Six Minutes in May

by Nicholas Shakespeare

  Churchill directed this arsenal to wear down Halifax. He attacked the position of the neutrals in a broadcast which angered the Foreign Office and set back the work of the Ministry of Information ‘by a full three months’.29 At the Paris Embassy, Churchill burst into Halifax’s adjoining bedroom in his dressing gown as Halifax was about to turn out the lights, and held forth for two hours, saying it was ‘very seldom that two intelligent people got the chance of a nice uninterrupted talk’.30 He continued to deluge the War Cabinet with memorandums urging action. It was very painful, he repeated, to watch, during the last two months, ‘the endless procession of German ore-ships down the Norwegian territorial waters carrying to Germany the material out of which will be made the shells to kill our young men … when all the time the simplest and easiest of motions would bring it to an end’.31

  Then, in the middle of February, a black tanker with a grey funnel steamed into Jøssingfjorden and snapped everyone’s attention back to Norway.

  Late on 15 February, an Admiralty signal reported that a suspected armed German supply ship with 299 British POWs on board had passed Trondheim at noon. The prisoners were gathered from merchant ships sunk in the South Atlantic by the German raider Admiral Graf Spee. The supply ship was thought to be the Altmark, making a run for Germany within the protection of Norway’s three-mile limit, a long narrow band of water known as the Leads. But there was no clear information about her appearance until Captain Vian on board HMS Cossack identified her from a wardroom copy of the Illustrated London News.

  When, next day, the British caught up with the Altmark, they signalled for the supply ship to proceed on a course which would take her out to sea. The signal ignored, the destroyers HMS Ivanhoe and HMS Intrepid entered the Leads, and the Intrepid fired a warning shot.

  Two Norwegian torpedo boats escorted the Altmark. Lieutenant Halvorsen, commander of the Kjell, came aboard the Cossack, which had also sailed inside the Leads, to assure Vian that Norwegian authorities had already boarded the Altmark four times to check the ship’s papers, and no prisoners had been found. Halvorsen was unaware that the German captain had on each occasion refused the Norwegian request to inspect the hold, claiming that the Altmark was a ‘state ship’ and therefore enjoyed diplomatic immunity.32 The commanding Norwegian admiral in Oslo had overruled the local commander in Bergen – who, due to the refusal, wished to send the German ship out of Norwegian sovereign waters – and he had given instructions for the Altmark to proceed.

  Halvorsen said that his orders were to resist the entry of British warships into the Leads.

  When Churchill telephoned Halifax at 6.30 p.m. from the Admiralty, he sounded as if he were on the Cossack’s bridge. ‘We are sitting opposite the Altmark and there are two Norwegian gun boats facing us with their torpedo tubes trained on our boats.33 These are the instructions we propose to send and I want your approval.’ The Foreign Secretary asked for ten minutes to decide, and made ‘one or two suggestions’ about the order which Churchill accepted, ‘and so the thing went ahead’.34 The amended order read: ‘You should board the Altmark, liberate the prisoners and take possession of the ship pending further instructions.’35

  The following day, wrote Halifax, ‘Winston rang me up at 7 o’clock in the morning to tell me that they had got the Altmark prisoners … It had been a very fine performance, and quite in the Elizabethan style.’36

  With the same triumphant ‘tang’ in his voice, Churchill contacted the Prime Minister at Chequers, where there had been a heavy snowfall. Chamberlain wrote to his sisters: ‘At 7.45 before I had got up Winston rang me up “urgently”.37 Luckily I have a telephone at my bedside so I didn’t have to go and sit half dressed in the cold but I took up the instrument with some misgiving.’

  Churchill’s call reassured him.

  At 11.12 p.m., a boarding party of British petty officers and ratings had leapt over the tanker’s rail after the Altmark tried to ram the Cossack and blind the bridge with searchlights. In steel helmets and holding fixed bayonets, they made fast the Altmark with a hemp hawser. Eight Germans were killed, three of them while trying to lower a boat, and the rest as they fled across the ice.

  The climactic moment came when the leader of the boarding party unlocked a hatch and peered down at scores of upraised faces.

  ‘Come on up. The Navy’s here!’38

  The news reached Churchill at 3 a.m. ‘You must have had a very thrilling & anxious night on Friday,’ wrote his daughter-in-law Pamela, who travelled to Leith to welcome back the sailors.39 ‘It’s comforting to know we can be ferocious.’

