The following events occurred in May 1937:
May 1, 1937 (Saturday) Germany's Nazi Party (NSDAP) lifted its restriction, in place since 1933, against admitting new members.Walter M. Hudson, Army Diplomacy: American Military Occupation and Foreign Policy After World War II (University Press of Kentucky, 2015) All government employees were required to join the NSDAP or to relinquish their jobs.Kevin Spicer, Hitler's Priests: Catholic Clergy and National Socialism (Cornell University Press, 2008) Multiple people were admitted on the same day, including war criminals Klaus Barbie, Dr. Franz Lucas, Friedrich Flick, Lothar Fendler, Heinz Pannwitz and Rudolf Lange; Sigrid Hunke, journalists Kurt DuMont and Gerhard Dengler; athlete Rudolf Harbig, musicians Paul Rostock, Werner Conze, Otto Jochum and Ludwig Hoelscher; former members of nobility Ernst II, Duke of Saxe-Altenburg, Louis, Prince of Hesse and by Rhine, Princess Alexandra of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, General Heinrich von Maur. The Neutrality Act of 1937, a joint resolution of the U.S. Congress, took effect to extend previous laws. Under the new rules, which applied for the first time to participants in civil wars, U.S. citizens were forbidden from traveling on ships of "belligerent nations" that were either engaged in war against another nation, or had an ongoing civil war. U.S. ships were prohibited from transporting passengers or certain categories of freight to belligerents. The law had an exception, however, where the U.S. president could permit the sale of materials and supplies to belligerents in Europe as long as the recipients arranged for the transport and paid immediately with cash, making it possible to provide aid to the United Kingdom and to France involvement in a war with Germany. In addition, oil and nonmilitary vehicles were could be sold to nations involved in a war. The Order of the German Eagle (Verdienstorden vom Deutschen Adler) was authorized by Adolf Hitler in Nazi Germany as an award for foreign officials. Among the recipients would be Benito Mussolini of Italy, Francisco Franco of Spain, King Boris III of Bulgaria, Admiral Admiral Miklós Horthy of Hungary, Prime Minister Hideki Tojo of Japan, President Risto Ryti of Finland, and Americans Charles Lindbergh, Henry Ford, and Thomas J. Watson. Bus travel in London came to a halt as 26,000 bus drivers went on strike. New York's Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia backed the refusal by License Commissioner Paul Mossto of renewing the licenses of all 14 burlesque theaters in the city,"Burlesque Shows of City Are Shut as Public Menace; Moss Refuses Licenses to All, Declaring Their Displays of Nudity Are Disgraceful", The New York Times, May 2, 1937, p.1 shutting down the sites of most vaudeville and stand-up comedy routines.Davis, Andrew, Baggy Pants Comedy: Burlesque and the Oral Tradition(Palgrave Macmillan, 2011) pp. 6, 34, 49, 55, 86, 124. La Guardia pledged "a bitter fight to the finish" against the "filth" of the houses, including displays of female nudity. On May 3, Isidore Herk, owner of the Gaiety Theatre in Times Square, proposed a compromise of self-censorship where the shows allowed at his three theaters would be cleaned up and remove the word "burlesque" from its advertisements, a suggestion that allowed his burlesque houses to remain open. In the Spanish Civil War, the supporters of the Second Spanish Republic were able to defeat the attack by Francisco Franco's nationalists in the siege of Santuario de Nuestra Señora de la Cabeza. Manchester City F.C. finished the season in first place in the highest division of England's Football League, with a record of 22 wins and 13 draws for 57 points. Charlton Athletic F.C. was second with 21 wins and 12 draws for 54 points."Football League 1936-37". England Football Online Sunderland, the defending 1936 league champion, which had finished eighth in the First Division for 1936–37, defeated 14th place Preston North End, 3–1 in the FA Cup Final at Wembley Stadium before a crowd of 93,435 people."Sunderland Wins Soccer Final, 3-1; Beats Preston Before Crowd of 93,495 to Gain English Cup for First Time", The New York Times, May 2, 1937, p.S-12 Born: Agim Krajka, Albanian composer; in Kavajë (d. 2021) Robert Garland, American screenwriter known for The Electric Horseman (1979) and No Way Out; in Brooklyn, New York City (d. 2020) Una Stubbs, British actress and dancer; in Welwyn Garden City (d. 2021) Died: Snitz Edwards, (stage name for Edward Neumann), 69, Hungarian-born American character actor on stage and film Fanny Marc (Estelle Odile Fanny Legendre), 79, French sculptor
May 2, 1937 (Sunday) Austrian police raided the headquarters of the Nazi Party in Vienna, finding evidence of collaboration between German and Austrian Nazis, as well as propaganda hostile to the Austrian government. In Moscow, an estimated 50,000 people attended the remaining churches in the city for services on the Russian Easter, despite the largest anti-religious drive since 1930. In Cuba, former President Mario García Menocal, who served from 1913 to 1921, announced that he was creating a new political party to oppose military interference in civil affairs, in a move seen as a threat to the military-supported regime of President Federico Laredo Brú and its control of the Cuban Congress. Eleven of the crew of the freighter Alecto were drowned after the ship collided with the freighter Plavnik and sank in the North Sea while both sailed in a fog. Born: Gisela Elsner, German writer, subject of the 2000 film No Place to Go; in Nuremberg (committed suicide, 1992)Christine Künzel (Hrsg.): Die letzte Kommunistin. Texte zu Gisela Elsner. konkret Literatur Verlag, Hamburg 2009. p. 22 Lorenzo Music (Gerald David Music), American actor, television producer and musician, co-creator of The Bob Newhart Show in 1972, as well as being the voice of Garfield the cat in cartoons and the voice of the unseen character of Carlton the Doorman in Rhoda; in Brooklyn, New York City (d. 2001)
