1943 in Germany - Events

Events

• 13 January — Helmut Schenk is the first person to use an ejection seat from an aircraft.
• 18 January — WWII: Soviet officials announce they have broken the Wehrmacht's siege of Leningrad.
• 18 January — The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising begins.
• 27 January — WWII: 50 bombers mount the first all American air raid against Germany (Wilhelmshaven is the target).
• 29 January — German police arrest alleged necrophiliac Bruno Ludke.
• 29 January - Dr Ernst Kaltenbrunner succeeds the late Reinhard Heydrich as head of the RSHA SS-Reichssicherheitshauptamt controlling the Schutzstaffel Gestapo
• 2 February — WWII: In Russia, the Battle of Stalingrad comes to an end with the surrender of the German 6th Army.
• 3 February — WWII: The Four Chaplains of the U.S. Army are drowned, when their ship (USAT Dorchester) is struck by a German torpedo.
• 14 February — WWII: Battle of the Kasserine Pass: German General Erwin Rommel and his Afrika Korps launch an offensive against Allied defenses in Tunisia.
• 16 February — WWII: The Soviet Union reconquers Kharkov, but is later driven out in the Third Battle of Kharkov
• 18 February — In a speech at the Berlin Sportpalast, German Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels declare a "Total War" against the Allies.
• 18 February — The Nazis arrest the members of the White Rose movement.
• 22 February — Members of White Rose are executed in Nazi Germany.
• 28 February — Operation Gunnerside: 6 Norwegians led by Joachim Ronneberg successfully attack the heavy water plant Vemork.
• 1 March — Heinz Guderian becomes the Inspector-General of the Armoured Troops for the German Army.
• 13 March — Holocaust: German forces liquidate the Jewish ghetto in Kraków.
• 16 March - 19 March — WWII: 22 ships from Convoys HX 229/SC 122 and one U-boat are sunk in the largest North Atlantic U-boat wolfpack attack of the war.
• 22 March — WWII: The entire population of Khatyn in Belarus is burnt alive by the German occupation forces.
• 23 March — The drugs Vicodin and Lortab are first produced in Germany.
• 26 March - Adolf Hitler writes to Benito Mussolini that Russia is so weakened by the defence of Volgograd that it cannot possibly be a serious menace.
• 13 April — WWII: Radio Berlin announces the discovery by Wehrmacht of mass graves of Poles killed by Soviets in the Katyn massacre.
• 6 May — WWII: Six U-boats are sunk after sinking 12 ships from Convoy ONS 5, regarded as the turning point in the North Atlantic U-boat war.
• 13 May — WWII: German Afrika Korps and Italian troops in North Africa surrender to Allied forces.
• 15 May — The Comintern is dissolved in Moscow.
• 16 May — WWII: Operation Chastise by RAF 617 Sqdn are carried out on German dams.
• 16 May — Holocaust: The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising ends.
• 24 May — Holocaust: Josef Mengele becomes the chief medical officer of Auschwitz.
• 5 July — WWII: Battle of Kursk – The largest tank battle in history begins.
• 12 July — WWII – Battle of Prokhorovka: The Wehrmacht and the Red Army fight to a draw.
• 24 July — WWII: Operation Gomorrah begins: British and Canadian aeroplanes bomb Hamburg by night, those of the Americans by day. By the end of the operation in November, 9,000 tons of explosives will have killed more than 30,000 people and destroyed 280,000 buildings.
• 28 July — WWII: Operation Gomorrah – The British bomb Hamburg, causing a firestorm that kills 42,000 German civilians.
• 23 August — The Battle of Kursk ends with a serious strategic defeat for the German forces.
• 24 August — WWII: – Heinrich Himmler is named Reichminister of the Interior in Germany.
• 29 August — WWII: Germany dissolves the Danish government after it refuses to deal with a wave of strikes and disturbances to the satisfaction of the German authorities (see Occupation of Denmark).
• 8 September — WWII: Frascati bombing raid September 8, 1943: The USAAF bombs the German General Headquarters for the Mediterranean zone.
• 12 September — WWII: German paratroopers rescue Benito Mussolini from imprisonment, in Operation Eiche.
• 13 October — WWII: The new government of Italy sides with the Allies and declares war on Germany.
• 17 October — WWII: The last commerce raider, auxiliary cruiser Michel, was sunk off Japan by United States submarine Tarpon.
• 22 October — WWII: The RAF delivers a highly destructive airstrike on the German industrial and population center of Kassel.
• 15 November — Porajmos: German SS leader Heinrich Himmler orders that Gypsies and "part-Gypsies" be put "on the same level as Jews and placed in concentration camps."
• 18 November — WWII: The Royal Air Force opens its bombing campaign against Berlin, with 440 planes causing only light damage and killing 131. The RAF loses 9 aircraft and 53 aviators.
• 23 November — The Deutsche Opernhaus on Bismarckstraße in the Berlin neighborhood of Charlottenburg is destroyed.
• 2 December — A Luftwaffe bombing raid on the harbour of Bari, Italy, sinks an American ship with a mustard gas stockpile, causing numerous fatalities (though the exact death toll is unresolved, as the bombing raid itself causes hundreds of deaths too).
• 11 December - United States Air Force raids a U-boat yard at Emden, losing 20 planes but claiming to have shot down 138 German fighters.