The Second World War.

[Ennath]

August 6, 1940
East Africa Odweina is taken by the Italians. The slow, ponderous advance in the center continues.
Mediterranean The Italians begin extensively mining the Sicilian Channel.
Luxembourg Use of the French language is banned and French names are changed to a German equivalent as part of a Germanization campaign.
Burma Former premier Ba Maw is arrested for attacking the current government for its support of the war effort.

August 6, 1941
Diplomatic Relations Konoye’s government presents proposals involving some concessions in China and Indochina to the US asking in return for the end of the freeze on Japanese assets. The proposals are not acceptable to the United States and when the rejection is made known to the Japanese they propose that Konoye and Roosevelt meet to discuss the issues at stake. This question is not resolved until after Roosevelt and Churchill meet at Placentia. Meanwhile the British and Americans warn Japan not to invade Thailand.
Eastern Front Having mopped up most of the remaining Soviet resistance in Estonia, the Germans are solidly established on both coasts of the Gulf of Finland. A breakout attempt from the Uman pocket is sealed off by a counterattack by Hungarian cavalry.

August 6, 1942
British Command After much discussion of various proposals, General Alexander is chosen to command the Middle East theater and General Gott is to have control of 8th Army. Auchinleck is sent to command the Iraq-Persia sector.
Britain, Home Front Parliament passes the Visiting Forces Act, giving US military authorities in Britain jurisdiction over their troops, independent of British law.
Eastern Front Army Group B is beginning to wear down the Russian defenses in the Don elbow. 17th Army from Army Group A manages to capture Tikhoretsk. In the south, Armavir falls.
New Guinea All Australian and American forces in Papua are consolidated as New Guinea Force.

August 6, 1943
Sicily US 1st Division finally captures Troina after a bitter fight. The British are now attacking the important position at Adrana.
Italy The Germans transfer more troops into the country.
Eastern Front The Soviets capture Zolochev, northwest of Kharkov. Orel is cleared of German troops and Kromy also falls.
August 6-7, 1943
Solomons Six US destroyers meet four Japanese destroyers carrying men and supplies to Kolombangara in Vela Gulf. Three of the Japanese ships are sunk.

August 6-8, 1943
Axis Politics German and Italian representatives meet at Verona. The Italians try to reassure the Germans that they are not negotiating with the Allies. The fact that neither of the German delegates is in the first rank of the Nazi hierarchy shows that the Germans attach little importance to the conference.

August 6, 1944
Western Front US 4th Armored Division reaches Lorient. Dinard and St. Malo are under attack. XV Corps takes Laval and pushes on toward Le Mans. 1st Army takes Vire. The British take Mont Pincon.
Italy The South Africans in Florence begin to cross the Arno into the northern part of the city.
Poland The last ghetto, at Lodz, is liquidated. 60,000 Jews are sent to Auschwitz.
Eastern Front Attacks from the Tannenberg Line weaken, though fighting continues.
Marianas On Guam Japanese counterattacks cause heavy casualties to the Americans. Some two thirds of the island has fallen.
New Guinea US troops pushing out from the Aitape beachhead are sharply engaged by Japanese rearguards.

August 6, 1945
Japan The first atom bomb used in war is dropped on Hiroshima by a B-29 named by the pilot for his mother Enola Gay. The bomb is a uranium-235 fission weapon with a yield of about 20 kilotons. Although a minor military target the city was chiefly chosen because it has so far been spared the worst of the bombing and is relatively intact. This will allow the Americans to more accurately judge the bomb’s effect.
The mushroom cloud rises over the city at 0930. The reaction of the tail-gunner observing the explosion is simply “My God! What have we done?” 60% of the city is destroyed in the blast or the succeeding firestorm. There are about 70,000 dead, many being vaporized instantly. Many more are horribly burned or will become ill in later years from the effects of the radiation. These later deaths bring the death toll to between 120,000 and 200,000. It is not the most devastating bombing raid of the war – the fire raids on Tokyo and Dresden have had a larger effect – but the economy of effort in sending only one plane on a mission to destroy a city shows only too well the complete change in military and political thinking which has been begun.
American Technology The leading American ace of the war, Richard Bong (40 victories), dies while testing an experimental jet fighter.
Belgium The government announces that 2117 collaborators have been sentenced to death.

August 6, 1948
World Affairs A World Conference of Intellectuals Against Application to Military Use of Science meets in Poland and warns of the risk of nuclear war.

[deepsepia]

Originally Posted by DTravel

Just a guess but, from German newsreels? Both sides were putting out propaganda aimed at the other side and there was communication and exchange of material thru various neutrals. (I don't mean to imply there was deliberate trading between combatants. But there was various smuggling and intelligence operations.)

So maybe German newsreels were shown in Switzerland or Sweden? and copied there, or sent on? Did the Germans see this as a tolerated propaganda effort? Eg were they producing newsreels for foreign consumption?

I've wondered about that: today, we take for granted that you can see stuff the enemy produces, but the only direct contact in WW II was radio -- Germans and Japanese did broadcast in English.

[palo5]

Originally Posted by Ennath

Just as an aside, I read that one of the reasons Beria was dumped in 1953 was that all the Russians in the government were sick and tired of Georgians in control.

