On 7 March 1936, Nineteen Wehrmacht infantry battalions and a handful of Luftwaffe
aircraft entered the Rhineland. They reached the river Rhine by 11:00 a.m. and
then three battalions crossed to the west bank of the Rhine. When Wehrmacht reconnaissance
learned that thousands of French soldiers were congregating on the Franco-German
border, General Werner
von Blomberg implored Adolf
Hitler to evacuate the German forces. Adolf
Hitler asked whether the French forces had actually crossed the border and
when informed that they hadn't, Adolf
Hitler assured Werner
von Blomberg that they would wait until this happened. In marked contrast
to Werner
von Blomberg who was highly anxious during Operation Winter Exercise, Konstantin
von Neurath stayed calm and very much urged Adolf
Hitler to stay the course.
On 7 March 1936, Werner Mölders flew
missions over the Rhineland region of Germany.
On 7 March 1936 Germany
denounced the treaty of Locarno and reoccupied the demilitarised Rhineland zone.
Adolf
Hitler On 7 March 1936 in a speech to the Reichstag said. Germany will never
break the peace of Europe. After three years, I can regard the struggle the for
German equality as concluded today. We have no territorial demands to make in
Europe. We are aware, above all, that all the causes of tension, which arise as
a result either a faulty territorial provisions or of a disproportion between
the size of populations and their living space cannot be solved by means of war
in Europe. At the same time, we hope that human wisdom will help mitigate the
painful effects of these conditions and to remove the causes of tension by way
of gradual evolutionary development in peaceful collaboration.
F3
Escort
Commissioned 7 March 1936
Adolf
Hitler spoke publicly at Karlsruhe on 13 March 1936, Germany.
Z5
Paul Jakobi Destroyer
Launched 24 March 1936
Z9
Wolfgang Zenker Destroyer
Launched 27 March 1936
29 March 1936,
The Reichstag elections recorded a record turnout of 98.8%, although the rules
had been changed in respect of spoilt papers-in that all ballot papers left blank
were counted as a vote for the National Socialists candidate, and only where the
voter had specifically written No against a candidate's name were they counted
as a vote against.
Heinz
Guderian, a German general interviewed by French officers after the Second
World War, claimed: If you French had intervened in the Rhineland in 1936 we should
have been sunk and Adolf
Hitler would have fallen.
Go To: April
Articles:
The Second
Great War.
Edited by Sir John Hamilton
The War Illustrated.
Edited
by Sir John Hamilton
2194 Days Of War.
ISBN-10: 086136614X
For a complete list of
sources
