Operation Weserübung

• 1. Iron Ore And Strategic Necessity

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  By the spring of 1939, the British Admiralty began to view Scandinavia as a potential theatre of war in a future conflict with Nazi Germany. German industry was heavily dependent on the import of iron ore from mines in Swedish Lapland. Most of that ore was shipped through the ice-free Norwegian port of Narvik. Control of the Norwegian coast would serve to tighten a potential blockade against Germany. In October 1939, Grand-Admiral Erich Raeder discussed with Adolf Hitler the danger posed by potential Allied bases in Norway. The Kriegsmarine argued that a German occupation of Norway would allow control of nearby seas and serve as a platform for staging submarine operations against the Allies. However, other branches of the Wehrmacht were not interested at that time. Hitler issued a directive stating that the main effort would be a land offensive through the Low Countries instead.

• 2. Planning And Deception Tactics

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  Following a meeting with Vidkun Quisling from Norway on the 14th of December, Hitler turned his attention to Scandinavia. Convinced of the threat posed by the Allies to the iron ore supply, Hitler ordered the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht to begin preliminary planning for an invasion of Norway. The preliminary plan was named Studie Nord and called for only one division of German troops to carry out the invasion. Between 14 and the 19th of January, the Kriegsmarine developed an expanded version of this plan. It decided upon two key factors: surprise was essential to reduce the threat of Norwegian resistance. Faster German warships, rather than comparatively slow merchant ships, should be used as troop transports. That would allow all targets to be occupied simultaneously. On the 21st of February 1940, command of the operation was given to General Nikolaus von Falkenhorst. He had fought in Finland during the First World War and was familiar with Arctic warfare. The final plan was codenamed Operation Weserübung on the 27th of January 1940.

• 3. The Six-Hour Conquest Of Denmark

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  At 04:00 on the 9th of April 1940, the German ambassador to Denmark, Cecil von Renthe-Fink, called the Danish Foreign Minister Peter Munch. When the two men met 20 minutes later, Renthe-Fink declared that German troops were then moving in to occupy Denmark to protect the country from Anglo-French attacks. As the German demands were communicated, forces landed on a regular commercial ferry in Gedser at 03:55 and moved north. German Fallschirmjäger units made unopposed landings and took two airfields at Aalborg. They also seized the Storstrøm Bridge and the fortress of Masnedø. The latter was the first recorded attack in the world made by paratroopers. At 04:20 local time, a reinforced battalion of German infantrymen from the 308th Regiment landed in Copenhagen harbour. They quickly captured the Danish garrison at the Citadel without encountering resistance. Faced with the explicit threat of the Luftwaffe bombing the civilian population of Copenhagen, King Christian and the entire Danish government capitulated at approximately 06:00. The invasion of Denmark lasted less than six hours.

• 4. Naval Battles And Coastal Defense

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  In the early morning of the 9th of April, gunners at Oscarsborg Fortress fired on the leading ship Blücher. It had been illuminated by spotlights at about 04:15, beginning the Battle of Drøbak Sound. Two of the fortress guns were 48-year-old German Krupp guns nicknamed Moses and Aron. Within two hours, the badly damaged ship sank with the loss of 600 to 1,000 men. The threat from the fortress delayed the rest of the naval invasion group long enough for the Royal Family to be evacuated. On the 10th of April the First Battle of Narvik took place between five British destroyers and ten destroyers of the Kriegsmarine. Both parties lost two destroyers. On the 13th of April a second British attack by the battleship Warspite and a flotilla of destroyers sank the remaining eight German destroyers. They had been trapped in Narvik because of lack of fuel. Ineffective resistance by Norwegian armoured coastal defence ships Eidsvold and Norge took place at Narvik. Both ships were torpedoed and sunk with great loss of life.

• 5. Land Campaigns And Allied Intervention

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  The main German land campaign advanced northward from Oslo with superior equipment. Norwegian soldiers with turn-of-the-century weapons, along with some British and French troops, delayed the invaders for a time before yielding. This was the first land combat between the British Army and the Wehrmacht in World War II. At Narvik, Norwegian and Allied forces under General Carl Gustav Fleischer achieved the first tactical victory against the Wehrmacht in the war. German forces then recovered and overran the Norwegian defenders in the Battle of Gratangen. The King and his cabinet evacuated from Molde to Tromsø on the 29th of April. The Allies evacuated from Åndalsnes on the 1st of May. Resistance in Southern Norway came to an end. Hegra Fortress held out until the 5th of May. The Norwegian Army in mainland Norway capitulated on the 10th of June 1940. That made Norway the occupied country that had withstood a German invasion for the longest time before succumbing. Despite the surrender of the main Norwegian forces, the Royal Norwegian Navy continued fighting the Germans abroad and at home until the German capitulation on the 8th of May 1945.

• 6. Nuremberg Trials And Legal Justification

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  The German defense in the Nuremberg trials in 1946 argued that Germany was compelled to attack Norway by the need to forestall an Allied invasion. They claimed their action was therefore preemptive. However, it was determined that Germany had discussed invasion plans as early as the 3rd of October 1939 in a memo from Admiral Raeder to Alfred Rosenberg. Raeder had begun by asking questions such as Can bases be gained by military force against Norways will? One British plan was to go through Norway and occupy cities in Sweden. An Allied invasion was ordered on the 12th of March. The Germans intercepted radio traffic setting the 14th of March as deadline for preparation. Peace in Finland interrupted the Allied plans. Two diary entries by Alfred Jodl dated 13 and the 14th of March did not indicate any high-level awareness of the Allied plan. It was not until the 2nd of April 1940 that German preparations were completed. The International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg determined that no Allied invasion was imminent and so rejected the German argument that Germany was entitled to attack Norway.