Beria was executed, not dumped, and it had nothing to do with his origin or his accent. It had to do with him, and nothing else

Btw, Stalin was succeeded by a Ukrainian, not a Russian

[scoundrel]

Originally Posted by palo5

Beria was executed, not dumped, and it had nothing to do with his origin or his accent. It had to do with him, and nothing else

Btw, Stalin was succeeded by a Ukrainian, not a Russian

I presume you refer to Nikita Khruschev rather than the little remembered and and even less regretted Georgy Malenkov, Palo? Technically Mr Kruschev would count as Russian rather than Ukrainian, would he not, since he was born a hair's breadth on the Russian side of the border, in the village of Kalinovka. But in his day, it wasn't an international border and the distinction was not as significant; he was a Soviet citizen, as of course were Stalin and Beria.

I'm quite certain you are on the money concerning Beria. Beria was a bastard in any language and any nationality, and Khruschev did the Soviet Union and the whole world a very big favour by disgracing Beria and then having him shot. Although not a nice guy, Mr Khruschev was rational and not particularly malicious for a man with so much power; he'd kill you if he had a reason to do it, but he'd never kill anyone for no particular reason. Beria needed killing and Mr Khrushev dealt with an unpleasant but necessary task with very little fuss.

However, from Stalin's POV, Beria was invaluable on many different levels. Were it not so, Stalin would have offed Beria himself; he wouldn't keep him around just as a curiosity. Beria's wartime role is not widely understood, and I don't claim to understand it in great detail, but he was clearly a very important figure. On the one hand he was Stalin's button man and organised those purges of the Red Army which so handicapped Russia's early attempts to defend herself in 1941. On the other hand he and Malenkov played a key part in Russian war manufacturing, modernising and reorganising munitions factories and the whole supply chain to provide all the necessary equipment and clothing for a phenomenally huge land army. I am sure that if a Russian army had found itself in Italy in November-December 1943, it would have had proper winter clothing; and if for any reason it didn't, Beria would have fixed the problem in a matter of days and would have executed whoever it was had dropped the ball. He was a monster, but he was not a clown, or else Stalin would not have employed him.

[palo5]

Originally Posted by scoundrel

... from Stalin's POV, Beria was invaluable on many different levels...

Yes, he oversaw A-bomb development, and succeeded. That was a success

[Ennath]

Beria also headed up Soviet intelligence during its most successful period as far as operations in the USA and Britain were concerned.

[palo5]

Originally Posted by Ennath

Beria also headed up Soviet intelligence during its most successful period as far as operations in the USA and Britain were concerned.

And how much did it have to do with Beria?

Almost nothing, imho

[scoundrel]

Beria was also a key organiser of partisan forces behind the German front lines. Insurgency was a constant thorn in Germany's side almost from the beginning of her invasion of Russia and became more debilitating as Soviet citizens found out what German occupation was all about and noted, from the Battle of Moscow onwards, that the Germans had bitten off more than they could chew and were in a rather unenviable bind, able neither to go back nor go forwards. Russian partisan operations were singularly ruthless and bloody, towards collaborators as well as the external enemy. But the Germans, showing no imagination, thought they could cow and intimidate their captive Russian population by inflicting mass reprisals, liquidating whole villages because one German sentry had been assasinated somewhere up the road; they were idiots. By mid-1943, after two years of German reprisals and starvation, and after the Battle of Stalingrad had shown that the Germans could be taken down, there were over 500,000 Soviet partisans under arms between the Black Sea and the Gulf of Finland. This was also partly Beria's achievement.

Originally Posted by palo5

And how much did it have to do with Beria?

Almost nothing, imho

Beria ddin't do the actual spying, but he was head of Soviet Intelligence, which came under the NKVD. No doubt other did the work, but it was his overall responsibility to see to it that others did indeed do the work.

Beria had a lot in his in-tray.

[deepsepia]

Stalin and Beria -- what a pair.

The best feeling I've gotten for the mood of Stalin's court are his correspondence with Kaganovich. Stalin had the most extraordinary conspiratorial instincts. Others related to him-- but he was deeply suspicious if they interacted with each other. He seems to me to be a "revolutionary in power" -- that is, he applied the conspiratorial instincts of someone trying to overthrow a regime to the running of the State.

I never wonder much about Hitler's mind: a grandiose loudmouth, an accident of history, a murderous daydreamer. Stalin is something completely different: when he got up in the morning, he had a suspicion and a drive that's unique.

[DTravel]

Originally Posted by deepsepia

So maybe German newsreels were shown in Switzerland or Sweden? and copied there, or sent on? Did the Germans see this as a tolerated propaganda effort? Eg were they producing newsreels for foreign consumption?

I've wondered about that: today, we take for granted that you can see stuff the enemy produces, but the only direct contact in WW II was radio -- Germans and Japanese did broadcast in English.

Probably both sides were producing newsreels for foreign consumption. There were, after all, some strategically positioned neutrals that both sides wanted to influence. Not to mention affecting the enemy population's morale. Radio was just the well known tool but neither side relied solely on that.

It shouldn't be that hard to use a bit of google-fu to find out but I just don't have the time right now.