October 22, 1939: Goebbels Lies Through His Teeth

Sunday 22 October 1939

The view from the Admiral Graf Spee as the Trevanion sinks.

Battle of the Atlantic: The Admiral Graf Spee captures the 5,299-ton British freighter Trevanion, disembarks the crew, and sinks it on 22 October 1939.

The British vessel Whitemantle is sunk by a mine in the North Sea.

German vessel Poseidon is scuttled to avoid capture by the RN armed merchant cruisers Transylvania and Scotstoun.

Convoy HG 4 departs from Gibraltar for the UK.

Western Front: The ground is too muddy from the recent rains for operations. There are sporadic artillery exchanges.

Poland: The Soviets conduct "elections" in their occupied territory, which they have divided into "West Ukraine" and "West White Russia" (technically, the elections are to "the People's Assemblies of Western Ukraine and Western Belarus."

European Air Operations: A Luftwaffe intruder is shot down over Southeast Scotland.

German Propaganda: Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels makes a radio address and calls Winston Churchill a liar. He accuses the British of deliberately sinking the SS Athenia in order to provoke the United States against the Germans. In his version of events, the Athenia was sunk by British destroyers and also was intended to be outfitted as a raider (which are somewhat contradictory arguments).

Goebbels knows this is not what happened and that U-30 sank the Athenia. The captain of the U-boat has told him the exact sequence of events and shown his superiors the U-boat log proving it (which was quickly suppressed). Goebbels chooses to continue the false narrative for propaganda purposes anyway, knowing that the British cannot disprove the lie and making their denials sound suspicious simply because they are unprovable and sound reflexive. The Kriegsmarine, in particular, Admiral Doenitz, is put out by these blatant falsehoods (or so they later claim), but nobody does anything to correct the story until after the war when Admiral Raeder finally sets the record straight.

The French detain the US freighters Endicott and West Gambio. Carbon black and copper are removed from them as contraband.

USSR Military: General Boldin is appointed to the prestigious position of the Odessa Military District.

Estonia: Soviet destroyer Minks and seven Soviet submarines arrive in Tallinn to establish a base pursuant to the recent basing agreement between Estonia and the USSR.

Latvia: The Soviet cruiser Kirov makes port at Riga.

Turkey: General Wavell and General Weygand leave Turkey, their work completed with the signing of the Anglo-French-Turkish Treaty of Mutual Assistance.

India: The Congress Party condemns the British and refuses to support the Allied war effort.

American Homefront: Given the technical success of the recent college football game that it broadcast, NBC televises the first professional football game. It is available to roughly 500 viewers with television sets in the metropolitan New York area. Visitors to the New York World's Fair also can watch on monitors (the Philadephia Eagles beat the Brooklyn Dodgers 23-14).

Friday, October 22, 1939: Mother and Children on the Road. Texas tenant farmers displaced by power farming. Part of a photo-series on the Great Depression by Dorothea Lange. 

October 1939

October 1, 1939: Occupation of Warsaw
October 2, 1939: Hel Peninsula Falls
October 3, 1939: The Diamantis Incident
October 4, 1939: Otto Kretschmer Gets Rolling
October 5, 1939: Polish Resistance Ends
October 6, 1939: Hitler Peace Effort
October 7, 1939: The British Have Arrived
October 8, 1939: First RAF Kill from UK
October 9, 1939: "City of Flint" Incident
October 10, 1939: Lithuania Under Pressure
October 11, 1939: The Atomic Age Begins
October 12, 1939: England Rejects Hitler's Peace Offer
October 13, 1939: Charles Lindbergh Speaks Out
October 14 1939: Royal Oak Sunk
October 15, 1939: Cuban Rockets
October 16, 1939: First Aircraft Shot Down Over UK
October 17, 1939: Marshall Mannerheim Returns
October 18, 1939: Prien Receives His Award
October 19, 1939: Preliminary Plan for Fall Gelb
October 20, 1939: Hitler Grapples with the Jews
October 21, 1939: Hurricanes to the Rescue!
October 22, 1939: Goebbels Lies Through His Teeth
October 23, 1939: Norway the Center of Attention
October 24, 1939: German "Justice" Gets Rolling
October 25, 1939: Handley Page Halifax Bomber First Flies
October 26, 1939: Jozef Tiso Takes Slovakia
October 27, 1939: King Leopold Stands Firm
October 28, 1939 - First Luftwaffe Raid on Great Britain
October 29, 1939: Tinkering with Fall Gelb
October 30, 1939: Defective Torpedoes
October 31, 1939: Molotov Issues an Ultimatum

2019