World War II History for August 12

Today in WW II History World War II History for August 12 1938 – The German military was mobilized. 1938 – Hitler institutes the Mother's Cross On this day in 1938, Adolf Hitler institutes the Mother's Cross, to encourage German women to have more children, to be awarded each year on August 12, Hitler's mother's birthday. The German Reich needed a robust and growing population and encouraged couples to have large families. It started such encouragement early. Once members of the distaff wing of the Hitler Youth movement, the League of German Girls, turned 18, they became eligible for a branch called Faith and Beauty, which trained these girls in the art of becoming ideal mothers. One component of that ideal was fecundity. And so each year, in honor of his beloved mother, Klara, and in memory of her birthday, a gold medal was awarded to women with seven children, a silver to women with six, and a bronze to women with five. 1941 – Roosevelt and Churchill confer, map out short- and long-term goals On this day in 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill meet on board a ship at Placentia Bay, Newfoundland, to confer on issues ranging from support for Russia to threatening Japan to postwar peace. When Roosevelt and Churchill met for the first time as leaders of their respective nations, chief among the items on their agenda was aid to the USSR "on a gigantic scale," as it was desperate in its war against its German invaders. A statement was also drafted, which Roosevelt chose to issue under his name, that made it plain to Japan that any further aggression would "produce a situation in which the United States government would be compelled to take counter-measures," even if it meant "war between the United States and Japan." The president and the prime minister also agreed to compose and make public a document in which the United States and Britain declared their intention "to ensure life, liberty, independence, and religious freedom, and to preserve the rights of man and justice." They also promised to strive for a postwar world free of "aggrandizement, territorial or other," addressing those nations currently under German, Italian, or Japanese rule, offering hope that the integrity of their sovereign borders would be restored to them. This document would be called the Atlantic Charter and, when finally ratified by 26 nations in January 1942, would comprise the founding principles of the United Nations. 1944 – In France, Pierre Laval released Edouard Herriot.