23 June 1839
Loss of life of society hostess Woman Hester Stanhope. The niece of Pitt the Youthful, she has spent the final 25 years of her life within the Lebanon.
23 June 1910
French dramatist Jean Anouilh was born close to Bordeaux. His best-known play is his 1944 work Antigone, an adaptation of the classical drama by Sophocles but additionally an allegorical assault on Petain’s collaborationist authorities.
23 June 1940: Hitler crows over Paris
The Nazi dictator takes a whirlwind tour of the conquered capital
It was about 5.30 within the morning when Adolf Hitler’s airplane landed on the fringe of Paris. Three giant Mercedes automobiles have been ready to take the conqueror into city, and the Nazi dictator knew precisely the place he needed to go first – the opera. As he advised his minister, Albert Speer, Charles Garnier’s neo-baroque opera home was his favorite constructing in Paris. And now that the French capital had fallen to Germany’s all-conquering military, Hitler had the possibility to stay out a dream.
Hitler’s tour of Paris on 23 June 1940 – the one time he visited the town – was one of many best days of his life. France lay prostrate at his ft, the disgrace of 1918 lastly avenged. As he toured the town, posing for footage by the Eiffel Tower, he mentioned plans for a victory parade. But he concluded that it was a nasty thought: “I’m not within the temper for a victory parade. We aren’t on the finish but.”
To Speer, the Nazis’ chief architect, Hitler waxed lyrical concerning the beauties of the French capital. However he was decided that Germany may do higher. “Berlin,” he stated later, “have to be extra stunning. After we are completed in Berlin, Paris shall be solely a shadow.”
Hitler’s go to was astonishingly transient, and by 9 within the morning he was already heading again to Germany. “It was the dream of my life to be permitted to see Paris,” he advised Speer as they drove again to the airfield. “I can’t say how glad I’m to have that dream fulfilled at present.” Speer himself was struck by his grasp’s temper.
“For a second,” he wrote later, “I felt one thing like pity for him: three hours in Paris, the one and solely time he was to see it, made him glad when he stood on the top of his triumphs.” | Written by Dominic Sandbrook
23 June 1942
A German Focke-Wulf 190 fighter airplane was captured intact when its pilot turned disorientated over Devon and landed by mistake at RAF Pembrey. This gave the RAF the chance to analyse a airplane that had been outperforming the Spitfire.
