The Invasion of Norway--April 1940.

(This is the third of a series of entries on the Norwegian experience during the Second World War--the previous entries are dated January 31 and December 29).


In the first few months of 1940, Hitler decided to invade Norway.   In large part,  the invasion was motivated by a desire to curb British naval power.  At the time, Britain possessed many more surface warships (vessels that floated on top of the water, such as battleships and destroyers) than did Germany, and consequently held a decisive advantage at sea.   Seizing control of Norwegian airfields and ports would provide bases from which German aircraft and warships could undermine British naval supremacy.

The German move was also prompted by a desire to ensure a continued supply of Swedish iron ore.  Germany imported much of its iron ore (from which steel is made) from Sweden, and these ore imports were often transported across the border with Sweden to the Norwegian port city of Narvik, where in turn they were shipped by sea to Germany.  The Germans worried that the British navy might cut off this supply of ore and thus deny German industry access to this vital raw material.   

In any case, the Norwegian fascist Vidkun Quisling was certainly hoping for the German military's arrival.  In December of 1939, with the Phoney War in full swing, Quisling, hoping to bring about a Norwegian-German alliance, met with high-ranking Nazi party officials to discuss the possibility of a German troops being dispatched to Norway, and did secure an audience with Hitler.

On April 9, 1940, Germany invaded both Norway and Denmark.  Denmark, possessing only a small army and lacking a modern air force, was quickly overwhelmed and surrendered, but the German conquest of Norway took much longer.

The same day, the German navy landed soldiers at several different points on the Norwegian coast, including Kristiansand, Bergen, Trondheim, and Narvik.  German troops, landing by plane, took control of the airport at the capital city of Oslo.

As part of the April 9 invasion, the Germans planned to have a flotilla including the heavy cruiser Blücher sail north through Oslofjord and disgorge troops at Oslo.  On an island at a narrow spot in the fjord sat Oscarsborg fortress, which featured both heavy artillery and an antiquated machine for launching antiship torpedoes.

On the morning of April 9, the commander of Oscarsborg fortress, unsure of the nationality of the mysterious flotilla that was steaming north towards him, took a gamble and ordered his defenses to open fire.  Artillery and torpedo hits sank the Blücher.  The remaining vessels decided against venturing further north for the time being, and the delay in the German occupation of Oslo gave the Norwegian royal family time to escape the capital.  The Norwegian King, Haakon VII, refusing to abdicate or surrender, urged his country to fight the invaders.

Despite these setbacks, on April 9, 1940, the Germans succeeded in landing most of their soldiers ashore in Norway, and their land forces began advancing into the interior of the country.

For his part, Vidkun Quisling decided to help out the Germans by going on the radio and declaring that his countrymen should lay down their arms.  Few, if any, Norwegians paid him any heed; more likely, his broadcast may have pushed Norwegians to fight the Germans harder.

The Allied counterattack.

While the Norwegian army fought to contain the advance of German ground forces, the British and French made a serious attempt to contest the German invasion.  In two naval battles outside Narvik, the British navy sank or crippled ten German destroyers, in the process cutting the German forces who had landed there off from their source of supplies.  The British and French landed troops at Narvik and eventually were able to drive the German forces out of the city.  The Allies also dispatched troops to the north and south of the city of Trondheim, in preparation for retaking that city.

But the overall Allied effort was marked by disorganization and confusion; many troops landed without proper equipment.  The Germans, by quickly moving combat aircraft to newly-captured bases in Norway, were able to seize control of the skies in the southern part of the country and attack Allied ground forces and ships.  The following photographs suggest how decisive German air power was during the battle for Norway.   The upper photograph shows British soldiers among the ruins of Namsos, a city north of Trondheim that had been subjected to German bombing; the lower photo, taken near Namsos, shows the British navy ship Bittern after a German bombing attack.

Both photos from: http://www.iwmcollections.org.uk/qryMain.php

The Anglo-French efforts to retake Trondheim were so disastrous that the Allies had to withdraw their soldiers.  The collapse of the Trondheim campaign sent shockwaves through the British government, with many in the British Parliament (the national legislature) accusing the government of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain with botching the Norwegian campaign.  One member of Parliament, in calling for Chamberlain to step aside, repeated the words spoken by Oliver Cromwell to Parliament centuries before: "You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing.  Depart, I say, and let us have done with you.  In the name of God, go!"

The loss of support for Chamberlain led him to step down as prime minister, to be replaced by Winston Churchill, who for years had been warning that Nazi Germany threatened Europe.  Interestingly, it was Chamberlain who received the blame for the failure of the Trondheim operation, not Churchill, who as First Lord of the Admiralty had played a key role in planning and managing the operation.   Why did Churchill escape unscathed from the Norway fiasco?

To some extent, the parliamentary attacks on Chamberlain's handling of Norway were an expression of the growing belief that the prime minister had been too passive in confronting Hitler, and that who was needed was someone who was committed to defeating Germany (which Churchill certainly was) and who was vigorous enough to do the job.  After stepping down, Chamberlain continued serving in Parliament and lent his support to the man who had replaced him as prime minister.  Before the year was over, he was dead from cancer.

In the meantime, on May 10 1940, Germany invaded the Netherlands, Belgium, and France. At this point, the British and French, concluding that their troops still in Norway were more sorely needed elsewhere, evacuated their troops from Norway, and the remaining Norwegian forces in the field surrendered.  By the end of June, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France had all surrendered to Germany  as well. 

From the German standpoint, the seizure of Norway was to prove a strategic mixed bag.  Germany took control of naval and air bases that secured its control of the Baltic Sea and that extended its reach into the North Atlantic.  Both the British and German navies had lost roughly equivalent numbers of ships.  But since the German navy was much smaller than the British to begin with, Germany's naval losses (including ten destroyers and three cruisers) were much more significant, as they complicated German plans for a seaborne invasion of Great Britain.  After the fall of France in June 1940, Germany began preparations for an amphibious assault (code-named Operation Sealion) on Britain.  The Germans began assembling an invasion fleet to carry soldiers across the English Channel, and went so far as to compile a list of Britons to be arrested during the invasion, including Prime Minister Winston Churchill and science fiction writer H.G. Wells, author of The War of the Worlds.  In the summer of 1940, German bombers began attacking British airfields in preparation for an invasion.  In an extended air campaign lasting for several months, British fighter planes shot down a substantial portion of the German attacking warplanes, and Germany never attempted to actually carry out Operation Sealion.  However, Germany would have been in a better position to actually stage such an invasion had it not lost so many warships in the Norwegian campaign.

Sources:

Harr, Geirr H.,  The Battle for Norway, April-June 1940.  Barnsley, Great Britain: Seaforth, 2010.

Harr, Geirr H., The German Invasion of Norway, April 1940. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2009.

Kearsaudy, François, Norway 1940.  London: William Collins and Sons, 1990.

Riste, Olav, "Norwegian Campaign," in The Oxford Companion to World War II, edited by I.C.B. Dear and M.R.D. Foot.  Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.