Heydrich, at Hitler’s insistence, chairs the Nazi’s…
1942 CE
Heydrich, at Hitler’s insistence, chairs the Nazi’s Wannsee Conference on the Final Solution of the Jewish Question in January, 1942.
Zhukov’s Soviet troops, having maintained steady pressure on the Germans throughout winter, push the invaders back to 40 miles (64 kilometers) from Moscow.
In March 1942, mass killing of Jews begins at Auschwitz, chosen as the main extermination center.
Great numbers of Poles, Russians, Gypsies and others are also executed en masse.
In spring 1942, Hitler decides to mount a summer offensive on the Soviet’s southern front to deprive them of their oil fields in the Caucasus and force their surrender.
The RAF begins air attacks on the cities of Germany’s Ruhr Valley industrial center.
A 1,000 bomber RAF air raid in May 1942 destroys much of the Rhineland city of Cologne.
The Germans advance across southern Russian in June and complete their conquest of the Crimea with the capture of Sevastopol in early July.
In summer 1942, the US Army Air Corps, bolstered by newly-produced warplanes, joins the RAF in Allied operations against Germany.
US B-17 Flying Fortresses and B-24 Liberators carry out daylight precision bombing raids on industrial targets; the British bomb the German cities at night.
Although the German Luftwaffe, not nearly as effective as it was during the Battle of Britain, is unable to successfully defend the nation against the raids, neither tactic succeeds in inflicting great damage.
After entering the Caucasus in August, German general Friedrich Paulus leads his Sixth Army in a march toward Stalingrad, the greatest city on the Volga and the key to defending the German occupation of the Caucasus.
As German troops reach the Volga near Stalingrad on August 23, the Luftwaffe begins aerial bombing of the city with incendiaries and high explosives, inflicting 40,000 Russian casualties within a few hours.
Stalin orders his namesake city held, and rushes fresh reserves to the city.
Hiter, in an ill-timed display of bad judgement, diverts his panzer forces to the south instead of sending the tanks in to capture the city.
By the time he recalls the tanks two weeks later, the opportunity to roll over Stalingrad is gone.
German troops enter Stalingrad in mid-September 1942 and fight the Russian defenders in house-to-house combat.
By October, the Germans have captured Stalingrad’s southern and central portions and are pushing hard against the fiercely-defended industrial sectors to the north.
Hand-to-hand combat, in sewers, cellars, and factories, is the norm.
As casualties mount among Stalingrad’s trapped defenders, General Zhukov gathers reserves around the city.
On November 19, 1942, Zhukov and generals A. M. Vasilevsky and N. N. Voronov launch their planned attack on the invaders and by late November succeed in trapping the Sixth Army in the half-demolished city.
Hitler, furious at the revesal, refuses Paulus’s desperate entreaties to allow a retreat.
Gandhi’s “Quit India” campaign results in his 1942 imprisonment for obstructing the war effort.
Interpol chief Heydrich is assassinated in Czechloslavakia in late 1942.