Avery Monette
In the early morning hours of Thursday, February 19, 1942, residents of Winnipeg and the surrounding towns were shaken from their sleep by the sound of air raid sirens. German Luftwaffe bomber planes had begun their attack on the Prairies and by 9:30 am, Winnipeg had fallen into the clutches of the Nazis. Renamed Himmlerstadt (Himmler City) in honour of Nazi Minister of the Interior Heinrich Himmler, uniformed Nazi soldiers marched through the streets as swastika banners were raised on municipal buildings across the city. Radio programs were delivered in German. The front page of the Winnipeg Tribune newspaper – renamed Das Winnipeger Lügenblatt – was printed in traditional Fraktur script and written in German rather than English, save for a square in the centre of the page that outlined ten proclamations made by the new Nazi administrator of Himmlerstadt, Col. Erich von Nurenberg. Among a list of suspended civil rights, gatherings of more than eight people were banned, and citizens were to be executed without trial for the offence of organizing any form of resistance to the Nazi authorities. If Winnipeg could be wiped off the map in place of Himmlerstadt in the matter of a few hours, how soon would the rest of Canada fall to Nazi Germany?
“Nazi” soldiers attacking a Winnipeg Free Press newsie, February 19, 1942. Credit: Wikimedia Commons
Of course, this did not really happen. The Nazi occupation of Winnipeg on February 19, 1942 was indeed a simulation of what it would be like if the Germans were to invade. Meticulously organized by the Winnipeg Board of Trade and announced ahead of time to the residents of the city, ‘If Day’ was a creative fundraiser for Canadian victory bonds and quite a successful one. By March 3, Manitobans had raised $65 million dollars in victory bonds with contributions from Winnipeg residents totaling nearly $37 million.[1]
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