October 1934


The following events occurred in October 1934:

[October 1], 1934 (Monday)

  • The Foreign Press Association in Berlin delivered a message to Joseph Goebbels, asking him to "take the necessary steps in our mutual interests to protect foreign journalists henceforth against slanders and chicane, as we are convinced these happenings are unknown to you." The letter went on to state, "For some time there has been evidence of systematic action against foreign journalists residing here. Foreign journalists of distinction, both women and men, who for years within the limits of their own national possibilities reported on Germany with good will, hear their profession attacked at gatherings to which they have been invited. Moreover, the residences of members were recently searched disgracefully by members of the GSP. The fruitlessness of the searches does not alter the fact that the victims were disillusioned, if not embittered."
  • The newspaper comic strip Life's Like That first appeared.
  • Born: Chuck Hiller, baseball player, in Johnsburg, Illinois ; Shakeb Jalali, poet, in Aligarh, British India

[October 2], 1934 (Tuesday)

[October 3], 1934 (Wednesday)

[October 4], 1934 (Thursday)

[October 5], 1934 (Friday)

[October 6], 1934 (Saturday)

[October 7], 1934 (Sunday)

[October 8], 1934 (Monday)

[October 9], 1934 (Tuesday)

[October 10], 1934 (Wednesday)

[October 11], 1934 (Thursday)

  • Nazi official August Jäger declared Regional Bishop Hans Meiser to be removed from office for resisting Ludwig Müller's control of the Protestant church. Thousands gathered around Meiser's church in Munich until the bishop came and addressed them. "I do not intend to retreat and I lodge protest here against the force being used against our church and I am unwilling to lay down the episcopal office conferred on me by our church", Meiser declared before proceeding to his house arrest.
  • 1,200 coal miners in Pécs, Hungary, went on an underground hunger strike and threatened to commit suicide by shutting off their air supply if their demands for higher wages were not met.

[October 12], 1934 (Friday)

  • Demonstrators gathered in the courtyard of the episcopal palace in Munich to protest against the removal of Bishop Meiser. The bishop stepped to the balcony but only spoke a few words of gratitude to the crowd before going back inside.
  • The musical film The Gay Divorcee starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers was released.
  • Died: Willy Clarkson, 72 or 73, English costume designer and wigmaker

[October 13], 1934 (Saturday)

  • Bavarian Protestants called off meetings and church services to protest against the removal of Bishop Meiser. Pastors supporting Meiser had planned to distribute pamphlets among worshipers on Sunday, but the Gestapo seized the literature before it could be issued for distribution.
  • Born: Nana Mouskouri, singer, in Chania, Crete, Greece

[October 14], 1934 (Sunday)

  • 16,000 pastors of the Protestant church bitterly assailed Ludwig Müller and the Nazi control of the churches. An opposition manifesto distributed to congregations said that Müller and August Jäger were responsible for "the triumph of violence and hypocrisy." The Reverend Martin Niemöller called it "ghastly and shocking how a few persons calling themselves Christian Protestants are persecuting the congregations of Christ."

[October 15], 1934 (Monday)

[October 16], 1934 (Tuesday)

  • The Long March began in southwest China.
  • The Hungarian coal miners ended their hunger strike after five days when the owners made concessions.
  • All the ministers of the German cabinet swore oaths of loyalty to Hitler in the chancellery. Chief of the Reich Chancellery Hans Lammers then declared that the Weimar Constitution which Hitler swore to uphold when he became chancellor was canceled.

[October 17], 1934 (Wednesday)

  • A congressional committee on un-American activities held a hearing in New York on the Friends of New Germany. 300 members of the organization interrupted the proceedings several times with jeers and shouts of "Heil Hitler". A fistfight almost broke out between Jews and Nazi sympathizers when the hearing let out into the hall.
  • Born in Muncie, Indiana, on October 13, 1902, Harry Pierpont, 32, was executed in Ohio for killing Sheriff Jess Sarber while he was breaking John Dillinger out of jail in Lima, Ohio.
  • Born: Rico Rodriguez, ska and reggae trombonist, in Kingston, Jamaica
  • Died: Santiago Ramón y Cajal, 82, Spanish histologist, neuroscientist and Nobel laureate

[October 18], 1934 (Thursday)

[October 19], 1934 (Friday)

[October 20], 1934 (Saturday)

[October 21], 1934 (Sunday)

[October 22], 1934 (Monday)

[October 23], 1934 (Tuesday)

[October 24], 1934 (Wednesday)

[October 25], 1934 (Thursday)

[October 26], 1934 (Friday)

[October 27], 1934 (Saturday)

[October 28], 1934 (Sunday)

[October 29], 1934 (Monday)

  • The Berne Trial opened in Switzerland. Jewish groups had lodged a civil complaint against Swiss Nazis for distributing a plagiarized version of the fraudulent anti-Semitic treatise The Protocols of the Elders of Zion in a party organ, despite a Swiss law prohibiting literature "calculated to excite vile instincts or to cause brutal offense."
  • Died: Robert C. Pruyn, 87, American inventor, businessman and politician; Lou Tellegen, 52, Dutch-born actor, director and screenwriter

[October 30], 1934 (Tuesday)

[October 31], 1934 (Wednesday)