1942 in Germany

← 1941 1940 1939 1942 in Germany → 1943 1944 1945
Decades:	1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s
See also:	Other events of 1942 List of years 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,^[1] more than 800,000 of whom were Jews.^[2]
• 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]
• 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.^[4]

• 

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

• 

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

Births

Deaths

References

Years in Germany (1871–present) 1871 1872 1873 1874 1875 1876 1877 1878 1879 1880 1881 1882 1883 1884 1885 1886 1887 1888 1889 1890 1891 1892 1893 1894 1895 1896 1897 1898 1899 1900 1901 1902 1903 1904 1905 1906 1907 1908 1909 1910 1911 1912 1913 1914 1915 1916 1917 1918 1919 1920 1921 1922 1923 1924 1925 1926 1927 1928 1929 1930 1931 1932 1933 1934 1935 1936 1937 1938 1939 1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 1945 1946 1947 1948 1949 1950 1951 1952 1953 1954 1955 1956 1957 1958 1959 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025 2026 2027 2028 2029