The Allied operations in Norway were underway. Their origins can be traced to the political leadership in both Great Britain and France. While the ideas were Churchill’s, he had the wholehearted support at the highest levels in the French government (Reynaud and Daladier). Chamberlain and Halifax gave their reluctant support only after the storm of criticism that broke out following their failure to take timely action to help the Finns. It is important to keep the strategic credentials of these policy makers in mind. Kersaudy has commented, “With the exception of Winston Churchill, the War Cabinet ministers had not the slightest notion of strategy, and they knew it; as for Churchill’s notions, they were highly imperfect—and he did not know it.”36 The British naval leadership supported the operation because it held out promise for action that could cripple the German Navy, prevent the latter from improving its strategic position, and strengthen the naval blockade. The other services in Britain were much less enthusiastic, particularly the air force. They were concerned about the diversion of scarce resources away from the main theater of operations in France.
There is no doubt that what the Allies contemplated constituted aggression; but any clear-cut interpretation becomes muddled because of almost simultaneous German action. Similarity of intent should not be inferred because of the coincidental timing of the operations. Moulton draws the distinction by writing that the German intent was to occupy the capital and country, while the Allies were involved in a small naval operation to mine the territorial waters with a small military force in British ports in case of a German reaction. While this sounds reasonable, we have seen that the naval forces were not small; the military force designed to occupy the main population centers on the coast was small because it was all that was immediately available, and that this force was to sail before or simultaneously with the mining operation. The fact that they did not sail as scheduled was due to a British Admiralty decision that all ships were needed for naval action when it became aware that the Germans were at sea.
GERMAN PLANS: BOLD, IMAGINATIVE, AND RECKLESS
“The operation in itself is contrary to all principles in the theory of naval warfare.”
STATEMENT TO HITLER BY GENERAL ADMIRAL ERIC RAEDER ON MARCH 9, 1940.
Norway in German Strategic Planning
When World War II began, Germany had no plans to invade Norway. In a conversation with Count Ciano, the Italian Foreign Minister, on August 12, 1939, Hitler stated that he was convinced none of the belligerents would attack the Scandinavian countries, and that these countries would not join in an attack on Germany. There are no reasons to doubt the sincerity of this statement, and it is confirmed in a directive on October 9, 1939.
At the outset of war in 1939, Hitler considered it advantageous to have a neutral Scandinavia. The same views also prevailed initially among the staff of the German Armed Forces Headquarters (Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, or OKW). The members of the OKW considered it foolish to initiate an attack on Norway unless the British and French tried to spread the war to that area. They viewed a campaign in Norway as a risky drain on troops and resources from the main front in the west.
When the idea of invading Norway began to take shape, it did not originate with Hitler, but from members of the German Navy. In fact, he needed considerable persuasion before accepting what some considered a necessity. Eventually, he became convinced of the need for a preemptive strike to forestall a British move against Norway. Liddell-Hart wrote that “Hitler, despite all his unscrupulousness, would have preferred to keep Norway neutral, and did not plan to invade her until he was provoked to do so by palpable signs that the Allies were planning a hostile move in that quarter.”1
German war planners considered Norway of great importance to Germany in a prolonged war. However, since initially they did not anticipate a long war, Norway’s role was reduced to keeping sea traffic flowing without interference from the enemy for a relatively short period. The OKW strategic plan for the war was simple. The main attack would be directed against France and, after an expected victory, Britain would be presented with a generous peace offer that the political leadership felt confident would be accepted.
The navy’s reason for pushing to secure Norway may be traced back to that service’s experience in World War I, when the large German fleet failed to reach the open sea. The isolated ships that did reach open waters had to cross the dangerous North Sea before they could pierce the British blockade. Many German naval officers saw their only hope for useful service during World War II to be contingent on the German Navy acquiring bases in locations that would avoid or complicate British blockades.
Vice Admiral Wolfgang Wegener wrote a book about this subject in 1929 titled Die Seestrategie des Weltkriges. This book was well known in the German Navy and it influenced the strategic thinking of many of its key officers in the late 1930s. Wegener argued that the primary mission of the German Navy in any future conflict was to keep the sea lanes open for German merchant shipping, and that this could not be accomplished from German or Danish harbors. Wegener saw two possible solutions. One was to capture bases on the French coast. The other involved the seizure of bases in Norway. Although he does not directly say so, Wegener appears to view the acquisition of bases in Norway as the easier of the two solutions. This was natural since he was writing based on the experience of World War I, when the German army failed to reach the French coast. With respect to bases in Norway, he wrote, “England would then be unable to sustain a blockade line from the Shetlands to Norway but would be forced to withdraw to approximately a Shetlands-Faeroes-Iceland line. However, this line was a net with very wide meshes.”2
Wegener concluded that, while it would be difficult for the British to defend the new line because of its proximity to German bases in Norway, the only way to eliminate the possibility of a blockade was to seize the Faeroes or the Shetland Islands. This would eliminate the dangers of a blockade and would place the German Navy in a position to interdict British supply routes, an objective that could not be achieved from bases in Norway. Wegener judged the seizure of the Faeroes or the Shetland Islands as beyond German capabilities, and this in turn reduced the value of bases in Norway.
