Date in year · 1945 · The 1940s

January 17, 1945

On January 17, 1945, world War II: The Vistula–Oder Offensive forces German troops out of Warsaw. Bernard Arcand, Eddy Baldewijns, Gopalkrishna Gandhi would arrive in the same year.

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1945

1940s

Around 1945

The year in brief

1945 (MCMXLV) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar, the 1945th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 945th year of the 2nd millennium, the 45th year of the 20th century, and the 6th year of the 1940s decade.

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What happened

On January 17, 1945

  1. 1945 World War II: The Vistula–Oder Offensive forces German troops out of Warsaw.

    1945 invasion of Nazi-occupied territory by the Red Army during WWII

    The Vistula–Oder offensive was a Red Army operation on the Eastern Front in the European theatre of World War II in January 1945. The army made a major advance into German-held territory, capturing Kraków, Warsaw, and Poznań. The Red Army had built up their strength around a number of key bridgeheads, with two fronts commanded by Marshal Georgy Zhukov and Marshal Ivan Konev.

  2. 1945 The SS-Totenkopfverbände begin the evacuation of the Auschwitz concentration camp as the Red Army closes in.

    Major branch of the SS (1936–1945)

    SS-Totenkopfverbände was a major branch of the Nazi Party's paramilitary Schutzstaffel (SS) organisation. It was responsible for administering the concentration camps and extermination camps of Nazi Germany, among similar duties. It was both the successor and expanded organisation to the SS-Wachverbände formed in 1933.

  3. 1945 Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg is taken into Soviet custody while in Hungary; he is never publicly seen again.

    Swedish diplomat and humanitarian (1912–1945)

    Raoul Wallenberg was a Swedish architect, businessman, diplomat, and humanitarian. He saved thousands of Jews in German-occupied Hungary during the Holocaust from German Nazis and Hungarian fascists during the later stages of World War II. While serving as Sweden's special envoy in Budapest between July and December 1944, Wallenberg issued protective passports and sheltered Jews in buildings which he declared as Swedish territory.

Elsewhere that year

Other moments from 1945

The class of 1945

Others born in 1945

Bernard Arcand 1945– Canadian anthropologist and author (died 2009)
Eddy Baldewijns 1945– Belgian politician
Gopalkrishna Gandhi 1945– Indian civil servant and politician, 22nd Governor of West Bengal
Demetrio Stratos 1945– Greek-Egyptian singer-songwriter (died 1979)
Jim Gordon 1945– American rock drummer and convicted murderer (died 2023)
Wolfgang Schüssel 1945– Austrian lawyer and politician, 26th Chancellor of Austria

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