Hitler's Pre-Emptive War, The Battle For Norway, 1940

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I enjoyed Henrik Lunde's other book about WW II in Scandinavia (the NETO?) so I ordered this one, and I'm glad I did.  Not one to breeze right through, it is exhaustively researched and written to the level of the military professional but also interesting for the general reader.  There are 15 maps, some very detailed.  Most people know that Germany occupied Norway but we never hear much about the details.  The reason for that can be seen on the Table of Contents page.  Chapter 1 is called "Allied Plans - Flawed, Inadequate, and Hesitant", while Chapter 2 is "German Plans - Bold, Imaginative, and Reckless", and indeed the entire Norway adventure is not a bright spot in the history of the Allied cause.  The British failed to utilize enough resources or listen to the Norwegians about tactical matters, and repeatedly pulled out on very short notice for reasons of their own.


Britain and Germany both would have been happy with a neutral Norway but both dreaded the strategic implications of a hostile occupation, so the spring of 1940 found both preparing to move in first.  All eyes were on the small northern town of Narvik, where the railroad brought Swedish iron ore to the coast for shipment to both sides.  Both sides got good intell about the other's intentions:  the Germans believed it while the British did not.  Both sides had invasion fleets at sea at the same time but the weather was so bad, with raging gales and blinding snowstorms, that the British decided to call the effort off (they also decided the German ships were heading for the North Atlantic).  Apparently no one told the Germans they couldn't run along a rocky coast in such appalling conditions and they got there first.  They hoped to be thanked for saving Norway from the British, and there was a brief period with the soldiers eyeing each other warily but peaceably, but in the end the Norwegians resisted.  In a wonderful story the Norwegian government and royal family fled Oslo for the interior, so the German attache on his own initiative cobbled together some paratroopers and gave chase in some commandeered buses.  The Norwegians cobbled together a group of raw recruits, officers attending a training class and members of a local gun club and stopped them.  The attach's action was actually a huge mistake, as Germany was trying to entice Norway into some sort of accommodation and the incident hardened attitudes considerably.  Once the fighting became general, individual initiative by German officers saved the day for them more than once.


Norwegian soldiers were accustomed to their extreme climate, in superb physical condition and many were excellent marksmen, but they were not well trained or equipped and many officers were incompetent.  The Germans won a crucial victory because the Norwegians thought it was snowing so hard they didn't have to post sentries.  Allied forces were a mixed bag, including some not trained or even equipped for arctic service, including some French Foreign Legionnaires straight from the burning sands of Algeria.  Germany realized the extreme risks of the operation and utilized crack troops.  Almost the entire German navy was at sea, fully aware of how badly they were outclassed by the Royal Navy, only about a month before the blitzkrieg was set to roll through the Low Countries and France.  Hitler had become convinced the war would be won or lost in Norway and was willing to bet the farm on what everyone knew were very long odds.


Norway's senior officer, General Laake, advised immediate capitulation and resigned on seeing that the government favored resistance.  The post went to MG Otto Ruge, who had argued tirelessly but unsuccessfully for larger defense budgets.  The Narvik area was commanded by MG Carl Fleicher, a capable officer but possibly not a very good commander.  Fleicher and Ruge had some sort of feud going, but it only came to a head in late May when narvik became the sole operational area, bringing the two prima donnas together.  Allied leadership in London consisted of innumerable committees dithering over a plan for army General Ironsides while First Lord of the Admiralty Churchill behaved very much like a headless chicken.  After loosing two commanders to a heart attack and an airplane crash, LTG Massey started running ground forces from London.  For the navy Churchill controlled Admiral Cork in Norway, while infantry in Narvik, including French and Polish elements, reported to MG Mackesy, although some remained under Massey in London, until LTG Auchenleck, who reported to General Dill in London, took over from Mackesy and gained some of the troops still under Massey.  In time Cork assumed command of all ground forces.  This all happened within about 6 weeks.  If you are confused, so am I.  And it would seem everyone else was too.  Germany trusted Norway to the very able General Nikolaus von Falkenhorst, who had served there in WW I.  His Group XXI reported to OKW, Hitler's favorite High Command, and generally got what it wanted.  Commander for Narvik was MG Eduard Dietl, an excellent battlefield commander who was also familiar with the country.  Norway was a combined arms affair, with air, sea, land and spec ops (first time in history), but unified command was denied by the egotistical Goring, whose Luftwaffe played a major role in the German victory.  Forces integrated seamlessly at the operational level thanks to the maturity and professionalism of the subordinate commanders.  The Army High Command (OKH), home of the storied German General Staff, had very little faith in the Norway operation and may have almost hoped it would fail, causing Hitler to fall flat on his face.


