Hitler’s Pre-Emptive War: The Battle for Norway, 1940, Henrik Lunde [new ebook reader TXT] 📗

Published in the United States of America in 2010 by

CASEMATE

908 Darby Road, Havertown, PA 19083

and in the United Kingdom by

CASEMATE

17 Cheap Street, Newbury, Berkshire, RG14 5DD

© 2009 by Henrik O. Lunde

ISBN 978-1-935149-33-0

eISBN 9781612000459

Cataloging-in-publication data is available from the Library of Congress and from the British Library.

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CONTENTS

Preface & Acknowledgments

Prologue

1.

Allied Plans–Flawed, Inadequate, and Hesitant

2.

German Plans—Bold, Imaginative, and Reckless

3.

Ignored Warnings—Ships Passing in the Night

4.

Narvik Area Defenses

5.

The German Attack on Narvik

6.

Destroyer Battle

7.

Confusion and Disarray

8.

Beachhead Consolidation and Second Naval Battle

9.

The Narvik Front, April 13–26

10.

Campaigns in the South

11.

The Norwegian-French Offensive, April 29–May 12

12.

2nd Mountain Division to the Rescue

13.

The Bjerkvik Landing and the Mountain Offensive

14.

The Loss of Nordland Province

15.

The Week that Lost the Campaign—Strained Relations

16.

Time Runs Out

17.

Evacuation, Armistice, and Disaster

Epilogue

Maps

Command Structures

Operational Code Names

Bibliography

PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

There are many cogent reasons why the 1940 campaign in Norway has an enduring importance and why its study should be basic reading for students of military history, for military planners and operators, and for policymakers. The fact that it was the first campaign in history in which land, sea, and air forces were fully involved is sufficient to meet the above criteria. However, there are other compelling reasons.

For both the Germans and the Allies, the war in Scandinavia demonstrated the extreme risks and dangers inherent when undertaking a preemptive war or a war of choice. The Norway campaign remains a perfect example of how things can quickly unravel when the underlying assumptions governing plans are fallacious. Furthermore, the Allied and Norwegian responses to the manner and pace of the German attack provide classic examples of the results of the problems that have always faced military planners in democracies relying on poorly trained and equipped conscript forces.

Many writers have concluded that the German plans and preparations were kept so secret that the attack came as a complete surprise to the Norwegians and the Allies. In fact, there were numerous intelligence reports pointing to imminent German actions in Scandinavia. Policymakers and planners gave little credit to these reports because of their preconceived ideas about German capabilities and intentions; hence they failed to draw the conclusions that, perhaps, ought logically to have followed.

The rough geography and severe climate of Norway encouraged the Norwegians to believe that their country was easy to defend. This belief, combined with the scarcity of resources in the interwar period, left the country with inadequate military forces to meet a determined aggressor. The operations in north Norway show clearly that to commit forces in the Arctic without adequate equipment and training is a recipe for disaster.

The war was the first direct clash between German and Allied land and air forces. It was a testing ground for the innovations in equipment and doctrine developed since World War I. The effect of air power on both land and naval operations, little understood in Norway and Great Britain, was demonstrated clearly during the war in Norway, and caused a fundamental shift in how this new weapon was viewed. The campaign also saw the first use of airborne troops to seize airfields and key objectives far behind enemy lines.

The Norwegian campaign revealed serious deficiencies in Allied command structures and inter-allied coordination and cooperation. Failure to achieve unity of command plagued both sides, but with the Germans the command difficulties were largely overcome by a high degree of professionalism at the operational level.

Finally, the campaign in Norway provides a textbook example of two military operational philosophies: centralized versus flexible control.

The German invasion of Denmark and Norway is usually dealt with in a few pages in the better-known political or military histories of World War II. This is understandable. The campaigns of the war were spread across nearly six years around the world, and the one in Norway was a comparatively small affair, both in the size of forces involved and in the number of casualties.

Several accounts of the campaign were written shortly after the war by authors from all participating countries. The Campaign in Norway by T.K. Derry in 1952, which became the official British history of the campaign, is undoubtedly the most authoritative and most widely read account in English. However, this excellently written book suffers from some of the same problems that David Reynolds finds in Churchill’s multi-volume history of World War II. Both authors present British motives and actions in the most favorable light. For the most part, facts are presented correctly, but the reader is often misled or influenced by omissions, lack of balance, distortions, and the shifting of blame for failure. Although a number of books have been written by British authors since the 1950s, they are largely unknown on this side of the Atlantic. These works were primarily written for the British public, and deal mainly with Allied operations, in particular the naval aspects. Some accounts, by omission or through a narrow perspective, paint an inaccurate picture of events. While there are some well-written German and Norwegian accounts, they have not been translated and are therefore practically unknown outside their own countries.

There are a number of biographies of individuals involved in the Norwegian operations, both political and military, as well