1940 in Germany

Incumbents

National level

• Adolf Hitler

Events

January

• 4 January — World War II: : Luftwaffe General Hermann Göring assumes control of most war industries in Germany.
• 10 January — World War II: Mechelen Incident: A German plane carrying secret plans for the invasion of western Europe makes a forced landing in Belgium, leading to mobilization of defense forces in the Low Countries.

  February

• 16 February — World War II: Altmark Incident: The British destroyer pursues the German tanker Altmark into Jøssingfjord in southwestern Norway.

  March

• 18 March — World War II: Axis powers: Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini meet at Brenner Pass in the Alps and agree to form an alliance against France and the United Kingdom.
• 31 March — World War II: Commerce raiding hilfskreuzer Atlantis, leaves the Wadden Sea for what will become the longest warship cruise of the war.

  April

• 9 April — World War II: Germany carries out Operation Weserübung, and invades Denmark and Norway. German forces land in several Norwegian ports and take Oslo; The Norwegian Campaign lasts two months. The Allied campaign in Norway is simultaneously commenced.
• 9 April — German invasion of Norway: German heavy cruiser Blücher is sunk by gunfire and torpedoes from the Norwegian coastal fortress Oscarsborg in the Oslofjord. Of the 2,202 German crew and troops on board, some 830 died. Most either drowned or burnt to death in the flaming oil slick surrounding the wreck.
• 20 April - on his 51st birthday, Hitler orders a new SS regiment to be set containing Norwegians and Danes as well as Germans.

  May

• 10 May — World War II: Battle of France begins – German forces invade Low Countries.
• 13 May — World War II: German armies open a wide breach in the Maginot Line at Sedan, France.
• 14 May — Rotterdam is subjected to savage terror bombing by the Luftwaffe; 980 are killed, and 20,000 buildings destroyed.
• 17 May — Brussels falls to German forces.
• 20 May — World War II: German forces, under General Rudolf Veiel, reach Noyelles on the English Channel.
• 20 May — Holocaust: The Nazi German concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest of the German concentration camps, opens in occupied Poland near the town of Oświęcim. Between May 1940 and January 1945, around 1.1 million people were killed there.

  June

• 3 June — The Holocaust: Nazi leader Franz Rademacher proposes the Madagascar Plan according to which the Jewish population of Europe would be relocated to the island of Madagascar.
• 3 June — World War II: Paris is bombed by the Luftwaffe for the first time.
• 10 June — World War II: Norway surrenders to German forces.
• 14 June — World War II: Fall of Paris to German occupation.
• 15 June — World War II: Verdun falls to German forces.
• 17 June — A Luftwaffe Junkers 88 bomber sinks the British ship RMS Lancastria, which was evacuating troops from near Saint-Nazaire, France, killing some 5,800 men.
• 21 June — World War II: Vichy France and Germany sign an armistice at Compiegne, in the same wagon-lit railroad car used by Marshal Ferdinand Foch to accept the surrender of Germany in 1918.
• 23 June — World War II: German leader Adolf Hitler surveys newly defeated Paris in now occupied France.
• 30 June — World War II: German forces land in Guernsey, marking the start of the 5-year Occupation of the Channel Islands.

  July

• 14 July — World War II: Winston Churchill, in a worldwide broadcast, proclaims the intention of Great Britain to fight alone against Germany whatever the outcome.
• 19 July — World War II: Adolf Hitler promotes 12 generals to field marshal during the 1940 Field Marshal Ceremony following the swift victory over France, and makes a peace appeal to Britain in an address to the Reichstag. Lord Halifax, British foreign minister, flatly rejects peace terms in a broadcast reply on 22 July.

  August

• 8 August — World War II: Wilhelm Keitel signs the "Aufbau Ost" directive, which eventually leads to the invasion of the Soviet Union.
• 30 August — Second Vienna Award: Germany and Italy compel Romania to cede half of Transylvania to Hungary.

  September

• 5 September — World War II: Commerce raiding hilfskreuzer Komet enters the Pacific Ocean via the Bering Strait after crossing the Arctic Ocean from the North Sea with the help of Soviet icebreakers Lenin, Stalin, and Kaganovich.
• 7 September — World War II: The Blitz – Germany begins to rain bombs on London.
• 22 September First flight of Heinkel He 280
• 27 September — World War II: Germany, Italy and Japan sign the Tripartite Pact.

  October

• 18 October – 19 October — World War II: Thirty-two ships are sunk from Convoy SC 7 and Convoy HX 79 by the most effective wolfpack of the war including U-boat aces Kretschmer, Prien and Schepke.

