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WWII On This Day: January 20

What happened on January 20 during World War II? This date brings together 3 events from 1942, 1944 and 1945, with period photographs and links to the full operations documented across WW2 Theatres.

1942
Child survivors of Auschwitz, wearing adult-size prisoner jackets, stand behind a barbed wire fence.
USHMM
The Holocaust: Timeline and Evidence

The Wannsee Conference coordinates implementation

Fifteen officials representing the SS, Nazi Party and government ministries met under Reinhard Heydrich. The surviving protocol listed an estimated eleven million Jews in Europe and discussed deportation, jurisdiction and definitions. By January 1942 mass shootings were already widespread and Chełmno was operating. Wannsee records the participation of the wider state administration and Heydrich's claim to coordinate the continent-wide programme.

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1944
Modern operational map of the Leningrad–Novgorod offensive, showing the Leningrad and Volkhov Fronts from 14 to 31 January 1944.
Modern operational map of the Leningrad–Novgorod offensive, showing the Leningrad and Volkhov Fronts from 14 to 31 January 1944. VT1978 · CC BY-SA 3.0 Source
The Siege of Leningrad

Novgorod is retaken

Volkhov Front entered Novgorod on 20 January and opened the route toward Luga from the south-east. The loss of Novgorod and the collapse of the Ropsha sector forced Eighteenth Army to retreat across a widening front, turning the siege's final phase into a general withdrawal from the Leningrad region.

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1945
The Scherl publishing building burning in Berlin after an air raid, July 1944.
Bundesarchiv Bild 183-J30142 · CC BY-SA 3.0 DE · Source
The Bombing of Cities

LeMay changes the method

Curtis LeMay assumed command of XXI Bomber Command on 20 January 1945. He inherited a force whose high-altitude campaign had not produced the results expected against Japanese aircraft and engine production. Experimental incendiary attacks had already been conducted. LeMay progressively moved toward lower-altitude night operations with larger incendiary loads, taking advantage of weak Japanese night-fighter and anti-aircraft defence while reducing the fuel and formation problems associated with very high altitude. The doctrinal break was completed in the planning for the 9–10 March Tokyo raid. The selected target was a densely…

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