Hitler strikes north : the Nazi invasion of Norway and Denmark, 9 April 1940

530 Pages·2013·17.96 MB·English

by  Greene

Hitler Strikes North
The Nazi Invasion of Norway & Denmark, April 9, 1940
Jack Greene
Alessandro Massignani
This book is dedicated to long-time gaming and history buddies
Larry Hoffman, Dana Lombardy and Harry Rowland

and to the memory of Giovanni Ingellis
Hitler Strikes North: The Nazi Invasion of Norway and Denmark, 9 April 1940
This edition published in 2013 by Frontline Books,
an imprint of Pen & Sword Books Ltd,
47 Church Street, Barnsley, S. Yorkshire, S70 2AS
www.frontline-books.com

Copyright © Jack Greene and Alessandro Massignani, 2013

The right of Jack Greene and Alessandro Massignani to be identified as the
authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the
Copyright, Designs and Patents
Act 1988.
9781783469772

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Table of Contents
Title Page
Dedication
Copyright Page
Plates
Introduction
CHAPTER 1 - The Setting
CHAPTER 2 - Iron Ore and Casus Belli
CHAPTER 3 - Rivals
CHAPTER 4 - Norwegian Defence Preparations
CHAPTER 5 - Nazi Planning
CHAPTER 6 - Opening Moves and Painful Collisions
CHAPTER 7 - The Fall of Denmark
CHAPTER 8 - The Seizure of Oslo
CHAPTER 9 - Littoral Operations in Action
CHAPTER 10 - Narvik
CHAPTER 11 - The Aftermath: Allied Reactions and German Exploitation
CHAPTER 12 - A Tale of When Deterrence Failed
Chronology Leading Up to War
APPENDIX 1 - Order of Battle–Denmark
APPENDIX 2 - Order of Battle–Germany
Glossary of Terms
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Plates
1 The Norwegian minelayer Olav Tryggvason (Author’s collection) 2 The
elderly armoured coast defence ship Eidsvoll (Author’s collection) 3 The
destroyer HMS Glowworm (IWM: HW83)
4 One of the German ‘K’ class light cruisers (Author’s collection)
5 A British Skua dive-bomber (Dave Isby collection)
6 The German pocket-battleship Lützow (Author’s collection) 7 The Bruno
Heinemann, a typical German destroyer (Author’s collection) 8 The German
torpedo-boat Albatros (Author’s collection) 9 An S-boat used by the Germans
for the invasion of southern Norway (Dave Isby collection) 10 One of the
three 283mm guns at Fort Oscarsborg (Author’s collection)
11 Side view of one of Fort Oscarsborg’s gun emplacements (Author’s
collection) 12 Head-on view of one of the 283mm Krupp guns at Fort
Oscarsborg (Author’s collection) 13 Close-up of the torpedo rack at Fort
Oscarsborg (Author’s collection)
14 The torpedo rack in the raised position (Author’s collection)
15 Germans landing from the Hansestadt Danzig in Copenhagen harbour
(Aggersbo: The Museum of Danish Resistance, 1940–1945) 16 The
Schleswig-Holstein (Bundesarchiv)
17 Danish soldiers manning one of their 37mm AT guns (Royal Arsenal
Museum, Copenhagen) 18 A German propaganda shot taken of their three
Neubau PzKw IV tanks (Tore Eggan collection) 19 The majority of German
supplies arrived by sea, primarily at Oslo (Author’s collection) 20 A German
hospital ship at Oslo (Tore Eggan collection)
21 Small ship transport for both Germans and Norwegians in the waters of
Norway (Tore Eggan collection) 22 & 23 a German PzKw II tank (Tore
Eggan collection)
24 Norwegian infantry column (Tore Eggan collection)
25 A British Morris-commercial CS8 telephone line layer (Tore Eggan
collection) 26 German military band marching in downtown Bergen (Author’s
collection)
27 A German horse-drawn battery, after the capture of Bergen (Author’s
collection) 28 A Fokker C.V. (Tore Eggan collection)
29 The destruction wrought by the German Luftwaffe in bombing Norwegian
towns (Tore Eggan collection) 30 German He111 medium bombers (Dave
Isby collection)
31 One of the 300 bridges demolished by the retreating Norwegians (Tore Eggan
collection) 32 British prisoners being driven to the rear (Tore Eggan
collection)
Introduction
History is not a schoolmistress . . . She is a prison matron who
punishes for unlearned lessons.
Russian historian Vasily Klyutchevsky1
This book is a combat history of one of the most important battles of the
twentieth century. The focus is the events leading up to the invasion of the
Nordic nations of Norway and Denmark and the critical events on and
immediately after 9 April. These actions merit close study and have lessons to
teach us today. For the people of Denmark and Norway, 9 April was the
equivalent of Pearl Harbor. It also mirrors 11 September 2001 to the people of
the USA. After the war the Norwegian public vowed ‘Never another 9 April’.2
It is also an excellent example of where deterrence failed. It was unsuccessful
because the military deterrence employed was grossly inadequate and both
nations made poor choices leading up to 9 April. Norway and Denmark had
witnessed what happened to Belgium in the First World War. Belgium had been
fought over, mostly occupied and suffered tremendous loss of life and treasure.3
The political leadership of Norway and Denmark wanted to avoid at any cost
such a fate for their small nations when the Second World War broke out and so
their final bill would be invasion and occupation. It sharply contrasted with what
both nations had successfully done to avoid invasion in the First World War and
what the Swiss did in both wars. The leaders looked at Belgium’s fate, and partly
wrapped up in their political worldview, they drew the wrong conclusions.
This book aims to reconstruct the battles and reconcile the various sources to
give a clear and accurate picture of what took place leading up to and in the
decisive opening of the campaign. The operations in Norway and denmark were
crucial in four ways. First, it assured Germany a steady supply of high-quality
iron ore to fuel its war industries. This was in addition to the timber, foodstuffs
and other products of Denmark and Norway provided to the German war effort.