  Geoffrey Shakespeare helped to organise a reception for the men at the Guildhall. The brunt of the Phoney War had fallen on Britain’s mariners, Churchill told them. Their rescue by the Cossack ‘under the noses of the enemy and amid the tangles of one-sided neutrality’ was a glorious epilogue to the scuttling of the Graf Spee off Montevideo in December. ‘The warrior heroes of the past may look down, as Nelson’s monument looks down upon us now … And to Nelson’s immortal signal of 135 years ago, “England expects that every man will do his duty,” there may now be added last week’s not less profound reply, “The Navy is here.”’40

  Within two months, this phrase was to rebound on Churchill with stinging force.

  The Conservative MP Ronald Tree expressed the general mood when he wrote that the ‘Altmark – drawn cutlasses etc.’ was ‘almost the first important bit of news to come our way’ since the start of the war.41 This heroic rescue of British sailors, with no casualties, elevated Churchill’s position in the public eye, but also within the War Cabinet. It meant that Chamberlain and Halifax now had to listen to him when Churchill put Narvik back on the agenda.

  Germany’s misuse of Norwegian territorial waters was, Churchill insisted, ‘the most flagrant breach of neutrality of a technical character which could be imagined’.42 In Leith, Pamela Churchill had talked to the liberated seamen. ‘Most of them would only say “It was the Norwegians that done us in, they knew all about us.”’43 The Altmark’s transgression persuaded Halifax of the ‘complete subservience of Norway to German pressure’, and it caused Chamberlain to consider a riposte.44

  At the War Cabinet on 23 February, Churchill ‘pleaded earnestly for action to be taken immediately.45 Such action would be more than a naval foray; it might well prove to be one of the main fulcra on which the whole course of the war would turn’. In yet another memorandum, he enjoined his colleagues: ‘Strike while the iron is hot! In three days from the moment of sanction by Cabinet the minefield can be laid.’46 He had a name for the minefield, after a long-eared young rabbit in a cartoon in the Daily Mail. ‘The operation being minor and innocent may be called “Wilfred”’.47

  The Altmark incident, a ‘medieval story of rescue from dragons’, wrenched Germany’s attention back towards Norway.48

  Churchill’s opposite number in Berlin was Grand Admiral Erich Raeder. Head of the Kriegsmarine and veteran of the Battle of Jutland, Raeder sponsored a plan which in broad outline mirrored Churchill’s.

  Raeder’s memoirs were written by a committee and cannot be trusted, but they contain the salient facts. Ten days after Churchill first suggested laying the mines in September 1939, alarming news reached Raeder from Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, the head of the Abwehr (German Military Intelligence), of ‘certain indications that Britain intended to seize a foothold in Norway … With growing anxiety we now realised the full scope of the danger.’ On 10 October, Raeder went with his notes to see Hitler, declaring that the only way to forestall the British was ‘by ourselves establishing bases at decisive points on Norwegian territory’.49 Hitler was interested – he had apparently told Raeder back in November 1934 that ‘the war could not be carried on at all if the navy did not protect the ore elements from Scandinavia’ – but he was preoccupied with Operation ‘Gelb’, the single ‘all-destroying blow’ in the West, which kept being postponed because of bad weather, among other reasons.50, 51 Hitler asked Raeder to leave his note
s behind.

  There matters rested until 10 December, when a Norwegian right-wing politician and former Defence Minister, Vidkun Quisling, arrived in Berlin by train.

  Quisling was a mathematician who had graduated top of his military academy, yet the Norway Campaign made his name synonymous with treason, and it would be freely invoked by Chamberlain to damn his Conservative critics, and by those same critics to insult Chamberlain’s supporters.

