On this day in 1936, the British proletariat resisted the fascist invasion of Cable Street

cross‐posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/2199972

The context for this was that Oswald Mosley formed a party called the British Union of Fascists in 1932. By 1936 he was having a hard time, he wasn’t doing as well as he thought [that] he was going to do, so Mosley had hit a roadblock, he was making no progress. He decided that one way of breaking through electorally was to galvanize anti‐foreign sentiment, anti‐Jewish sentiment, anything against the other, and the place to do that was the East End of London, which had brought everybody together.

The East End of London was always the melting pot of British society, and he could specifically target the Jewish population of the East End of London. So he decided, after a campaign of about nine months in which he was using his thugs to intimidate people, to smash windows, to come down here and say, ‘We can do this, look, we are going to take on the foreigner in British society!’ What happened?

Mosley, dilettante that he was, turned up late—he apparently was on his way to a wedding in [the Third Reich], his own wedding, presided over by Joseph Goebbels, and he decided that things weren’t going to plan. Local Labour dignitaries decided that things were getting too fraught and negotiated with the head, the commissioner of the police. Somebody called Commissioner Games [sic], and they decided to point the fascists in the other direction. So instead of trying to get into the East End, they marched away along the embankment.

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Click here for other events that happened today (October 4).

1881: Walther Heinrich Alfred Hermann von Brauchitsch, Axis field marshal and the Wehrmacht’s Commander‐in‐Chief, decided that life wasn’t miserable enough for us, so he had to come along.
1892: Engelbert Dollfuß, Austrofascist Federal Chancellor, plagued the earth.
1903: Ernst Kaltenbrunner, lawyer, general, and the Reich Security Main Office’s director, arrived so that he could embarrass the human race.
1940: Chancellor Adolf Schicklgruber met Benito Mussolini in the Brenner Pass on the Italian–Austrian border. Benito Mussolini was happy to notice that the Chancellor seemed to have given up on any talks of invading Britain. Coincidentally, Axis bombers attacked Kent in southern England and the area near London, damaging homes, farms, and factories. The Axis lost two Ju 88 bombers (and the Allies lost three fighters along with one pilot).

Aside from that, the Secours National, being planned for revival in preparation of the first winter under Axis occupation, came under Philippe Pétain’s authority. That same day, Pétain wrote to Henry Dhavernas, founder of the youth group Compagnons, in support of his efforts. Afterwards, the Axis bombed London again between 1900 and 2100 hours.
1941: The Axis exterminated 432 Jewish men, 1,115 Jewish women, and 436 Jewish children in Vilnius, Lithuania (for a total of 1,983 humans). Panzergruppe 3 and Panzergruppe 4 also began to surround rear elements of the Soviet Western Front in Russia, capturing Kirov and Spa‐Demensk in the process. The Axis continued to advance toward Vyasma to complete the envelopment. Elsewhere, Axis submarine U‐129 picked up 119 survivors of Axis supply ship Klara (sunken by Allied cruiser HMS Kenya on the previous day) three hundred miles northeast of the Azores islands.
1942: The XIV Panzer Korps attacked the Stalingrad Tractor Factory, and Type IXC U‐Boat U‐505 departed at Lorient, France on her fourth patrol to the northern coast of South America.
1943: Heinrich Himmler talked openly about the Final Solution at a meeting in Posen, Reichsgau Wartheland, noting that he cared little about the livelihood of Slavs and other peoples in occupied Eastern Europe since the conquered people were mere slaves to the Third Reich. He warned his lieutenant, however, that this task would be unwritten in history despite its importance in German history. As that was going on, the 16th Panzer Division attacked the newly gained bridgehead on the Biferno River near Termoli, Italy on the eastern end of the Volturno Line, and the Axis captured Kos in the Dodecanese Islands.
1944: An Axis V‐2 rocket hit Rockland St Mary six miles southeast of Norwich, England. It hit the village school directly, injuring two grown‐ups along with thirty‐four children, and the blast damaged twenty‐three houses nearby. It was the worst assault on the Norwich region during the war.
1976: Francis Joseph Collin sent out letters to the park districts of the North Shore suburbs of Chicago, requesting permits for the NSPA to hold a white power demonstration.
1997: Otto Ernst Remer, a Wehrmacht officer who was partially responsible for German neofascism, dropped dead.
2009: Günther Rall, Wehrmacht major and Luftwaffe aviator, expired.