  November

• 11 November — World War II: The German Hilfskreuzer Atlantis captures top secret British mail, and sends it to Japan.
• 14 November — World War II: The city of Coventry, England is destroyed by 500 German Luftwaffe bombers.
• 16 November — World War II: In response to Germany levelling Coventry 2 days before, the Royal Air Force begins to bomb Hamburg.
• 18 November — World War II: German leader Adolf Hitler and Italian Foreign Minister Galeazzo Ciano meet to discuss Benito Mussolini's disastrous invasion of Greece.

  December

• 12 December & 15 December — World War II: "Sheffield Blitz" – The City of Sheffield is badly damaged by German air-raids.
• 16 December — World War II: Operation Abigail Rachel – RAF bombing of Mannheim.
• 29 December — World War II: Luftwaffe carries out a massive incendiary bombing raid on London, starting 1,500 fires. Many famous buildings, including the Guildhall and Trinity House, are either damaged or destroyed.

  Date unknown

• undated: In 1940, German optometrist Heinrich Wöhlk invented plastic Contact lenses.

  Births

• 4 January - Helmut Jahn, German architect
• 16 January — Franz Müntefering, German politician
• 23 January - Armin Maiwald, German author, television director and producer
• 24 January — Joachim Gauck, President of Germany
• 28 January - Bernd Klingner, German sport shooter
• 9 February — Hubert Burda, German publisher
• 17 February - Willi Holdorf, German athlete
• 17 February - Winfried Hassemer, German judge
• 20 February - Christoph Eschenbach, German conductor
• 2 March - Lothar de Maizière, German politician
• 4 March - Wolfgang Hoffmann-Riem, German judge
• 7 March — Rudi Dutschke, German radical student leader
• 17 March - Gottfried Münzenberg, German chemist
• 21 March - Paul Friedrichs German motocross racer
• 22 April - Berndt Seite, German politician
• 3 May - Conny Plank, German musician
• 11 June - Volkmar Sigusch, German sexologist, physician and sociologist
• 15 June - Franz Wegner, German physicist
• 20 June - Eugen Drewermann, German theologian
• 21 June - Brigitte Boehme, German lawyer and church administrator in Bremen
• 25 June - Peer Augustinski, German actor and comedian
• 7 July - Wolfgang Clement, German politician
• 7 July - Rosel Zech, German actress
• 27 July — Pina Bausch, German choreographer
• 7 August - Martin Heisenberg, German neurobiologist
• 9 August - Marie-Luise Marjan, German actress
• 13 August - Dirk Sager, German journalist
• 15 August - Dietmar Schwager, German football player
• 25 September - Werner Münch, German politician
• 27 September - Rudolph Moshammer, German fashion designer
• 26 October - Tilo Prückner, German actor
• 29 October - Heinrich Mussinghoff, German bishop of Roman-Catholic Church
• 2 November - Carolin Reiber, German television presenter
• 15 November - Klaus Ampler, German cyclist
• 22 November - Frank Duval, German composer, conductor, songwriter and singer
• 24 November - Hermann Otto Solms, German politician
• 7 December - Klaus Tschira, German entrepreneur
• 12 December - Ulla Wiesner, German singer
• 18 December - Klaus Wennemann, German actor
• 22 December - Eberhard Schöler, German table tennis player
• 24 December - Christa Zantow, German businesswoman
• 29 December - Brigitte Kronauer, German writer
• 30 December - Renate Jaeger, German judge

  Deaths

• 2 January - Albert Richter, German cyclist
• 27 February - Peter Behrens, German architect
• 3 March - Karl Muck, German conductor
• 15 March - Robert Leffler, German actor and singer
• 20 March — Alfred Ploetz, German physician, biologist, and eugenicist
• 25 April - Otto Hintze, German historian
• 25 April - Wilhelm Dörpfeld, German architect and archaeologist
• 26 April — Carl Bosch, German chemist and Nobel Prize laureate
• 26 May - Prince Wilhelm of Prussia
• 6 June - Arthur Zimmermann, German diplomat
• 22 June - Walter Hasenclever, German poet and playwright
• 5 July - Friedrich Robert von Beringe, German army officer
• 19 July — Max Bodenheimer, lawyer
• 21 July - Elisabeth von Eicken, painter
• 1 August - Paul Hirsch, German politician
• 24 August — Paul Nipkow, German technician and inventor
• 26 September — Walter Benjamin, German philosopher and cultural critic
• 1 December - Johann Viktor Bredt, German jurist and politician
• 3 December — Wolff von Stutterheim, Wehrmacht general and Knight's Cross recipient
• 11 December - Fritz Erler, German painter