Tuesday, May 6, 2014

Remembering My (Biological) Father: May 6, 1942 - ...

Tuesday, May 6, 2014


Despite my initial inclination to write nothing today and instead allow myself an immense space in which I can grieve my relationship with my father that seems completely unworkable I find myself at my keyboard nonetheless.  Rather than write something lengthy I will provide some additional material related to yesterday's entry.

Here are some events from Europe during the years of 1941 and 1942.  It was a devastating period for Europe.  (Estimates of the death toll from World War II number between 60 million and 85 million people.)  The following events are are all taken word for word from Wikipedia (yes, I know...not the most authoritative academic source...it's the site for those who are lazy or overwhelmed by the demands of their lives...ha!)


Some Historical Highlights of World War II

March 1, 1941: Hitler gives orders for the expansion of Auschwitz prison camp, to be run by Commandant Rudolf Höss.

March 12: German Panzer tanks arrive in North Africa providing heavy armour for the first major German offensive.

March 19: Worst bombing of London so far this year, with heavy damage from incendiary bombs; Plymouth and Bristol are bombed again.

March 27: Hitler orders his military leaders to plan for the invasion of Yugoslavia. One result of this decision will be a critical time delay in the invasion of Soviet Union.

April 6: Forces of Germany, Hungary, and Italy, moving through Romania and Hungary, initiate the invasions of Yugoslavia and Greece.

April 11: Though still a "neutral" nation, the United States begins sea patrols in the North Atlantic.  Heavy Luftwaffe raids on Coventry and Birmingham, England.

April 19: London suffers one of the heaviest air raids in the war; St. Paul's is mildly damaged but remains closed; other Wren churches are heavily damaged or destroyed.

April 27: Athens is occupied by German troops. Greece surrenders.

May 1: Seven nights of bombing of Liverpool by the Luftwaffe begins, resulting in widespread destruction.

May 6: (one year before my father is born): With much of the Iraqi air force destroyed and facing regular bombardment themselves, the Iraqi ground forces besieging RAF Habbaniya withdraw.

May 10: The "Strike of the 100,000" begins in Liège in Belgium on the anniversary of the German invasion of 1940. It soon spreads across the whole province until nearly 70,000 are workers are on strike.  The Luftwaffe arranges to send a small force to Iraq.

May 23: German dictator Adolf Hitler issues "Fuhrer Directive No. 30" in support of "The Arab Freedom Movement in the Middle East", his "natural ally against England."

June 14: All German and Italian assets in the United States are frozen.

June 16: All German and Italian consulates in the United States are ordered closed and their staffs to leave the country by July 10.

June 22: Germany invades the Soviet Union with Operation Barbarossa, a three-pronged operation aimed at Leningrad, Moscow, and the southern oil fields of the Caucasus, ending the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact. Romania invades south-western border areas of the Soviet Union in Europe on the side of Germany.

June 29: Finnish and German troops begin Operation Arctic Fox against the Soviet Union

July 1: German troops occupy Latvia's capital, Riga, on the way to Leningrad.

July 8:  The German armies isolate Leningrad from the rest of Soviet Union.

July 31: Under instructions from Adolf Hitler, Nazi official Hermann Göring, orders SS general Reinhard Heydrich to "submit to me as soon as possible a general plan of the administrative material and financial measures necessary for carrying out the desired final solution of the Jewish question."

August 6 (approximate time my father was conceived): Germans take Smolensk.

From roughly this point in time onwards my grandmother is pregnant with my father.  Imagine the pre-natal environment of a woman of Germanic heritage in the rural South as the following events unfold in Europe...



August 18: Adolf Hitler orders a temporary halt to Nazi Germany's systematic euthanasia of mentally ill and handicapped due to protests. However, graduates of the Action T4 operation were then transferred to concentration camps, where they continued in their trade.

August 22: German forces close in on Leningrad; the citizens continue improvising fortifications.

September 3: Murder of all 3700 residents of the old Jewish quarter in Vilnius begins at the Ponary death site along with 10 members of the Judenrat. First written testimony of occurrences at Ponary by survivor.

September 10: German armies now have Kiev completely surrounded.

September 19: German capture of Kiev is now formal. The Red Army forces have suffered many casualties in defending this the chief city in the Soviet Ukraine.

October 8: In their invasion of the southern Soviet Union, Germany reaches the Sea of Azov with the capture of Mariupol. However, there are signs that the invasion is beginning to bog down as rainy weather creates muddy roads for both tanks and men.

By mid-October it begins to appear that the Germans may not successfully defeat the Soviet Union...at least not easily.

October 13: Germans attempt another drive toward Moscow as the once muddy ground hardens.

