Posted on 12/15/2011 5:01:51 AM PST by Homer_J_Simpson
http://www.onwar.com/chrono/1941/dec41/f15dec41.htm
Red Army advancing before Moscow
Monday, December 15, 1941 www.onwar.com
On the Eastern Front... Soviet forces attacking northwest of Moscow reach Klin and Kalinin and retake both towns.
In the Mediterranean... U-557 sinks a cruiser off Alexandria. The British launch a convoy to bring supplies from Egypt to relieve Malta. Six cruisers and 16 destroyers set out from Malta (Force K) to meet the convoy from Alexandria under the command of Admiral Vian (Force B).
In North Africa... British attacks continue around Gazala as Rommel prepares to withdraw to El Agheila.
In Malaya... British forces retreat to Gurun and suffer heavy losses defending against the Japanese attack. Gurun however, holds.
In Hong Kong... Japanese attempt to land a small force from Kowloon on Hong Kong island, they are repelled.
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andrew.etherington/month/thismonth/15.htm
December 15th, 1941
UNITED KINGDOM: The production Short Sunderland Mk III flying boat (W 3999) makes its first flight. It mounts a power-operated dorsal gun turret and has a new type of planing bottom to the hull, the forward step being made shallower. (22)
Escort carrier HMS Striker laid down. (Dave Shirlaw)
GERMANY:
U-922 laid down.
U-176, U-216 commissioned.
U-412 launched. (Dave Shirlaw)
ITALY: Count Ciano notes in his diary: after meeting with Pavelich in Venice) “The monarchical question has for the moment been laid aside. That does not displease me, especially because I still think that it is possible to have a real union under out King (my note: that is, offer the Croatian crown to King Vittorio Emanuele himself, as was done with Albania). Naturally, this is all premature, and we should always have to give the most ample guarantees with reference to local independence.” (Mike Yaklich)
U.S.S.R.: Northwest of Moscow the Soviets retake Klin and Kalinin.
MEDITERRANEAN SEA: A British cruiser HMS GALATEA is sunk by the U-557 off Alexandria. 469 of her crew were lost.
A British supply convoy bound for Malta leaves Alexandria.
THAILAND, Bangkok: Burma has become the latest target of the Japanese onslaught in South-east Asia. The invasion began this morning with troops of the Japanese 15th Army advancing from Thailand west across the Kra isthmus and capturing the three key southern airfields, Victoria Point, Tavoy and Tennasserim.
Tokyo decided to give permission to the 15th Army’s commander, General Shojiro Iida, to launch the attack, satisfied that the attack on Malaya was going according to plan and that General Yamashita’s 25th Army no longer requires the 15th Army to secure its rear.
Iida’s first objective is to take Rangoon and cut the main Allied supply line to Chiang Kai-shek’s Chinese Nationalists. Logistics favour Iida. At his disposal he has 35,000 men, in two divisions, and 100 planes. He also has in place a “Fifth Column” of Japanese army-trained Burmese nationalists ready to help defeat the British, who are as yet ill-organized, with only a few thousand men.
MALAYA: The British lose heavily in their withdrawal towards Gurun. They succeed for the moment in keeping the Japanese out of Gurun.
HONG KONG: A Japanese attempt to move from Kowloon to Hong Kong is defeated.
CANADA: Minesweepers HMCS Kentville and Mulgrave laid down Port Arthur, Ontario.
NEWFOUNDLAND: Submarine HMS L-27 arrived Harbour Grace for ASW training. (Dave Shirlaw)
ST. PIERRE and MIQUELON: Submarine FS Surcouf arrives at St Pierre to operate with Free French forces. (Dave Shirlaw)
U.S.A.: Submarine USS Silversides commissioned. (Dave Shirlaw)
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC: Santo Domingo breaks off diplomatic relations with Berlin. (Mike Yared)
ATLANTIC OCEAN:
U-127 sunk west of Gibraltar in position 36.28N, 09.12W, by depth charges from destroyer HMAS Nestor. 51 dead (all hands lost)
U-77 sank SS Empire Barracuda. (Dave Shirlaw)
From the “Held Under Sedition Act” article, it appears the father of the current rat Congressman John Dingle, as opposed to his son, supported national defense.
"The last six Jews living in Warendorf, Germany, are deported to Riga, Latvia, and killed."
" 'It's hard to recognize,' said Shimon Srebnik, 'but it was here.
They burned people here.'
Srebnik, 47, had returned to Chelmno, a place he first saw in the summer of 1944 when he was sent there from the Lódz Ghetto at the age of 13.
