1942 in Germany

Events in the year 1942 in Germany.

Incumbents

National level

Head of State

• Adolf Hitler (the Führer) (Nazi Party)

Chancellor

• Adolf Hitler (Nazi Party)

Events

• 13 January — Heinkel test pilot Helmut Schenk becomes the first person to escape from a stricken aircraft with an ejection seat.
• 20 January — WWII: Nazis at the Wannsee conference in Berlin decide that the "final solution to the Jewish problem" is relocation, and later extermination.
• 21 January — WWII: Erwin Rommel launches his new offensive in Cyrenaica.
• 3 February — WWII: Rommel suspends his offensive in Cyrenaica.
• 17 March — Holocaust: the Nazi German extermination camp Bełżec opens in occupied Poland about 1 km south of the local railroad station of Bełżec in the Lublin district of the General Government. Between March 1942 and December 1942, at least 434,508 people were killed there.
• 24 March - The deportation of Slovak Jews to Auschwitz begins.
• 27 March - The first French Jews are deported to Auschwitz.
• April — Holocaust: the Nazi German extermination camp Sobibor opens in occupied Poland on the outskirts of the town of Sobibór. Between April 1942 and October 1943, at least 160,000 people were killed in the camp.
• Spring — Holocaust: the Nazi German extermination camp Treblinka II opens in occupied Poland near the village of Treblinka. Between July 1942 and October 1943, around 850,000 people were killed there, more than 800,000 of whom were Jews.
• 12 May — WWII – Second Battle of Kharkov: In the eastern Ukraine, the Soviet Army initiates a major offensive. During the battle the Soviets capture the city of Kharkov from the German Army, only to be encircled and destroyed.
• 21 May — WWII: Mexico declares war against Germany after the sinking of the Mexican tanker Faja de Oro by the German U-boat, U-160, off Key West.
• 27 May — WWII – Operation Anthropoid: Czech paratroopers attempt to assassinate Reinhard Heydrich in Prague. He survives, but is seriously injured.
• 4 June — WWII: Reinhard Heydrich succumbs to wounds sustained on May 27 from Czechoslovakian paratroopers acting in Operation Anthropoid.
• 4 June - WWII: Hitler and Mannerheim recording
• 9 June — WWII: Nazis burn the Czech village of Lidice in reprisal for the killing of Reinhard Heydrich.
• 10 June — WWII: The Gestapo massacres 173 male residents of Lidice, Czechoslovakia in revenge for the killing of Heydrich in the village.
• 11 June - Plans are made for the deportation of Jews from France, Belgium and the Netherlands.
• 1 July - 27 July — WWII: the First Battle of El Alamein.
• 2 July - American and British newspapers report that more than 1 million Jews have now been exterminated by the Nazi regime across Europe.
• 4 July — WWII: Twenty-four ships are sunk by German bombers and submarines after Convoy PQ 17 to the Soviet Union is scattered in the Arctic Ocean to evade the German battleship Tirpitz.
• 14 July — WWII: Germany introduces the Ostvolk Medal for Soviet personnel in Wehrmacht, on the same day that the first Dutch Jews are deported to Auschwitz.
• 18 July — WWII: Germany test flies the Messerschmitt Me 262 (using only its jets) for the first time.
• 19 July — WWII – Battle of the Atlantic: German Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz orders the last U-boats to withdraw from their United States Atlantic coast positions, in response to an effective American convoy system.
• 22 July — Holocaust: The systematic deportation of Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto begins, with many being transported to the new extermination camp at Treblinka.
• August - Deportation of Croatian Jews to Auschwitz begins.
• 30 August — Luxembourg is formally annexed to the German Reich.
• 31 August - 5 September — WWII: Battle of Alam Halfa
• 3 September — A German attempt to liquidate the Jewish ghetto in Lakhva leads to an uprising.
• 27 September — WWII – Both commerce raiding hilfskreuzer Stier and Liberty ship Stephen Hopkins sink following a gun battle in the South Atlantic. Stier is the only commerce raider to be sunk by Defensively Equipped Merchant Ships.
• 3 October — The first A-4 rocket is successfully launched from Test Stand VII at Peenemünde, Germany. The rocket flies 147 kilometers wide and reaches a height of 84.5 kilometers, becoming the first man-made object to reach space.
• 5 October - Himmler orders all Jews in concentration camps across Germany to be transferred to Auschwitz or Majdanek.
• 14 October — A German U-boat sinks the ferry SS Caribou, killing 137.
• 23 October — November 4 – WWII – Second Battle of El Alamein: British troops go on the offensive against the Axis forces.
• 3 November — WWII – Second Battle of El Alamein: German forces under Erwin Rommel are forced to retreat during the night.
• 10 November — WWII: In violation of a 1940 armistice, Germany invades Vichy France, following French Admiral François Darlan's agreement to an armistice with the Allies in North Africa.
• 19 November — WWII – Battle of Stalingrad: Soviet Union forces under General Georgy Zhukov launch the Operation Uranus counter-attacks at Stalingrad, turning the tide of the battle in the USSR's favor.
• 22 November — WWII – Battle of Stalingrad: The situation for the German attackers of Stalingrad seems desperate during the Soviet counter-attack Operation Uranus, and General Friedrich Paulus sends Adolf Hitler a telegram saying that the German Sixth Army is surrounded.
• 23 November — A German U-boat sinks the S.S. Ben Lomond off the coast of Brazil. One crewman, Chinese second steward Poon Lim, is separated from the others and spends 130 days adrift until he is rescued on April 3, 1943.
• 28 December -
  • - Hitler orders Greece and Crete to be fortified and Balkan rebellions to be suppressed firmly and approves the withdrawal of Army Group A from the Caucasus.
  • - Sterilization experiments begin on women at Birkenau.

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  Executions of Kiev Jews by German army mobile killing units (Einsatzgruppen) near Ivangorod.

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  Spring 1942: the Nazi German extermination camp Treblinka II opens in occupied Poland near the village of Treblinka

Births

• 17 January — Ulf Hoelscher, German violinist
• 21 February — Margarethe von Trotta, German actress, film director, and writer
• 28 March — Conrad Schumann, East German border guard (died 1998)
• 6 June - Klaus Bednarz, German journalist (died 2015)
• 12 June — Bert Sakmann, German physiologist, Nobel Prize laureate
• 5 July _ Hannes Löhr, German footballplayer
• 6 August — Evelyn Hamann, German actress (died 2007)
• 5 September — Werner Herzog, German filmmaker
• 19 September - Wolfgang Schäuble, German politician
• 26 September - Ingrid Becker, German athlete
• 1 October — Gunther Wallraff, German investigative journalist
• 20 October — Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard, German biologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
• 21 November - Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul, German politician
• 25 November - Rosa von Praunheim, German film director, author and painter
• 2 December - Ulrich Wickert, German journalist
• 3 December - Alice Schwarzer, German feminist and publisher

Deaths

• 26 January — Felix Hausdorff, German Jewish mathematician (suicide) (born 1868)
• 8 February — Fritz Todt, Nazi German engineer (born 1891)
• 12 March - Robert Bosch, German industrialist (born 1861)
• 14 March — Friedrich Karl Georg Fedde, botanist (born 1873)
• 3 August - Richard Willstätter, German chemist (born 1872)
• 1 November — Hugo Distler, German composer (born 1908)
• 3 December — Henner Henkel, German tennis champion (born 1915)