Grand Admiral Erich Raeder, the commander-in-chief of the German Navy, did not have a large fleet at his disposal in 1939, but his surface raiders and submarines faced the same obstacles as those Wegener had pointed out ten years earlier. Furthermore, the German Navy had not given up on its plans to play a significant role among the armed services. Hitler approved the navy’s plans for a gigantic fleet rearmament, the so-called Z-plan, in January 1939.3 Hitler not only approved the rearmament program but ordered that it should begin immediately and should take priority over other needs, including the rearmament requirements of the other services. It is therefore not surprising that the German Navy, at an early date, turned its attention to the possibility of extending its operational range. The naval officers did not share the optimism of their army and air force counterparts that the war would be short and that bases would soon be available on the French coast. They were also deeply skeptical about the English government accepting a peace offer after a French defeat.
There was no unanimity of views in the German Navy on either the desirability of establishing bases in a Norway, or the service’s ability to do so. However, new support for Wegener’s ideas surfaced in the late 1930s when some of the officers who favored his approach to naval strategy began to occupy key positions and the question of bases assumed increasing importance in operational planning. There is little doubt that Raeder, too, although not a follower of Wegener, was favorably disposed to his ideas. Gemzell points to convincing similarities between the reasoning contained in a briefing Raeder gave Hitler and others on February 3, 1937 and what Wegener wrote almost a decade earlier.
The similarities in views between Wegener and Raeder have been challenged in a recent article in the Naval War College Review. Commander Hansen describes how Wegener and Raeder, who came into the navy togethe
r and were close friends, drifted apart and became bitter enemies.4 Hansen maintains that the two saw the importance of Norway in different ways. For Wegener, bases in Norway represented a “gate to the Atlantic,” while Raeder was more concerned with “the absolute necessity to the German war effort of Swedish iron ore.” However, Raeder’s preoccupation with the iron ore issue was closely tied to his desire for a large fleet, which could challenge the British Navy in ways very similar to those put forward by Wegener. When Raeder warned that the loss of Swedish iron ore would quickly destroy the German armament industry, he was also perhaps worried about what such a loss would do to the naval construction program.
The German fleet was divided geographically into the Eastern Group Command in the Baltic under Admiral Rolf Carls and the Western Group Command in the North Sea under Admiral Alfred Saalwächter. Saalwächter sent a report to the Naval High Command (Oberkommando der Kriegsmarine, or OKM) on March 2, 1939 in which he openly discussed the acquisition of bases in Norway. He cautioned that the British Navy would close the northern approach with a mine barrier, including mining Norwegian territorial waters. The Norwegian government’s ability to prevent such an action was judged as being limited. Saalwächter’s report stressed both the dangers to Germany of British dominance in Norwegian waters and the favorable change in the geo-strategic position that a German occupation of Norway would bring about.5
The OKM was also concerned about the effects of a mine barrier. As a result of the increased range of air power, they considered it likely that the new barrier would be located further north than the one in World War I, and that the only option available to change this strategic fundamental would be through the acquisition of bases in central or northern Norway. The OKM, however, continued to believe that the best solution to the strategic problems of the German Navy was through the acquisition of bases on the French coast.
Admiral Carls had been a longtime follower of Wegener’s ideas.6 He was the third highest-ranking officer in the navy and a dominant personality, known among his colleagues as the “Blue Czar.” According to Carls, the only way the navy could achieve decisive results in a war was to adopt a two-pronged strategy that concentrated on holding open German sea-routes while attacking British overseas trade. While favoring Wegener’s views, he also considered the acquisition of bases in France the best solution, since the German Navy could not eliminate the effects of a British blockade and pose a threat to that country’s supply routes from Norway. These ends could only be accomplished by capturing the Faeroes or the Shetland Islands, objectives beyond Germany’s capabilities.
In an appraisal of the political-military situation on September 4, 1939, Admiral Carls pointed out the strategic importance of Scandinavia and the danger to Germany if the British Navy was to obtain bases in that area. At every opportunity in September 1939, he emphasized the dangers posed to Germany by British naval and air bases in southern and western Norway. He continually stressed the importance of making plans to counter the possibility of the British establishing themselves on the Norwegian coast.
Raeder claims in his autobiography that “our armament industries would have died overnight” had it not been for the 10 million tons of Swedish iron ore used in German steel production. He goes on to say that the trade through Norwegian waters was going so well that it was taken for granted. He claims:
Never having studied seriously a war with England until that war practically broke out, we had not seriously questioned how far Norway could guarantee her neutrality and the security of the Narvik route in case of war between England and Germany.
In addition, he continued, “Nobody in the Navy, and probably almost nobody else in Germany gave the Norwegian problem a second thought during the first month of the war.”7
These statements are not supported by facts and they misrepresent the navy’s role in planting the seeds and establishing the intellectual framework for the necessity of the Norwegian operation.8 Raeder’s assessment that the war economy would have died overnight if Swedish ore were unavailable is no doubt influenced by his realization that the navy would be the first to suffer if further prioritizing became necessary. By stressing this point in his testimony before the International Military Tribunal, he was undoubtedly trying to depict his activities in the months leading up to the invasion of Norway as responsible pre-emptive planning.
