January 23– "Dutch War Scare": Admiral Wilhelm Canaris of the Abwehr leaks misinformation to the effect that Germany plans to invade the Netherlands in February, with the aim of using Dutch air-fields to launch a strategic bombing offensive against Britain. The "Dutch War Scare" leads to a major change in British policies towards Europe.[7]
In Paris, French Foreign Minister Georges Bonnet, in response to rumours (which are true) that he is seeking to end the French alliance system in Eastern Europe, gives a speech highlighting his government's commitment to the cordon sanitaire.
January 27–Adolf Hitler orders Plan Z, a 5-year naval expansion programme intended to provide for a huge German fleet capable of crushing the British Royal Navy by 1944. The Kriegsmarine is given the first priority on the allotment of German economic resources.[9]
January 30–Hitler gives a speech before the Reichstag calling for an "export battle" to increase German foreign exchange holdings. The same speech also sees "Hitler's prophecy", where he warns that if "Jewish financiers" start a war against Germany, "the result will be the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe".[10]
British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain states in the House of Commons that any German attack on France will be automatically considered an attack on Britain.
In a response to Georges Bonnet's speech of January 26, German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, referring to Bonnet's alleged statement of December 6, 1938, accepting Eastern Europe as being in Germany's exclusive sphere of influence, protests that all French security commitments in that region are "now off limits".
March 3– In Durban, South Africa the Timeless Test begins between England and South Africa, the longest game of cricket ever played. It is abandoned 12 days later, when the English team has to catch their ship home.
March 13–Adolf Hitler advises Jozef Tiso to declare Slovakia's independence, in order to prevent its partition by Hungary and Poland.
March 14– The Slovak provincial assembly proclaims independence; priest Jozef Tiso becomes president of the independent Slovak government.
Hungary invades Carpatho-Ukraine; final resistance ends on March 18.
British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain gives a speech in Birmingham, stating that Britain will oppose any effort at world domination on the part of Germany.
March 17– The nationalist governments of Spain and Portugal sign the Iberian Pact in Lisbon, pledging mutual defence of the Iberian Peninsula and neutrality in the event of a general European war.
At an emergency meeting in London to deal with the Romanian crisis, French Foreign Minister Georges Bonnet suggests to Lord Halifax that the ideal state for saving Romania from a German attack is Poland.
American adventurer Richard Halliburton delivers a last message from a Chinese junk, before he disappears on a voyage across the Pacific Ocean. In 1945, some wreckage identified as a rudder, and believed to belong to the junk, washes ashore in San Diego, California.
March 31–Neville Chamberlain gives a speech in the House of Commons, offering the British "guarantee" of the independence of Poland.
April 14– At a meeting in Paris, French Foreign Minister Georges Bonnet meets with Soviet Ambassador Jakob Suritz, and suggests that a "peace front" comprising France, the Soviet Union, Great Britain, Poland and Romania would deter Germany from war.
May 6– German anti-Nazi Carl Friedrich Goerdeler tells the British government that the German and Soviet governments are secretly beginning a rapprochement, with the aim of dividing Eastern Europe between them. Goerdeler also informs the British of German economic problems which he states threaten the survival of the Nazi regime, and advises that if a firm stand is made for Poland, then Hitler will be deterred from war.
June 3– The Soviet government offers its definition of what constitutes "aggression", upon which the projected Anglo-Soviet-French alliance will come into effect. French Foreign Minister Georges Bonnet accepts the Soviet definition of aggression at once. The British reject the Soviet definition, especially the concept of "indirect aggression", which they feel is too loose a definition, and phrased in such a manner as to imply the Soviet right of inference in the internal affairs of Eastern European nations.
June 4– The St. Louis, a ship carrying a cargo of 907 Jewish refugees, is denied permission to land in Florida, only a few passengers had been allowed to enter Cuba. Forced to return to Europe, many of its passengers later die in Nazideath camps during The Holocaust.[18]
June 14–Tientsin Incident: The Japanese blockade the British concession in Tianjin, China, beginning a crisis which almost causes an Anglo-Japanese war in the summer of 1939.
August 23– The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact is signed between Germany and the Soviet Union, a neutrality treaty that also agrees to division of spheres of influence (Finland, Estonia, Latvia, eastern Poland and Bessarabia (modern-day Moldova), north-east province of Romania to the Soviet Union; Lithuania and western Poland to Germany). Its annex reassigns Lithuania to the Soviet Union.
August 24– As details of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact become public, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain recalls the Parliament of the United Kingdom several weeks early. In a burst of legislation, the Emergency Powers (Defence) Act 1939 gives full authority to defence regulations, the British Royal Navy is to be put on a war footing, all military leave is to be cancelled, military reserve forces are to be called up, especially coast defence, radar and anti-aircraft units, and Civil Defence workers are placed on alert. In addition, the last British and French private citizens in Germany are advised to return home by their respective Governments.