The SS assigned Srebnik to a work detail.
Shot and left for dead by the fleeing Nazis as Soviet troops approached in January 1945, Srebnik was one of the very few Jews who survived the killing center.
"Situated in Poland, about 50 miles west of Lódz, Chelmno was the first Nazi extermination camp.
More than 150,000 Jews and about 5000 Gypsies were murdered there.
Chelmno's victims perished in special mobile gas vans that piped deadly engine exhaust fumes into the trucks' hermetically sealed interior compartments.
Chelmno operated from December 1941 to March 1943.
It reopened in the spring of 1944 during the liquidation of the Lódz Ghetto.
"That September the Nazis tried to obliterate the evidence of mass murder by exhuming the mass graves and burning the remains.
'A lot of people were burned here,' Srebnik recalled. 'Yes, this is the place. No one ever left here again.' "
"The Christian churches of Germany remained publicly silent in the face of the Nazi annihilation of Europe's Jews.
Unlike the protest of the Nazi "euthanasia" policy, which Catholic intervention succeeded in halting, there was no public outcry from the churches when Jews were "evacuated," and no official church condemnations were issued when news of atrocities in the East reached Germany.
"Both the Protestant (or Evangelical) Church and the Catholic Church yielded to Nazi pressure that restricted many church functions, closed most religious schools, and sent the few who did preach anti-Nazi sermons to concentration camps.
The majority of the clergy avoided dangerous topics, and church doors consequently remained open.
There was also considerable sympathy among Catholic and Protestant clergy for Hitler's traditional nationalist and conservative values, and especially for the Nazis' anticommunist crusade.
"Additionally, some leading figures of both churches maintained antagonistic attitudes toward Judaism and, in fact, harbored antisemitic sentiments that made them unwilling to protest the regime's treatment of the Jews. Both churches willingly handed over genealogical records that helped the Nazis determine Jewish ancestry as defined by the Nuremberg Laws.
"Some Catholic Church leaders were publicly antisemitic.
A pastoral letter written in 1941 by Archbishop Konrad Gröber blamed Jews for the death of Jesus, and implied that their current terrible fate was not only justified but was a "self-imposed curse."
"In view of the continued Nazi persecution of the churches, Catholic leaders preached submission in order to ensure survival. Papal announcements deplored the persecution but extended only prayer to non-Aryan victims of the Nazis.
Catholic bishops spoke out against the SS killings in the East, but most decried the murders only of 'Christian' Poles and Slavs.
Only a few clerics publicly denounced the extermination of the Jews.
"Protestant Church leadership traditionally supported the authority of the state.
Many clergy sympathized with Hitler's nationalism, and had long viewed the Jews as enemies of Christianity.
Of course, the nazified segment of the Protestant Church, known as the Deutsche Glaubensbewegung (German Christians' Faith Movement), under Reich Bishop Lüdwig Müller, fully supported the regime's attack on Jews.
With its mix of Christianity and Nordic paganism, this official 'Reich Church' regarded racial 'mongrelization' as immoral. Dissenting Protestants, organized as the Bekennende Kirche (Confessing Church), opposed Nazi interference in church affairs but were silenced by Nazi coercion after the imprisonment and 're-education' of 700 ministers.
"One of the few German religious leaders who took up the Jews' cause was Pastor Heinrich Grüber, head of a Protestant organization that aided Jewish converts to Christianity.
In 1940 Grüber was imprisoned for protesting the deportations of Jews.
Notably, Protestant Bishop Theophil Wurm of Württemberg, in a 1943 memorandum to Nazi authorities, futilely demanded 'an end to putting to death members of other nations and races.' "
"Eminent historian Simon Dubnow espoused Jewish cultural nationalism, or Autonomism.
In various books, including the massive World History of the Jewish People, Dubnow described Jews of the diaspora as linked through the centuries by their unique cultural and spiritual lives, an achievement that he argued should culminate in autonomy.
Born in Belorussia, Dubnow moved to Berlin in 1922, but with Hitler's rise he left Germany in 1933 for Latvia.
Confined in the Riga (Latvia) Ghetto, the 81-year-old historian was among those shot on December 8, 1941."
This is not correct. The churches spoke out plenty against the Nazis and thousands of clergy were thrown into concentration camps for doing so.
I think more than thousands, because thousands died there.
Here is one account, from just Poland:
"During the Nazi occupation, the Catholic Church in Poland experienced enormous clerical and material losses.