To be continued in a few days, when I can type again.       

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Six German task forces hit Norway in the wee hours of April 9, 1940.  Well over 100,000 troops eventually saw service.  There were losses of men and ships, but they were anticipated and deemed acceptable.  After promising the Norwegians prompt assistance, the first Allied forces began arriving after about a week, despite the fact that an invasion force had been at sea even before the Germans landed.  After being recalled, it was hastily re-embarked, and many units found that their gear had been loaded on to the wrong ships.  The British planned for an administrative rather than a tactical deployment, so office furniture was off-loaded before weapons.  Most people, industry and infrastructure were in the south, where the Norwegians were heavily engaged and not doing well due to their serious handicaps.  The British tried to help and the Allies enjoyed some local successes, but the Germans were pouring in men and materiel, and their superior weapons, flawless execution and absolute aerial supremacy proved overwhelming.  Allied forces were evacuated from all areas except for Narvik after just a few weeks, and Narvik was eventually abandoned with victory very much within reach.  In each case, the British failed to inform the Norwegians until the last minute, and were more concerned about French reaction, as the French were very anxious to move the locus of the war from continental Europe.


Dietl's situation in Narvik was not good.  His 2000 soldiers had disembarked from destroyers and taken the town with ease, but all their stuff was in transport ships that didn't make it.  If they hadn't knocked over a major Norwegian military supply depot they probably would have fled to Sweden and sat out the war in internment.  The destroyers absolutely had to be refueled and on their was home at once, but that didn't work out and they were lost.  The British took a battleship about 50 miles up the narrow fjord to Narvik, and almost lost it to a U Boat that bumped the bottom during the final shot set-up.  Over 2000 totally unequipped sailors joined Dietl's command.  Narvik was beyond the range of German aircraft until critical airfields in south Norway were seized, and OKW made a serious airlift effort, including about 1000 paratroopers, but with the Allies putting more and more men ashore and Norwegian strength growing, he was soon out numbered by many multiples.  Dietl was a superb leader of men, an experienced hunter, mountaineer ans skier who led by example, but he was only able to keep things going because the Allies failed to coordinate their operations, enabling him to shift units back and forth.  There were no roads to Narvik from the south, but two German columns set out to relieve him, making much better time than the Allies thought possible.  It is unlikely that they could have reached him in time, but then Dunkirk popped up and the British decided they needed everyone back home, so the Allies bugged out, the Norwegians gave up, and the rest is history.  In what Lunde regards as a major Royal Navy blunder, carrier Glorious was sunk by naval gunfire from battleships Gneisenau and Sharnhorst during the final evacuation on June 8.  It is tempting to speculate that Hitler might have decided to open hostilities in Western Europe when he did in order to relieve Dietl, as he had come to place great importance on Narvik.


The town was of very little value without the railroad so fighting gravitated to the mountains north and east, including the area where the railroad entered Sweden.  It was a virtually uninhabitable arctic wilderness and conditions for the soldiers were incredibly harsh.  The blizzard that socked in the North Sea dumped three to six feet of new snow in the mountains, with virtually no roads or settlements and extreme cold.  Lunde paints a vivid picture of what it must have been like to survive for weeks with little food or shelter and in intense combat.  There is a Narvik campaign badge in surplus store near here.  I have been looking it it for years now, wondering who would pay whatever it is they are asking for it.  Believe me, whoever received it earned it.