The German Foreign Ministry cuts off all telegraph and telephone communication with the outside world, in accordance with the plan for Fall Weiß. At approximately 1830 Central European time, Adolf Hitler postpones Fall Weiß for 5 days, after receiving a message from Benito Mussolini that he will not honor the Pact of Steel if Germany attacks Poland, and because Chamberlain's government has not fallen as a result of the German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact. Some units already in their forward positions (the attack is scheduled for 0430 the next day) do not get the word in time and attack various targets along the border. This same day, Neville Chamberlain gives Edward Rydz-Śmigły his "ironclad guarantee" of assistance if Poland is attacked by Germany.
The Kriegsmarine orders all German-flagged merchant ships to head to German ports immediately, in anticipation of the invasion of Poland.
August 27– A Heinkel He 178, the first turbojet-powered aircraft, flies for the first time, with Captain Erich Warsitz in command.
August 28– French ocean liner SSNormandie heads into New York Harbor, where she will be interned on September 3, and cut up for scrap, beginning in 1946.
Opening shots of World War II and invasion of Poland: At 4:45 Central European Time, under cover of darkness, the German WWI-era battleship Schleswig-Holstein quietly slips her moorings at her wharf in Danzig Harbor, drifts into the center of the channel, and commences firing on a Polish military installation on Westerplatte at the northeastern mouth of the port of the internationalized Free City of Danzig, beginning the Battle of Westerplatte and Battle of Danzig Bay. Polish soldiers defended there for 7 days. Five minutes previously, the bombing of Wieluń in the western part of Poland had commenced, beginning the Battle of the Border. Shock-troops of the German Wehrmacht begin crossing the border into Poland.
The Reichstag passes a statement, stating that Adolf Hitler's second-in-command ReichsmarschallHermann Göring should be appointed as Hitler's successor as Führer, should Hitler die during the war. Rudolf Hess is to be appointed in Göring's place, should anything befall Göring.
Britain and France deliver ultimatums to Germany. Norway, Finland, Sweden and Switzerland declare their neutrality. U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt states that "every effort" would be made by his administration to stay out of the war.[24] Italy is advised that Germany does not expect to need its military support at present.[23]
United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt advocates neutrality, in a nationwide radio address.
Ocean linerSSAthenia becomes the first British civilian casualty of the war, when she is torpedoed and sunk by German submarineU-30 in the eastern Atlantic. Of the 1,418 aboard, 98 passengers and 19 crew are killed.
WWII: Forward elements of General Hoeppner's XVI Panzerkorps take up positions outside Warsaw. The world is stunned by the rapidity of the German advance, and the Polish High Command is effectively isolated, but lack of infantry support and effective civilian resistance cause Hoeppner to halt outside the city itself.
WWII: Battle of Westerplatte ends when Polish troops on the Westerplatte are forced by lack of food and ammunition to surrender. The garrison of about two hundred had held out against thousands of German forces (many of them naval officer cadets from the Schleswig-Holstein) for seven days.[30]
September 9– WWII: Troops of the Polish Poznań Army under the command of General Kutrzeba open the Battle of the Bzura, the largest and best organized counter-attack mounted by the Polish forces in the campaign of 1939. For the first few days all goes well, and the Germans are forced to retreat; but quick reaction by mechanized units and the Luftwaffe soon take their toll, and the operation bogs down.
September 10– WWII: Canada declares war on Germany, the only declaration of war by Canada.
September 15– WWII: Diverse elements of the German Wehrmacht surround Warsaw, and demand its surrender. The Poles refuse, and the siege begins in earnest.
September 19– WWII: The Poznan pocket collapses, and the Germans capture, according to many sources, over 150,000 men. Many elements of General Tadeusz Kutrzeba's forces work their way into Warsaw, under extreme difficulty.
Reinhard Heydrich, chief of the Security Police, sends a directive, the Schnellbrief, explaining that Jews living in towns and villages in the Polish occupation zones are to be transferred to ghettos, and Jewish councils, Judenräte, will be established to carry out the German authorities' orders.[31]
September 24– WWII: The Soviet Union issues an ultimatum to Estonia to allow Soviet military bases on its territory, which Estonia accepts on September 28. Similar ultimatums are issued to Latvia on October 5 and to Lithuania on October 10, who are forced to accept them as well.
Hedda Hopper's Hollywood debuts on radio in the United States with gossip columnist Hedda Hopper as host (the show runs until 1951, making Hopper a powerful figure among the Hollywood elite).
November 17– WWII: To punish protests against the Nazi occupation of the Czech homeland, the Nazis storm the University of Prague and murder 9 Czech graduate students, send over 1,200 to concentration camps, and close all Czech universities, an event which will be commemorated as International Students' Day.
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