolini from imprisonment, in Operation Eiche.
  • 13 October – World War II: The new government of Italy sides with the Allies and declares war on Germany.
  • 17 October – World War II: The last commerce raider, auxiliary cruiser Michel, was sunk off Japan by United States submarine Tarpon.[1]
  • 22 October – World War II: The RAF delivers a highly destructive airstrike on the German industrial and population center of Kassel.
  • 15 November – Porajmos: German SS leader Heinrich Himmler orders that Gypsies and "part-Gypsies" be put "on the same level as Jews and placed in concentration camps."
  • 18 November – World War II: The Royal Air Force opens its bombing campaign against Berlin, with 440 planes causing only light damage and killing 131. The RAF loses 9 aircraft and 53 aviators.
  • 23 November – The Deutsche Opernhaus on Bismarckstraße in the Berlin neighborhood of Charlottenburg is destroyed.
  • 2 December – A Luftwaffe bombing raid on the harbour of Bari, Italy, sinks an American ship with a mustard gas stockpile, causing numerous fatalities; the exact death toll is unresolved, as the bombing raid itself causes hundreds of deaths as well.
  • 11 December – United States Army Air Corps raids a U-boat yard at Emden, losing 20 planes but shooting down 138 German fighters.
  • 20 December – First flight of a true four-engined version of the troubled He 177A heavy bomber, as the Heinkel He 177 V102 prototype of the Heinkel He 177B series makes its maiden flight with four separate Daimler-Benz DB 603 engines at the Heinkel-Sud factory airfield in Schwechat.[2]

Births

Deaths

References

  1. ^ Muggenthaler, August Karl (1977). German Raiders of World War II. Prentice-Hall. p. 276. ISBN 0-13-354027-8.
  2. ^ Griehl, Manfred; Dressel, Joachim (1998). Heinkel He 177 – 277 – 274. Shrewsbury, UK: Airlife Publishing. pp. 166–67. ISBN 1-85310-364-0.
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