October 14: Temperatures fall further on the Moscow front; heavy snows follow and immobilize German tanks.

October 15: The Germans drive on Moscow.

October 19: An official "state of siege" is announced in Moscow; the city is placed under martial law.

October 19: German occupied Luxembourg declared "Judenrein" ("Cleansed of Jews")

November 1: President Franklin D. Roosevelt announces that the U.S. Coast Guard will now be under the direction of the U.S. Navy, a transition of authority usually reserved only for wartime.

November 12: Battle of Moscow - Temperatures around Moscow drop to minus 12 °C and the Soviet Union launches ski troops for the first time against the freezing German forces near the city.

November 17: Joseph Grew, the United States ambassador to Japan, cables the State Department that Japan had plans to launch an attack against Pearl Harbor, Hawaii (his cable was ignored).

November 27: Battle of Moscow - German Panzers are on the outskirts of Moscow.

December 4: The temperature on the Moscow front falls to -31°F (-37°C). German attacks are failing.

December 5: Germans call off the attack on Moscow, now 11 miles away; the USSR counter-attacks during a heavy blizzard.

December 11: Germany and Italy declare war on the United States. The United States reciprocates and declares war on Germany and Italy.

December 19: Hitler becomes Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the German Army

December 21: The suffering of besieged Leningrad continues; it is estimated that about 3,000 are dying each day of starvation and various diseases.  The inmates at Bogdanovka concentration camp are massacred to quell an outbreak of Typhus. Roughly 40,000 die.

January 5, 1942: The beginning of a major Red Army offensive under General Zhukov.

January 26: The first American forces arrive in Europe landing in Northern Ireland.

January 30: Hitler speaks at the Berlin Sportpalast and threatens the Jews of the world with annihilation; he also blames the failure of the offensive in Soviet Union on the weather.

February 8: The German armies in the Soviet Union are driven from Kursk, an important point in the German strategy.

February 16: Being discussed in high American government circles are plans for the internment of Japanese-Americans living generally in the western US.

February 25: The internment of Japanese-American citizens in the Western United States begins as fears of invasion increase.

March 1: A Red Army offensive in the Crimea begins; in the north, the siege of Leningrad continues.

March 26: Jews in Berlin must now clearly identify their houses.

March 28: The RAF sends a raid against Lübeck, destroying over 30% of the city, and 80% of the medieval centre. Hitler is outraged.

April 4: Germans plan "Baedeker raids" on touristy or historic British sites, in revenge for the Lübeck bombing.

April 24: Heavy bombing of Rostock, Germany by RAF.

May 6: My father is born.

May 12Second Battle of Kharkov - In the eastern Ukraine, Soviet forces of Marshal Timoshenko's Southwest Theatre of Operations, including Gorodnyanski's 6th Army and Kharitonov's 9th Army, initiate a major offensive to capture Kharkov from the Germans. 9th Army is to attack first, with a primary objective of Krasnograd, and a secondary one of Poltava; 6th Army is to follow immediately. After 9th Army has captured Krasnograd, 6th Army is to swing north and link up with 28th Army and 57th Army, the latter two formations having meanwhile cut the railway between Belgorad and Kharkov.

May 31: Huge German successes around Kharkov, with envelopment of several Red Army armies.

June 9: Nazis burn the Czech village of Lidice as reprisal for the killing of Reinhard Heydrich. All male adults and children are killed, and all females are taken off to concentration camps.

August 1: The Germans continue their successful advance toward Stalingrad.

September 3: The Battle of Stalingrad proper may be said to have begun on this date, with German troops in the suburbs; even civilian men and boys are conscripted by the Red Army to assist in the defence.

September 13: The Battle for Stalingrad continues; it is now totally surrounded by the Germans. On the Soviet Union side General Vasily Chuikov is put in charge of the defence.


Not until late November, 1942 were the Germans encircled at Stalingrad.  The surrender of the German 6th Army would not occur until February 2, 1943.  Despite this significant loss it's clear from reading the chronology of events that the ultimate 'winners' of World War II were still not at all clear.  The war in Europe would not end for more than two more years.

My purpose in sharing this history is to document World War II as a means of attempting to explore this question: With the notorious reputation Germans developed during the war what impact did this have on Americans of Germanic heritage?  I do not know of internment camps that were developed as occurred with the Japanese.  And yet knowing how xenophobic Americans can be I can't help but wonder if the war created a higher level of stress for my paternal grandmother...and that somehow maybe that influenced my father's pre-natal development.  It's a good...and complicated...question.  I don't typically ask easy questions.  Thus I do not tend to do well with shallow friends.




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