On this day
Revisit the news, notable people, and historical moments connected to this date.
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US carrier planes attack Amami group
On Ger troops low morale
cities of secondary importance in drives to destroy Ger armies; Brit armor is less than 7 mi from Bremen but may by-pass city and strike toward Elbe River; 9th Army armor bypasses Hanover to move across Hanover Plain; takes Marienburg; other units take Sarstegt; AP repts 84th Infantry Div 20 mi from Brunswick on main rd to Berlin; 83d Infantry crosses Weser, taking Escherhagen; Brit take Twistringen U-boat base; are reptd shelling Bremen; thrust threatens to cut off Gers to south; Brit reach Zweigken-Osnabrueck canal; other units enter Neustadt outskirts and take Lockum; 1st Army infantry takes Goettingen and its hosps, Varlosen and nearby airfield; clears Hann Muenden; 3 armored columns reach Weser near Bereruengen; 3d Army troops act as pivot for armies to north; gain below Suhl, take Schleusingen, enter Molchleben and Dingelstadt; gain below Gotha; 2 divs capture 8 hosps and their patients; 7th Army breaks through Ger lines at Roth to reach Crailsheim, then swings back to cross Jagst River and reach Groffelbach; other units push toward Schweinfurt, reach Neustadt; French 1st Army takes Pforzheim and Stuttgart radio transmitter; map
within Vienna Tolbukhin troops capture 3 rr terminals and main arsenal; Favoriten, Moedling, Margareten, Mariahilf and Fuenfhaus occupation by Russians noted; Russians ford Danube and Morava Rivers east of city; establish bridgehead between Angern and Pfram; take Brodske; Malinovsky troops take Gbely and Unin; take Jastrabie and Myjava in drive toward Trencin; Tolbukhin widens western Vienna seige are in advance to Tulln and Neulenbach; other Tolbukhin troops push into Austrian Alps; clear Pinka River Valley; take Moenichwald, 32 mi from Graz
1945Steve Gadd, American drummer and percussionist[†]
Stephen Kendall Gadd is an American drummer, and session musician. Gadd is one of the best-known and most highly regarded session and studio drummers in the industry, recognized by his induction into the Modern Drummer Hall of Fame in 1984. Gadd's performances on Paul Simon's "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover" (1976) and "Late in the Evening" (1980), Herbie Mann's "Hi-jack" (1975) and Steely Dan's "Aja" (1977) are examples of his style. He has worked with other popular musicians from many genres including Van McCoy, Simon & Garfunkel, James Taylor, Chick Corea, Chuck Mangione, Randy Crawford, Eric Clapton, Michel Petrucciani, Paul McCartney, and David Gilmour.
1945Dietrich Bonhoeffer, German pastor and theologian (born 1906)[†]
Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German Lutheran pastor, neo-orthodox theologian and anti-Nazi dissident who was a key founding member of the Confessing Church. His writings on Christianity's role in the secular world have become widely influential; his 1937 book The Cost of Discipleship is described as a modern classic. Apart from his theological writings, Bonhoeffer was known for his staunch resistance to the Nazi dictatorship, including vocal opposition to Nazi euthanasia program and genocidal persecution of Jews. He was arrested in April 1943 by the Gestapo and imprisoned at Tegel Prison for 1½ years. Later, he was transferred to Flossenbürg concentration camp.
1945Wilhelm Canaris, German admiral (born 1887)[†]
Wilhelm Franz Canaris was a German admiral and the chief of the Abwehr from 1935 to 1944. Initially a supporter of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party, Canaris turned against Hitler and committed acts of both passive and active resistance during World War II following the German invasion of Poland in 1939.
1945Johann Georg Elser, German carpenter (born 1903)[†]
Johann Georg Elser was a German carpenter who planned and carried out an elaborate assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler and other high-ranking Nazi leaders on 8 November 1939 at the Bürgerbräukeller in Munich. Elser constructed and placed a bomb near the platform from which Hitler was to deliver a speech. It did not kill Hitler, who left earlier than expected, but it did kill 8 people and injured 62 others. Elser was held as a prisoner for more than five years until he was executed at Dachau concentration camp less than a month before the surrender of Nazi Germany.
1945Hans Oster, German general (born 1887)[†]
Generalmajor Hans Paul Oster was a general in the Wehrmacht and a leading figure of the anti-Nazi German resistance from 1938 to 1943. As deputy head of the counter-espionage bureau in the Abwehr, Oster was in a good position to conduct resistance operations under the guise of intelligence work.
1945Karl Sack, German lawyer and jurist (born 1896)[†]
Karl Sack was a German jurist and member of the resistance movement during World War II.
1945Hans von Dohnányi, Austrian-German lawyer and jurist (born 1902)[†]
Hans von Dohnanyi was a German jurist. He used his position in the Abwehr to help Jews escape Germany, worked with German resistance against the Nazi régime, and after the failed 20 July Plot, he was accused of being the "spiritual leader" of the conspiracy to assassinate Hitler, and executed by the SS in 1945.
1945Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Lutheran pastor and anti-Nazi dissident, is executed by the Nazi regime.[†]
Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German Lutheran pastor, neo-orthodox theologian and anti-Nazi dissident who was a key founding member of the Confessing Church. His writings on Christianity's role in the secular world have become widely influential; his 1937 book The Cost of Discipleship is described as a modern classic. Apart from his theological writings, Bonhoeffer was known for his staunch resistance to the Nazi dictatorship, including vocal opposition to Nazi euthanasia program and genocidal persecution of Jews. He was arrested in April 1943 by the Gestapo and imprisoned at Tegel Prison for 1½ years. Later, he was transferred to Flossenbürg concentration camp.
1945World War II: The German heavy cruiser Admiral Scheer is sunk by the Royal Air Force.[†]
Admiral Scheer was a Deutschland-class heavy cruiser which served with the Kriegsmarine (Navy) of Nazi Germany during World War II. The vessel was named after Admiral Reinhard Scheer, German commander in the Battle of Jutland. She was laid down at the Reichsmarinewerft shipyard in Wilhelmshaven in June 1931 and completed by November 1934. Originally classified as an armored ship by the Reichsmarine, in February 1940 the Germans reclassified the remaining two ships of this class as heavy cruisers.
1945World War II: The Battle of Königsberg, in East Prussia, ends.[†]
The Battle of Königsberg, also known as the Königsberg offensive, was one of the last operations of the East Prussian offensive during World War II. In four days of urban warfare, Soviet forces of the 1st Baltic Front and the 3rd Belorussian Front captured the city of Königsberg, present day Kaliningrad, Russia. The siege started in late January 1945 when the Soviets initially surrounded the city. Heavy fighting took place for control of overland connection between Königsberg and the port of Pillau, but by March 1945 Königsberg was hundreds of kilometres behind the main front line in the eastern front. The battle ended when the German garrison surrendered to the Soviets on 9 April after a three-day assault made their position untenable.
1945The United States Atomic Energy Commission is formed.[†]
The United States Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) was an agency of the United States government established after World War II by the U.S. Congress to foster and control the peacetime development of atomic science and technology. President Harry S. Truman signed the McMahon/Atomic Energy Act on August 1, 1946, transferring the control of atomic energy from military to civilian hands, effective on January 1, 1947. This shift gave the members of the AEC complete control of the plants, laboratories, equipment, and personnel assembled during the war to produce the atomic bomb.