May 3, 1937 (Monday) The divorce of Mrs. Wallis Warfield Simpson from her husband, shipbroker Ernest Simpson, became final,"Wally Wins Absolute Divorce; Duke Ruses To Join Her in France— Ex-King, American-Born Woman Are Free To Marry Whenever They Choose; Date Is Secret", The Capital Times (Madison WI), May 3, 1937, p.1 clearing the way for her to marry the Duke of Windsor, who had been King Edward VIII of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions. The marriage took place one month later in France on June 3. Lev Karakhan, the Soviet Union's Ambassador to Turkey since 1934, was arrested on orders of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin to return to Moscow."Armed Revolt Threatens Stalin, Declare Rumors— Intenification of Of Purge Threatens Stalin, Declare Rumors", Deseret News (Salt Lake City UT), June 9, 1937, p.18 Stalin had ordered the recall of Karakhan on April 26."Envoy to Turkey Recalled by Russia", The Republican (Springfield MA), April 26, 1937, p.13 Karakhan was arrested and charged with participation in a "pro-fascist conspiracy" to overthrow the Soviet Government. He would be executed on September 20 after being tried before the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the Soviet Union."Soviets Slay Eight Former High Leaders— Leon Karakhan, One-Time Envoy To Turkey, Is Among Victims", United Press report in El Paso (TX) Times, December 20, 1937, p.12 German opera composer and conductor Manfred Gurlitt, a member of Germany's Nazi Party since 1933, was expelled from the Nazis by court order after failing to reveal that he had a Jewish ancestor. The court declared that Gurlitt was a "Jew of Mixed Race of the 2nd Order" and removed him from his employment.Peter Gnoss, Gurlitt's Wozzeck (Vienna: Universal Edition, 2004), available online , accessed 7 March 2014 In Spain, six days of civil violence known as the May Days began in Catalonia. Born: Hans Cieslarczyk, German footballer; in Herne (d. 2020) Died: Cosimo Rennella, Ecuadorian-born Italian flying ace during World War One with seven victories and later a member of the Air Force of Ecuador, died of pneumonia after returning from the United States, where head attended a convention of fellow World War I aces in Dayton, Ohio P. W. Pilcher, 70, British photographer who perfected high-speed photography to capture photos of moving objects, including trains
May 4, 1937 (Tuesday) The Duke of Windsor and Wallis Warfield (ex-Simpson) reunited in France after six months apart and immediately became officially engaged. The Non-Intervention Committee asked both sides in the Spanish Civil War to forswear bombing of open cities. Born: Ron Carter, American jazz double-bassist, winner of three Grammy Awards and the most-recorded jazz bassist in history; in Ferndale, Michigan Dick Dale (stage name for Richard Monsour), American surf rock guitarist; in Boston, Massachusetts (d. 2019) Mel Edwards, American abstract sheet-metal sculptor; in HoustonSamella S. Lewis, African American Art and Artists, University of California Press, 2003, p. 210. Lisa S. Weitzman, "Edwards, Melvin 1937–", encyclopedia.com Died: Vasily Petrov, 62, Soviet Russian opera singerAron Prujanski. Отечественные певцы. 1750—1917: Словарь. — Изд. 2-е испр. и доп., электронное. —М., 2008. // Петров Василий РодионовичДосье личности // ПЕТРОВ Василий Родионович Noel Rosa, 26, Brazilian musician, died of tuberculosis.
May 5, 1937 (Wednesday) Pavel Golovin became the world's first pilot to fly an airplane over the North Pole, as part of a crew of 11 people. After flying over the pole, Golovin landed on an ice floe southward. Golovin was the world's first pilot to fly an airplane over the North Pole, on 5 May 1937. The first flight over the North Pole had been made in the dirigible Nord by pilot Umberto Nobile and polar explorers Lincoln Ellsworth and Roald Amundsen on May 13, 1926. Spanish Prime Minister Francisco Largo Caballero sent the Guardia de Asalto to Barcelona to put down the May Days violence. British Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin pleaded for labour peace ahead of the coronation of George VI as the bus strike threatened to spread. Born: Trần Đức Lương, President of Vietnam from 1997 to 2006; in Đức Phổ, Quảng Ngãi province, French Indochina"Tran Duc Long", in Historical Dictionary of Vietnam, ed. by Bruce M. Lockhart and William J. Duiker (Scarecrow Press, 2006) p. 371 (d. 2025) Died: Camillo Berneri, 39, Italian anarchist and professor, was forcibly removed from his home by policemen and a group of men wearing red armbands. Taken also was his friend Francesco Barbieri, and the two men were shot to death.
May 6, 1937 (Thursday)
The Hindenburg disaster occurred in Lakehurst, New Jersey, killing 36 people. Newsreel footage of the tragedy would be shown around the world, shattering the public's confidence in the dirigible as a method of transportation. Herbert Morrison of the Chicago radio station WLS recorded while the explosion was happening. The recording of it was played by WLS the next day in what remains as one of the most famous broadcasts in history. The Brazilian radio news network Radio Bandeirantes was inaugurated, broadcasting initially as an all-news station in São Paulo. The National Federation of Press Women was organized at a meeting in the U.S. city of Chicago by 39 women, after being organized by Helen Miller Malloch. Born: Rubin "Hurricane" Carter African-American boxer who served 20 years in prison after being wrongfully convicted of murder; in Clifton, New Jersey (d. 2014)
May 7, 1937 (Friday) German aviation minister Hermann Göring ordered work rushed on the LZ 130 LZ 130 Graf Zeppelin II, which was to have been the sister ship of the Hindenburg.