Timeline Saturday 19 August 1944

Events on Saturday 19 August 1944 5

• 1869 – 1944 Henry Wood (1869-1944) Died 19 August 1944, aged 75 English conductor who led the Promenade Concerts in London for nearly fifty years, starting in 1895. He introduced British audiences to many new works. The Proms are held in his memory as the Henry Wood Promenade Concerts.
• 1882 – 1944 Günther von Kluge (1882-1944) Died 19 August 1944, aged 61 German field marshal who commanded Army Group Centre on the Eastern Front and then the German forces in the West. He was suspected of involvement in the 20 July plot and was dismissed during the Falaise encirclement. He took cyanide rather than return to Berlin.
• 1944 Operation Bagration Soviet offensive destroys German Army Group Centre The Red Army launched a massive summer offensive in Belarus. It shattered German Army Group Centre and inflicted one of the worst defeats in German military history. Soviet forces advanced hundreds of kilometres to the Vistula and the edge of East Prussia.
• 1944 Liberation of Paris End of Occupation Allied forces and the French Resistance reclaimed the capital from Nazi German occupation.
• 1944 Liberation of Paris French Resistance and Allied troops free the capital An uprising by the French Forces of the Interior began on 19 August, and the French 2nd Armoured Division entered the city with US support. The German garrison commander Dietrich von Choltitz surrendered on 25 August, disobeying Hitler's order to destroy the city. Charles de Gaulle made his famous speech at the Hôtel de Ville that evening.