  The son of a country priest, with prominent blue eyes, a doughy face and no sense of humour, Quisling was known as the Pepper Minister, following an alleged nocturnal attack when alone in the Defence Ministry. Ground pepper was flung into his face and he was hit on the head with a blunt instrument; he then fainted. His assailant was not caught, and the incident was never proven to have taken place, but it consolidated Quisling’s image with his many critics as a fanatic prone to seeing non-existent enemies. He abominated Communists, and was suspicious of the French and the English. On 11 December, he met with Raeder and told him that ‘if Germany were defeated as a result of Allied landings in Norway then a vital threat to the whole of Western civilisation would result’.52

  Raeder’s naval aspirations dovetailed with Quisling’s political ambitions as head of the small minority nationalist party, Nasjonal Samling. Next day, Raeder told Hitler about their meeting, saying that he had formed ‘a trustworthy impression’ of the Norwegian.53 Intrigued, Hitler received Quisling at 3 p.m. on 13 December, and again on 18 December. What did Quisling know about British plans for establishing bases in Norway? Not much, it turned out – beyond a rumoured alliance between Britain’s Jewish Secretary of State for War, Leslie Hore-Belisha, and the President of the Norwegian Parliament, who had Jewish great-grandparents. Quisling’s suspicion of a Jewish plot to occupy Norway caused Hitler to lean forward for the first time. Quisling was gratified to observe that ‘upon mentioning the eventuality of a violation of neutrality, Hitler worked himself into a frenzy, culminating in a sort of ecstasy.’ In Quisling’s account, Hitler said that ‘if he ever detected the slightest British intention of entering Norway, he would be sure to intervene in good time’ – with six, eight, twelve divisions.54

  No sooner had Quisling left the Chancellery than Hitler summoned Major General Alfred Jodl, Chief of Operations at the Armed Forces High Command, the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW), who that night wrote in his diary: ‘Führer orders investigation, with smallest possible staff, of how occupation in Norway can be carried out.’55

  Studie Nord was the code name for Jodl’s preliminary investigation. Hitler received his assessment on 20 January and acted on it next day, tasking General Keitel to put together a small team from within the OKW, of which Hitler was head, and emphasising that the ‘issue of Norway should not leave the hands of the OKW’.56 A chief feature of the German operation was that the plans did not have to be shuttled back and forth, and debated over by obstructive layers of democratic decision-making – what Churchill lamented to Halifax were ‘the awful difficulties which our machinery of war conduct presents to positive action’.57

  On 5 February 1940, Keitel assembled his Special Staff and told them that the German government had learned of a plan to give ‘a decisive blow’ against the Reich.58 To prevent this, Germany needed to prepare for an important operation in Norway. In contrast to its British counterpart, which fragmented into a dozen confusing and mutating code words, the German operation was known henceforth by a single name, ‘Weserübung’. Preparations were to go ahead in total secrecy, with no civilian personnel involved, not even the German Foreign Secretary, Joachim von Ribbentrop. All other political and military authorities were to be kept ‘in complete ignorance of the investigation of this matter’.59 Hitler trusted nobody.

  Even at this stage, Hitler intended for Operation ‘Weserübung’ to be planned ‘on a theoretical basis’, as a contingency.60 Operation ‘Gelb’ remained the priority. But the situation was ‘electrified’, wrote Raeder, by the Cossack’s attack on the Altmark. ‘This incident put the whole problem in a new light, for now it was quite clear that the Norwegian Government was not in a position to defend Norwegian neutrality.’61

  For Hitler, the Altmark’s capture and the death of German sailors was a stab in the gut. ‘No opposition, no British losses!’62 he spluttered to Jodl. Enraged, he saw himself in a duel with Churchill, casting him as Public Enemy Number One. In their first clash of cutlasses, Churchill had come out on top. Hitler resolved to thrust back sharply.

  After witnessing Hitler’s reaction, Alfred Rosenberg, head of the Foreign Policy Office, wrote in his diary: ‘Really stupid initiative on Churchill’s part.63 It confirms Quisling’s views and his warnings.’ Fearful of losing momentum, Hitler was receptive to an operation in the north that might add to his legend of invincibility at a moment when this risked being tarnished because of his failure to attack in the west. The postponement of Operation ‘Gelb’ had freed up powerful air forces for deployment elsewhere.

