January •
4 January – World War II: (
Axis powers):
Luftwaffe General
Hermann Göring assumes control of most war industries in Germany. •
10 January – World War II:
Mechelen Incident: A German plane carrying secret plans for the invasion of western Europe makes a forced landing in
Belgium, leading to mobilization of defense forces in the
Low Countries.
February •
16 February – World War II:
Altmark Incident: The
British destroyer pursues the German tanker
Altmark into the
Jøssingfjorden in southwestern
Norway.
March •
18 March – World War II:
Axis powers:
Adolf Hitler and
Benito Mussolini meet at
Brenner Pass in the
Alps and agree to form an alliance against
France and the
United Kingdom. •
31 March – World War II:
Commerce raiding hilfskreuzer Atlantis, leaves the
Wadden Sea for what will become the longest warship cruise of the war. (622 days without in-port replenishment or repair).
April •
9 April • World War II: Germany carries out
Operation Weserübung, and invades
Denmark and
Norway. German forces land in several Norwegian ports and take
Oslo; The
Norwegian Campaign lasts two months. The
Allied campaign in Norway is simultaneously commenced. • German invasion of Norway: German heavy cruiser
Blücher is sunk
by gunfire and torpedoes from the Norwegian coastal fortress
Oscarsborg in the
Oslofjord. Of the 2,202 German crew and troops on board, some 830 died (at least 320 of them crewmen). Most either drowned or burnt to death in the flaming oil slick surrounding the wreck. •
20 April – On his 51st birthday,
Hitler orders the formation of a new
SS regiment, containing Norwegians and Danes as well as Germans.
May •
10 May – World War II:
Battle of France begins – German forces invade
Low Countries. •
13 May – World War II: German armies open a wide breach in the
Maginot Line at
Sedan, France. •
13–14 May –
Rotterdam is subjected to savage terror bombing by the
Luftwaffe; 980 are killed, and 20,000 buildings destroyed. •
17 May –
Brussels falls to German forces. •
20 May • World War II: German forces (
2nd Panzer division), under General
Rudolf Veiel, reach
Noyelles on the
English Channel. •
Holocaust: The
Nazi German concentration and
extermination camp Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest of the German concentration camps, opens in
occupied Poland near the town of
Oświęcim. Between May 1940 and January 1945, around 1.1 million people were killed there.
June •
3 June •
The Holocaust: Nazi leader
Franz Rademacher proposes the
Madagascar Plan, under which the Jewish population of Europe would be relocated to the island of
Madagascar. • World War II:
Paris is bombed by the
Luftwaffe for the first time. •
10 June – World War II:
Norway surrenders to German forces. •
14 June – World War II:
Fall of Paris to German occupation. •
15 June – World War II:
Verdun falls to German forces. •
17 June – A
Luftwaffe Junkers Ju 88 bomber sinks the British ship
RMS Lancastria, which was evacuating troops from near
Saint-Nazaire,
France, killing some 5,800 men. (Wartime censorship prevents the story from becoming public.) •
21 June – World War II:
Vichy France and Germany sign an armistice at
Compiegne, in the same wagon-lit railroad car used by Marshal
Ferdinand Foch to accept the surrender of Germany in 1918. •
23 June – World War II: German leader
Adolf Hitler surveys newly defeated
Paris in now occupied
France. •
30 June – World War II: German forces land in
Guernsey, marking the start of the 5-year
Occupation of the Channel Islands.
July •
14 July – World War II:
Winston Churchill, in a worldwide broadcast, proclaims the intention of Great Britain to fight alone against Germany whatever the outcome. •
19 July – World War II:
Adolf Hitler promotes 12 generals to
field marshal during the
1940 Field Marshal Ceremony following the swift victory over
France, and makes a peace appeal to
Britain in an address to the
Reichstag.
Lord Halifax, British foreign minister, flatly rejects peace terms in a broadcast reply on 22 July.
August •
8 August – World War II:
Wilhelm Keitel signs the "
Aufbau Ost" directive, which eventually leads to the invasion of the
Soviet Union. •
30 August –
Second Vienna Award: Germany and Italy compel Romania to cede half of
Transylvania to Hungary.
September •
5 September – World War II:
Commerce raiding hilfskreuzer Komet enters the
Pacific Ocean via the
Bering Strait after crossing the
Arctic Ocean from the
North Sea with the help of Soviet icebreakers
Lenin,
Stalin, and
Kaganovich. •
7 September – World War II:
The Blitz – Germany begins to rain bombs on
London (the first of 57 consecutive nights of
strategic bombing). •
22 September – The first flight of
Heinkel He 280 occurs. •
27 September – World War II: Germany,
Italy and
Japan sign the
Tripartite Pact.
October •
18–
19 October – World War II: Thirty-two ships are sunk from
Convoy SC 7 and
Convoy HX 79 by the most effective
wolfpack of the war including
Kretschmer,
Prien and
Schepke.
November •
11 November – World War II: The German
Hilfskreuzer (commerce raider)
Atlantis captures
top secret British mail, and sends it to
Japan. •
14 November – World War II: The city of
Coventry,
England is destroyed by 500 German
Luftwaffe bombers (150,000
fire bombs, 503 tons of high explosives, and 130 parachute mines level 60,000 of the city's 75,000 buildings; 568 people are killed). •
16 November – World War II: In response to Germany levelling
Coventry 2 days before, the
Royal Air Force begins to bomb
Hamburg (by war's end, 50,000 Hamburg residents will have died from
Allied attacks). •
18 November – World War II: German leader
Adolf Hitler and
Italian Foreign Minister
Galeazzo Ciano meet to discuss
Benito Mussolini's disastrous invasion of
Greece.
December •
12 December &
15 December — World War II: "
Sheffield Blitz" – The
City of Sheffield is badly damaged by German air-raids. •
16 December – World War II:
Operation Abigail Rachel –
RAF bombing of
Mannheim. •
29 December – World War II:
Luftwaffe carries out a massive incendiary bombing raid on London, UK, starting 1,500 fires. Many famous buildings, including the
Guildhall and Trinity House, are either damaged or destroyed. File:Bundesarchiv Bild 101I-126-0347-09A, Paris, Deutsche Truppen am Arc de Triomphe.jpg|4 June: German troops on parade after the
surrender of Paris File:Battle of Narvik.jpg|British destroyers attack the German fleet during the
Battle of Narvik File:German cruiser Blücher sinking.jpg|9 April: the German ship "
Blücher" is sunk by the Norwegian shore defences at the
Battle of Drøbak Sound. File:May 1944 - Jews from Carpathian Ruthenia arrive at Auschwitz-Birkenau.jpg|20 May: The
Nazi German concentration and
extermination camp Auschwitz-Birkenau opens in
occupied Poland Date unknown • In 1940, German optometrist
Heinrich Wöhlk invented plastic Contact lenses. •
Hülsta (hülsta-werke Hüls GmbH & Co. KG), a German furniture manufacturer is founded in
Stadtlohn. ==Births==