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Free Republic University, Department of History presents World War II Plus 70 Years: Seminar and Discussion Forum
First session: September 1, 2009. Last date to add: September 2, 2015.
Reading assignment: New York Times articles delivered daily to students on the 70th anniversary of original publication date. (Previously posted articles can be found by searching on keyword “realtime” Or view Homer’s posting history .)
To add this class to or drop it from your schedule notify Admissions and Records (Attn: Homer_J_Simpson) by freepmail. Those on the Realtime +/- 70 Years ping list are automatically enrolled. Course description, prerequisites and tuition information is available at the bottom of Homer’s profile. Also visit our general discussion thread

Some general items for the month of September:

"What you recommended was understandable but I have resolved to carry out the Pearl Harbor attack no matter what the cost. So please do your best to develop the plan from now on. I will place all the details of the project in your hands." - Isoroku Yamamoto after a heated debate with Admiral Ryunosuke Kusaka on the prospect of attacking Pearl Harbor
By the end of September Army Group North will have suffered 60,000 loses, but the Leningrad forces will suffer far greater casualties. The Northern Front reported 55,535 casualties between 10 July and 23 August out of 153,000 men engaged. The Leningrad Front had 116,316 casualties from 23 August to 30 September out of 300,000 men engaged. Finally, the Northwestern Front casualties from 10 July to 30 September were 144,788 men out of 272,000 engaged.
Fermi's first pile constructed to prove a controllable chain reaction yields a neutron output of only 0.87 neutrons per absorption. (The number will have to be over 1.00 in order to be a sustainable chain reaction)
Werner Heisenber discovers that a sustained chain reaction in uranium would produce element 94 and saw the road for creating a atomic bomb for Germany with this element.
Martin Luther of the Foreign Office contacts Heydrich seeking support for the shooting of Serbian Jews rather than deporting them.
And for today:
"The entire Stavka is dissatisfied with your work. Despite the work of aviation and ground units, Pochep and Starodub remain in enemy hands. This means that you nibbled away at the enemy a little but did not manage to budge him. The Stavka demands that the ground forces operate in cooperation with aviation, knock him out of the Starodub and Pochep region, and properly destroy him. Until this is done, all conversations will remain empty words...Guderian and his entire group must be smashed to smithereens. Until this is done, all of your assurances of success will have no value. We await your reports about the destruction of Group Guderian." - Stavka
The Western Front's 16th, 19th, and 20th Armies launch a combined attack on German forces east of Smolensk along a front from Dukhovshchina to Iartsevo.

September

"Janówska, a labor and extermination camp near Lvov in Ukraine opens.

"The Germans open an exposition in Paris called “The Jew and France.”
Visitors see sculptures and paintings of hideous mythical Jews, Jews allegedly cursed to wander the world forever because of their supposed attack on Jesus Christ, and Jews allegedly out to control the world.
Other exhibits portray the Jew as a repulsive monster destroying France. In the first few days, more than 100,000 Parisians visit the exhibit.

"Romanians and Germans force nearly 150,000 Jews into death marches to internment camps in Bessarabia, Ukraine.
Many die of beatings, random shootings, fatigue, hunger, thirst, exposure, and disease.

"A nine-block section of Auschwitz is turned into a camp for Soviet POWs.

"Chemists and mechanics at the RSHA (Reich Security Main Office) Criminal Technical Institute develop an execution van with engine exhaust directed to the sealed rear-cargo area.

September 1

"All Jews age six and older in Slovakia, Bohemia, and Moravia are ordered to wear Yellow Stars, effective September 19, and to suspend all business activity.

"Ukrainian nationalist Ulas Samchuk, editor of the newspaper Volhyn, writes that Jews and Poles “must disappear completely from our cities.”

"Because of Christian-German protests, Hitler suspends the “euthanasia” program.
The program will continue unofficially, however."