According to the latest research by W. Jacewicz and J. WoÅ›, in the years 1939–1945, 2,801 members of the clergy lost their lives; they were either murdered during the occupation or killed in military manoeuvres."Among them were 6 bishops, 1,926 diocesan priests and clerics, 375 priests and clerics from monastic orders, 205 brothers, and 289 sisters.
599 diocesan priests and clerics were killed in executions, as well as 281 members of the monastic clergy (priests, brothers and sisters).
Of the 1,345 members of the clergy murdered in death camps, 798 perished in Dachau, 167 in Auschwitz, 90 in Działdowo, 85 in Sachsenhausen, 71 in Gusen, 40 in Stutthof, and the rest in camps such as Buchenwald, Gross-Rosen, Mauthausen, Majdanek, Bojanowo, and others."
The numbers for Catholic and Protestant clergy killed in other countries were smaller, but totalled in the hundreds.
Indeed, these numbers killed only pale in comparison to those of other groups:
But if you think the Churches of Germany spoke out publicly against Nazi atrocities, then you might want to provide us with references to newspaper or radio reports of the time which spoke of such things.
I would suggest that such reports are almost non-existant, and even those which Homer has reproduced here, where the Pope refers to the plight of Catholics in Poland, are vague and unspecific to the point of being meaningless.
Of course, the churches have excuses, but that's what they are: excuses.
Churches do not deny the fact of their public silence.
For starters, I'd recommend you spend some time reviewing Homer's posts. Here are a couple of recent ones that come to mind.
I would suggest that such reports are almost non-existant, and even those which Homer has reproduced here, where the Pope refers to the plight of Catholics in Poland, are vague and unspecific to the point of being meaningless.
Just by reading what Homer posts, you should have been seeing one or two such reports per month. Then, in light of those times when suffering was universal throughout Europe, imagine the level to which something had to rise before being carried by foreign press.
Neither article says anything about atrocities against Jews, or anyone else for that matter -- unless you count the words "intensive Nazi measures" as adequate to describe the beginnings of the Holocaust.
fso301: "Just by reading what Homer posts, you should have been seeing one or two such reports per month."
Sure, one or two articles with very vague references to something the Nazis were doing -- nothing even remotely indicating the scale or horror of those events.
fso301: "Then, in light of those times when suffering was universal throughout Europe, imagine the level to which something had to rise before being carried by foreign press."
Think about it: who other than various church organizations really understood what the Nazis were doing, and could have alerted the world to it?
Yes, I understand why they didn't, but let's not pretend something happened which in fact didn't.
The Final Solution did not begin until 1942. At this point in time, the Greek famine was at it's peak and Greeks were suffering arguably worse than Jews but how much do you hear about mass starvation in Greece during the winter famine of 41-42? How many people even know about the Greek famine?
Sure, one or two articles with very vague references to something the Nazis were doing -- nothing even remotely indicating the scale or horror of those events.
By "those events", I assume you meant the Final Solution but that didn't begin until 1942. Yes, mass execution of Jews by the Einsatzgruppen were taking place in the East but there was really no means of getting the word out about events in the East at this point.
Think about it: who other than various church organizations really understood what the Nazis were doing, and could have alerted the world to it?
Certainly the Communists. As far as churches go, the decentralized Protestants really didn't have a mechanism of getting the word out whereas the Catholics did.
Yes, I understand why they didn't, but let's not pretend something happened which in fact didn't.
What are you getting at?
The mismanagement of US air and naval forces available in the Philipines was/is appalling. They might have been overwhelmed anyway, but allowing a majority of the B17s and P40s to be destroyed on the ground with many hours of warning after Pearl Harbor was inexcusable. IIRC there were 27 US submarines stationed at Manila but they did not get to do much to impede the Japanese advances (no reflection on the brave crews and skippers, they were not allowed to do much). Much bravery from US and Philipine forces but not much top leadership in the opening hours and days.
I'm certain you know your history well enough to realize that Nazis' systematic persecutions of Jews -- as Jews and for no other reason -- had been going on since 1933, with each new step ratcheting up the horrors.
Outright murders of Jews began with the invasion of Poland in 1939.
It is precisely this systematic persecution of Jews, as Jews, about which all churches remained publicly silent.
Indeed, the Pope did not even speak openly about the murder of thousands of Catholic clergy, much less about Einsatzgruppen shootings of hundreds of thousands of east European Jews.
Did the Pope know?
How could he not know, since every German military unit had chaplains at some level?
fso301: "How many people even know about the Greek famine?"
Greek famine: 300,000 estimated total deaths.
I didn't remember it, so pretty good bet most others also don't.