  If one motive for the invasion of Norway was to safeguard the source of Germany’s iron ore, then another was Raeder’s desire for a base with access to the North Sea and Atlantic. Rosenberg, too, thought Norway would be invaluable in a ‘siege of Great Britain’ and as a launch pad for an invasion.64 And a further lure: Norway played to Hitler’s ambition for a Greater Germany. Hitler believed that Norwegians were Aryans who had fallen asleep, but could be reawakened by National Socialism. The invasion of Norway represented an important step towards the aim that he would outline to his Propaganda Minister, Joseph Goebbels, on 10 April: ‘a north-Germanic confederation’.65 When celebrating his fifty-first birthday ten days later, Hitler announced that he looked forward to Norway sending back to Germany its ‘human material’ for the ‘upbreeding of men’.66

  On 19 February, Hitler had ordered Keitel to speed up preparations. Abandoning any determination to uphold Norwegian neutrality, Hitler no longer viewed Operation ‘Weserübung’ as theoretical, but as a blueprint for imminent action. He told General Nikolaus von Falkenhorst, whom he summoned on 21 February at Keitel’s recommendation, that ‘the boarding of the Altmark had dispelled all ambiguity as to British intentions’.67

  One of the attractions of fifty-five-year-old von Falkenhorst, Commander of XXI Army Corps, was that he had served in Finland in 1918. Hitler questioned him about how the German army then had coordinated with the navy, explaining that he intended ‘to launch a similar operation in order to occupy Norway’.68 Quickly deciding that von Falkenhorst possessed the necessary qualities, Hitler appointed him Commander-in-Chief of ‘Weserübung’, placed five divisions at his disposal, and told him to report back that same afternoon, with plans for how he might deploy them.

  Von Falkenhorst knew no more about Norway than did the British War Cabinet. ‘Once outside, I went to town and bought a Baedeker, a tourist guide, in order to find out what Norway was like … I had no idea …’ He pored over the Baedeker’s maps in his room at the Kaiserhof Hotel, opposite the Chancellery, and returned at 5 p.m. His suggestions satisfied Hitler, who told him that there was no time to lose and it was imperative to get there ahead of the Allies.69 ‘I cannot and I will not begin the offensive in the West before this affair has been settled.’70

  As with Churchill, the Norwegian Campaign took the shape of a private war that Hitler imposed on the Kriegsmarine, the Wehrmacht and the Luftwaffe. The success of ‘Weserübung’ owed much to Hitler’s insistence that his armed forces overcome inter-service squabbling, and cooperate. Raeder wrote: ‘It was remarkable as being the first occasion on which the three arms of the Wehrmacht had worked in such close tactical connection on a large scale.’71 In contrast, Britain’s position had been laid out by General Ironside on 28 December. ‘We have no war policy whatever.72 There is no plan to use the Navy, Army and Air Force together.’

  Von Falkenhorst’s team began work behind an unmarked door in Bendlerstrasse, in Berlin. To help form a rapid picture of the country, German Intelligence traced some of t
he hundreds of orphans who in the 1920s had been sent to Norway and billeted with families there; they were interviewed for information, and several would serve on the invasion fleet as guides and translators.73 Priority was laid on secrecy, speed, maximum surprise. Hitler ordered von Falkenhorst to report back every two days, and on 1 March he again stressed the ‘utmost importance’ that ‘the Allies be caught unawares by this operation’.74

  On 3 March, Hitler commanded that Operation ‘Weserübung’ precede Operation ‘Gelb’, sending Goering ‘into a rage’.75 On 20 March, von Falkenhorst announced that his men were ready to land by air and sea at seven places in Norway. Six divisions had been assigned: 3rd Mountain Division, which had fought in Poland; and 69th, 163rd, 181st, 196th and 214th Infantry Divisions. Up to 8,850 men would land in the first attack from ships; a further 3,500 from the air. A total of 1,500 planes – He-111 and Ju-88 bombers, Ju-87 Stuka dive-bombers, twin-engined Me-110 fighters, and three-engined Ju-52 transport planes – had been temporarily put at von Falkenhorst’s disposal under X Fliegerkorps.

  Hitler, according to the Naval War Diary, ‘expressed his complete satisfaction with the way the war preparation had been made … The whole history of warfare taught that carefully prepared operations usually succeeded with relatively insignificant losses.’76

  On 1 April, after a 1 p.m. ‘breakfast’, von Falkenhorst introduced Hitler personally to the admirals and generals who were to take part in the landings.77 Hitler ‘cross-examined every single general, who was to explain very precisely the nature of the task he was to carry out.78 He even discussed with the ship commanders whether they would land their men on the right or the left of a given objective. He left nothing to chance.’ As with Churchill’s plan for Narvik: ‘It was his idea, it was his plan, it was his war.’