WWII in real time

An SS motorcycle division have broken through fragile Red Army lines-to find the 90km highway to Moscow almost undefended. https://t.co/1dzgTWJQR2

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Cartoonist Dr. Seuss parodies isolationist America First, who argue USA should stay neutral agains Nazis: "And the wolf chewed up the children & spit out their bones... but those were foreign children & it really didn't matter." https://t.co/sxdf8CQT3P

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Another American warship has been torpedoed by a German submarine: destroyer USS Kearny was dropping depth charges after coming to aid a British convoy under U-boat attack, south of Iceland. 11 US sailors are dead. https://t.co/osVXbpZkEm

Japan's new Prime Minister is Hideki Tojo, General of the Imperial Japanese Army, known advocate of war with USA & of uniting all Asian nations in a "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere" (under Japanese guidance). https://t.co/6q8OweqLgh

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Japan's Prime Minister Fumimaro Konoe, advocate of peace with USA & UK, has resigned. "The Emperor has absorbed the view of the army & the navy high commands": Japan is preparing for war. https://t.co/BQY11BcObk

Zhukov telephones Stalin: "In essence, all the key approaches to Moscow are open. Our troops could not stop the enemy at this moment."

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Soviet command has become so chaotic that General Zhukov has driven west of Moscow to find out where his armies are- & discovered huge gaps in the front, left by shattered & retreating Red Army.

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German tankist Karl Fuchs is triumphant as his unit near Moscow: "From now on, Russian resistance will be minor. One day, the world will thank our beloved Fuhrer for our victory."

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At the start of this year, Red Army had 5 million soldiers- today, just 2.3 million are left alive, not wounded & or taken prisoner. 45% of Soviet citizens now live in Nazi-occupied territory.

Workers in one Moscow milk factory found their manager trying to flee the city in commandeered delivery truck- they've dunked him in a barrel of cream for his desertion.

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As Communist officials & factory bosses flee Moscow, workers are starting to riot- they're blocking roads out of city, forcing evacuees back.

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Marriage rate soars in Moscow as Germans approach- spouses of "essential workers" will be evacuated eastwards, & many newlyweds hope to flee the city.

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Nazi occupiers of Poland announce that all Jews are now confined to designated ghettos- its an automatic death sentence to be found outside. https://t.co/TIOGnuAZLR

1 Moscow cleaner: "The communal rubbish dump is cluttered with busts of Marx or Stalin, copies of Das Kapital, even torn-up Party documents!"

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Moscow's citizens are making their own preparations for the arrival of the Germans: thousands of people are destroying their Communist Party membership cards- in the eyes of NKVD, committing treason.

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Sinister flakes are drifting from the sky over Moscow: not snow, but the ashes of secret documents being burnt as Soviet ministries prepare to flee city.

Moscow's generals, Communist leadership, diplomats, universities, research labs & theatres will now evacuate 670 miles south-east, to Samara.

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Stalin has decided to evacuate the Soviet government from Moscow; Germans are now just 100 miles from capital: "They might break through at any minute."

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Luftwaffe bombers have struck Tikhvin railway station, 180 kilometres east of Leningrad- currently being used to evacuate children & wounded from the city. 5000 people are dead in massive fires, including many young evacuees.

Arctic convoys face a perilous dilemma: sail too far south, they risk discovery by German bombers; too far north, ships can be trapped in ice: https://t.co/vlBI0HxQre

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