The starvation of 300,000 Greeks represented about 4% of Greece's 7.4 million total population.
"Because of the efforts of the Greek Diaspora in the United States and Great Britain, the situation of the starving civilian population in Greece soon became a public issue in the Allied countries.
The increasing public pressure finally led to the lifting of the naval blockade in February 1942.[12]"The plan carried under the auspices of the International Red Cross, while Sweden offered for the transportation of 15,000 tons of Canadian wheat.[19]
Wheat shipments soon began and together with the rising temperatures of springtime, resulted in the reduction of the mortality rates.[12]"At the end of 1942 with the steady supply of sufficient quantities to the country's greatest ports, the mortality rate fell,[16] however the food situation remained grim until the end of the occupation (1944)"
Demographic statistics show that during this period, the death rate nearly doubled, while live births fell by nearly half, resulting in an overall reduction of Greek population of about 100,000 people.
By contrast, the Nazis' systematic murders of Jews destroyed about 80% of the 7.8 million (compare to 7.4 million Greeks) Jewish population under Nazi control.
fso301: "As far as churches go, the decentralized Protestants really didn't have a mechanism of getting the word out whereas the Catholics did."
Nor did Jews themselves know or report the full extent of Nazi persecutions.
Indeed, you have to wonder if the real problem wasn't they all truly "didn't know", or if our guys in the West just didn't want to learn about it?
Today it's impossible to imagine that such information would not somehow leak out, but there you have it.
fso301: "What are you getting at?"
I'll say it again: let's not pretend that churches routinely reported or decried Nazi atrocities against Jews, when in fact, they almost never did.
Indeed, they barely mentioned publicly Nazi atrocities against their own clergy.
As did outright murder of many other classes of people which created a general noise level making it difficult to concentrate on the cries of any single group. Furthermore, we speak now of post-Christian Europe but in the 1920's Germany had already reached that point.
It is precisely this systematic persecution of Jews, as Jews, about which all churches remained publicly silent.
For starters, what about the Papal encyclical Mit Brennender Sorge read aloud in every German Catholic church on Palm Sunday 1937?
Indeed, the Pope did not even speak openly about the murder of thousands of Catholic clergy, much less about Einsatzgruppen shootings of hundreds of thousands of east European Jews.
At this point in 1941, I see little chance for word of what was happening in the East to make it back to the Vatican. About the only soldiers returning from the eastern front were bandaged up and missing various appendages.
Did the Pope know? How could he not know, since every German military unit had chaplains at some level?
The eastern front was a gigantic meat grinder. Men went off to the east never to be seen again. The cries of individual groups in the east were muffled by the noise of that gigantic meat grinder.
Yes, the Pope would have reports of what was happening in the East but he was also dealing a general persecution of the church across Europe. Then there was the matter of Asian Catholics suffering at the hands of the Japanese not to mention the Chinese communists. All this coming on the heels of the great suffering of the church at the hands of the Bolsheviks. Furthermore, when surrounded by your oppressor as the Vatican was, you walk a tightrope.
Greek famine: 300,000 estimated total deaths. I didn't remember it, so pretty good bet most others also don't. The starvation of 300,000 Greeks represented about 4% of Greece's 7.4 million total population.
Almost all of the Greek starvation occurred during the winter of 1941-1942. Had the allied blockade not been lifted and you extrapolate the numbers forward to the end of occupation in 1944. Millions of Greeks would have perished. My original comment about Greeks arguably suffering worse than Jews at this point in time (Dec 1941) was based on my personal belief that death by a bullet which is largely how the Einsatzgruppen were carrying out their murders in the east was preferable to a slow death by starvation which was happening in Greece.
Indeed, you have to wonder if the real problem wasn't they all truly "didn't know", or if our guys in the West just didn't want to learn about it? Today it's impossible to imagine that such information would not somehow leak out, but there you have it.
Consider the slaughter in Cambodia. There were plenty of reports about what was happening at the hands of the Communists but the leftist media chose to ignore them.
I'll say it again: let's not pretend that churches routinely reported or decried Nazi atrocities against Jews, when in fact, they almost never did. Indeed, they barely mentioned publicly Nazi atrocities against their own clergy.
Or is it a matter of like the slaughter in Cambodia (and anywhere Communists took over), western media who are enamored with socialism received reports but deemed them non-newsworthy?
And you can quote examples of church leaders explicit public condemnations of any of those atrocities?
In fact, the Church did not speak openly about the murders of thousands of its own clergy, much less millions of others.
fso301: "For starters, what about the Papal encyclical Mit Brennender Sorge read aloud in every German Catholic church on Palm Sunday 1937?"