In his testimony at the Nuremberg Trial, Admiral Raeder states that he had not concerned himself with the Norwegian question until he received several intelligence reports during the last week of September 1939.9 He is less than candid. The question of bases in Norway surfaced numerous times in the period after 1935. In a post wargame statement on April 12, 1938, Raeder dealt with the subject of base acquisition for improving the navy’s operational possibilities. The planning committee in 1938 considered a partial occupation of Norway, but its final report concluded that while such a move would improve Germany’s strategic position, it would require substantial forces that could be used better elsewhere. However, the idea was kept alive as an acceptable alternative to the acquisition of bases on the continent’s open Atlantic coasts.
Admiral Carls kept a journal that was read regularly by Raeder, and entries in that journal in September 1939 pointed out the risk of British footholds in southern and western Norway and the necessity for planning German counter-measures.10
The intelligence reports that Raeder refers to in his testimony at the Nuremberg Trial included reports from the German Naval Attaché in Oslo, Lieutenant Commander Richard Schreiber, and a rare personal visit by Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, head of the Abwehr (Department for Foreign Intelligence and Security within OKW) who informed him that there were signs “that the British intended to occupy bases in Norway.”11 The next impetus came from Admiral Carls, who was privy to the same intelligence reports as Raeder. He made a telephone call to Raeder during one of the last days of September to explain that he had prepared a private letter for him. The letter dealt with the dangers to Germany of a British occupation of bases in Norway, and raised the issue of whether Germany should forestall such an attempt by the British. Raeder states that he received the letter at the end of September or beginning of October. He testified at his trial that the letter impelled him to pose a series of questions to the Chief of Staff of the Naval Staff (Seekriegsleitung, or SKL) examining the danger of English occupation of Norwegian bases as well as the pros and cons of a German expansion to the north.12 The questions Raeder posed to the SKL were also given to Rear Admiral Karl Dönitz, the commander of German submarine forces, for comments. Dönitz proposed the establishment of a major submarine base in Trondheim and a fuel/supply depot at Narvik.
The SKL reached mixed conclusions on Admiral Carls’ letter and on the questions posed to them by Raeder. In a document prepared by the Operations Divisions of the Naval Staff on October 9, their opinion was one of caution.13 The naval staff saw no pressing reasons why Germany should establish itself forcefully on the Norwegian coast. First, the occupation of bases on the Norwegian coast would not bring any decisive advantages to Germany’s strategic position, particularly if it were necessary to secure such bases with force. Second, SKL viewed continued Norwegian neutrality as a definite advantage to Germany. They concluded that the German ore traffic would be safer with a neutral Norway than it would be after an eventual German occupation, provided the British forces respected Norwegian territorial waters. The naval staff saw the obvious advantages of Norwegian bases in a naval war against Britain, but they also saw clearly the hazards involved in an effort to expand the operational theater in face of superior British naval power.
On the other hand, the SKL considered it absolutely necessary to prevent a British occupation of Norway or the seizure of bases in that country. They argued that a British presence in Norway would bring Sweden into the British sphere of influence and possibly end Swedish iron ore exports to Germany. Their temporary conclusions were that bases in Norway would not significantly enhance Germany’s strategic
position.14 The fact that Germany was negotiating with the Soviet Union for the lease of a base near Polarnoje (in Kola Bay) may have influenced the SKL conclusion. The lease of the base took effect in November, and German submarines used it frequently.
Raeder Briefs Hitler
Raeder had a routine meeting with Hitler on October 10, 1939 and used the opportunity to bring up the subject of Norway.15 He took a more aggressive approach than that contained in the SKL answers to his questions on October 3. Raeder pointed out that the establishment of British naval and air bases in Norway would be a very dangerous development for Germany. The importance of Norway for aerial warfare was a factor that was not present in World War I, but which had since considerably increased the importance of that country to the belligerents. Raeder stated that Britain would not only be able to control the entrance to the Baltic, but would be in a position to outflank German naval operations in the North Sea and German air attacks on Great Britain. The flow of iron ore from Narvik would end, and the Allies would be able to exert strong pressures on Sweden.
Having alerted Hitler to the obvious dangers, Raeder proceeded to mention possible solutions. He pointed out the advantages that would follow from German occupation of certain strategic points along the Norwegian coast, the major one being virtually unhampered naval access to the Atlantic. By dwelling on the dangers to Germany of a British presence in Norway and the advantages of a German presence there, rather than on the advantages of the status quo, Raeder showed that he was more in tune with the ideas of Wegener and Carls than those of his own staff. He was also exploiting Hitler’s paranoia. Hitler, who was preoccupied with the planned attack in the west, was noncommittal. He asked Raeder to leave his notes, promising further consideration.
Hitler’s Pre-Emptive War: The Battle for Norway, 1940 Page 7
