1943 in Germany

Events in the year 1943 in Germany.

Head of State and Chancellor

• Adolf Hitler (the Führer) (Nazi Party)

• 18 January – World War II: Soviet officials announce they have broken the Wehrmacht's siege of Leningrad.
• 18 January – The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising begins.
• 27 January – World War II: 64 bombers mount the first all American air raid against Germany (Wilhelmshaven is the target).
• 29 January – German police arrest alleged necrophiliac Bruno Ludke.
• 29 January – Dr Ernst Kaltenbrunner succeeds the late Reinhard Heydrich as head of the RSHA SS-Reichssicherheitshauptamt controlling the Schutzstaffel Gestapo
• 2 February – World War II: In Russia, the Battle of Stalingrad comes to an end with the surrender of the German 6th Army and its 91,000 remaining soldiers.
• 3 February – World War II: The Four Chaplains of the U.S. Army are drowned, when their ship (Dorchester) is struck by a German torpedo.
• 14 February – World War II: Battle of the Kasserine Pass: German General Erwin Rommel and his Afrika Korps launch an offensive against Allied defenses in Tunisia.
• 16 February – World War II: The Soviet Union reconquers Kharkov, but is later driven out in the Third Battle of Kharkov
• 18 February – In a speech at the Berlin Sportpalast, German Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels declare a "Total War" against the Allies.
• 18 February – The Nazis arrest the members of the White Rose movement.
• 22 February – Members of White Rose are executed in Nazi Germany.
• 28 February – Operation Gunnerside: 6 Norwegians led by Joachim Ronneberg successfully attack the heavy water plant Vemork.
• 1 March – Heinz Guderian becomes the Inspector-General of the Armoured Troops for Nazi Germany's Army.
• 13 March – Holocaust: German forces liquidate the Jewish ghetto in Kraków.
• 16 March – 19 March – World War II: 22 ships from Convoys HX 229/SC 122 and one U-boat are sunk in the largest North Atlantic U-boat wolfpack attack of the war.
• 22 March – World War II: The entire population of Khatyn in Belarus is burnt alive by the Ukrainian Schutzmannschaft Bataillon 118 and assisted by troops from SS-Sonderbataillon Dirlewanger in retaliation for an attack of a German convoy by Soviet partisans.
• 26 March – Adolf Hitler writes to Benito Mussolini that Russia is so weakened by the defence of Stalingrad that it cannot possibly be a serious menace.
• 13 April – World War II: Radio Berlin announces the discovery by Wehrmacht of mass graves of Poles killed by Soviets in the Katyn massacre.
• 6 May – World War II: Six U-boats are sunk after sinking 12 ships from Convoy ONS 5, regarded as the turning point in the North Atlantic U-boat war.
• 13 May – World War II: German Afrika Korps and Italian troops in North Africa surrender to Allied forces.
• 15 May – The Comintern is dissolved in Moscow.
• 16 May – World War II: Operation Chastise by RAF 617 Sqdn is carried out on German dams.
• 16 May – Holocaust: The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising ends.
• 24 May – Holocaust: Josef Mengele becomes the chief medical officer of Auschwitz.
• 5 July – World War II: Operation Citadel commences, resulting in the Battle of Kursk – The largest tank battle in history begins, with German Panther tanks seeing combat for the first time.
• 12 July – World War II – Battle of Prokhorovka: The Wehrmacht and the Red Army fight to a draw.
• 24 July – World War II: Operation Gomorrah begins: British and Canadian aeroplanes bomb Hamburg by night, those of the Americans by day.
• 27 July – World War II: Operation Gomorrah – The continued British bombing of Hamburg, initiates a firestorm. The fire rages through the night into the morning of the 28th, causing the majority of Operation Gomorrah's deaths.
• 3 August – World War II: Operation Gomorrah closes, with an estimated 42,600 killed and 37,000 wounded; much of Hamburg is leveled.
• 23 August – The Battle of Kursk ends with a serious strategic defeat for the German forces.
• 24 August – World War II: – Heinrich Himmler is named Reichsminister of the Interior in Germany.
• 29 August – World War II: Germany dissolves the Danish government after it refuses to deal with a wave of strikes and disturbances to the satisfaction of the German authorities (see Occupation of Denmark).
• 8 September – World War II: Frascati bombing raid September 8, 1943: The USAAF bombs the German General Headquarters for the Mediterranean zone.
• 12 September – World War II: German paratroopers rescue Benito Mussolini from imprisonment, in Operation Eiche.
• 13 October – World War II: The new government of Italy sides with the Allies and declares war on Germany.
• 17 October – World War II: The last commerce raider, auxiliary cruiser Michel, was sunk off Japan by United States submarine Tarpon.^[1]
• 22 October – World War II: The RAF delivers a highly destructive airstrike on the German industrial and population center of Kassel.
• 15 November – Porajmos: German SS leader Heinrich Himmler orders that Gypsies and "part-Gypsies" be put "on the same level as Jews and placed in concentration camps."
• 18 November – World War II: The Royal Air Force opens its bombing campaign against Berlin, with 440 planes causing only light damage and killing 131. The RAF loses 9 aircraft and 53 aviators.
• 23 November – The Deutsche Opernhaus on Bismarckstraße in the Berlin neighborhood of Charlottenburg is destroyed.
• 2 December – A Luftwaffe bombing raid on the harbour of Bari, Italy, sinks an American ship with a mustard gas stockpile, causing numerous fatalities; the exact death toll is unresolved, as the bombing raid itself causes hundreds of deaths as well.
• 11 December – United States Army Air Corps raids a U-boat yard at Emden, losing 20 planes but shooting down 138 German fighters.
• 20 December – First flight of a true four-engined version of the troubled He 177A heavy bomber, as the Heinkel He 177 V102 prototype of the Heinkel He 177B series makes its maiden flight with four separate Daimler-Benz DB 603 engines at the Heinkel-Sud factory airfield in Schwechat.^[2]