And you can quote for us sections of Mit Brennender Sorge which condemn specifically the persecution and murder of Jews?
Of course not, not in 1937.
But what about years later, during the Holocaust proper?
fso301: "At this point in 1941, I see little chance for word of what was happening in the East to make it back to the Vatican."
It's impossible to believe the Vatican did not know of Catholic clergy including bishops being murdered, or take note of the fact their deaths happened in camps set up to hold or exterminate Jews.
How much of this was going on in late 1941?
I don't know, but certainly it was well under way by this time, and not all of it could be kept secret.
fso301: "Yes, the Pope would have reports of what was happening in the East but he was also dealing a general persecution of the church across Europe."
The Pope had no difficulty publicly identifying and condemning persecutions of Christians in Soviet Russia -- indeed the Church excommunicated Communists, but not Nazis, not even Hitler.
fso301: "All this coming on the heels of the great suffering of the church at the hands of the Bolsheviks."
The Church suffered a thousand times more in Poland under Nazis than it ever did in Russia under Stalin -- for obvious reasons, since there were few Russian Catholics to begin with.
fso301: "Furthermore, when surrounded by your oppressor as the Vatican was, you walk a tightrope."
And that is the core of the problem.
The Nazi threat was: the Pope must stay silent, or the numbers murdered would be far more.
Of course, I understand that -- it is what it is.
I'm only saying: let's not pretend that the Pope or any other church leader spoke specifically and publicly about the Nazi horrors.
And you can quote for us sections of Mit Brennender Sorge which condemn specifically the persecution and murder of Jews? Of course not, not in 1937.
Why do you fixate on the Jews? The Jews were but one group defined by Nazi racial theory as subhuman and actually constituted a minority of the peoples the Nazi's targeted for elimination in the Third Reich. To address your question, Mit Brennender Sorge directly addresses Nazi racial theory under which the Jews and many other groups suffered.
8. Whoever exalts race, or the people, or the State, or a particular form of State, or the depositories of power, or any other fundamental value of the human community--however necessary and honorable be their function in worldly things--whoever raises these notions above their standard value and divinizes them to an idolatrous level, distorts and perverts an order of the world planned and created by God; he is far from the true faith in God and from the concept of life which that faith upholds.
It's impossible to believe the Vatican did not know of Catholic clergy including bishops being murdered, or take note of the fact their deaths happened in camps set up to hold or exterminate Jews. How much of this was going on in late 1941? I don't know, but certainly it was well under way by this time, and not all of it could be kept secret.
From a modern standpoint, how often have you heard condemnations from the Vatican about catholics being butchered in Indonesia or sub-saharan Africa at the hand of the muslims?
The Pope had no difficulty publicly identifying and condemning persecutions of Christians in Soviet Russia -- indeed the Church excommunicated Communists, but not Nazis, not even Hitler.
Oh really? How many communists did the Pope(s) excommunicate prior to 1945? Help me out here.
The Church suffered a thousand times more in Poland under Nazis than it ever did in Russia under Stalin -- for obvious reasons, since there were few Russian Catholics to begin with.
There were plenty of catholics in the western Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania and Latvia... at least there were plenty before the communists took over.
And that is the core of the problem. The Nazi threat was: the Pope must stay silent, or the numbers murdered would be far more.
True but I again point to the modern example of catholics being murdered in places like Indonesia and Nigeria by muslims yet the Vatican makes no direct condemnation.
Of course, I understand that -- it is what it is. I'm only saying: let's not pretend that the Pope or any other church leader spoke specifically and publicly about the Nazi horrors.
I'm not sure what your standard is for public condemnation. Perhaps that's where we differ. If you just follow Homer's postings, you will see plenty of such examples. Here's another for you, also from the month of November. http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f167/Lisa_Simpson/1941/November/1117/1117-refusei.jpg
I'm rushed for time today, but it seems to me that you are here admitting the basic idea you originally posted to dispute: that churches in general, and the Catholic Church specifically, remained silent in the face of Nazi atrocities against Jews.
In defending that statement, I went further by saying the Church didn't even speak openly about atrocities against its own clergy.
All of this you seem to be admitting, albeit with explanations or excuses.
You also claim the Church even today says nothing when its clergy are murdered or persecuted in, for example, Islamic countries.
This I find a bit hard to believe, considering that most churches today are as media-savy as anyone, and will certainly report and comment on any newsworthy events affecting them.
Got to run now...
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