Norwegian Campaign (World War II)

Since the Crimean War, the Scandinavian countries adhered to the principle of neutrality in foreign policy ^[3] . From 1905 until the end of World War I, Great Britain and Germany exerted pressure on Norway because of the geographical position of this country, which allows controlling the east of the North Sea ^[4] . Immediately before the outbreak of war, Denmark, Sweden and Norway held a series of summits, where they emphasized their will to neutrality ^[5] . However, the warring parties forced the northern countries to indirectly participate in the war: Sweden and Norway transferred a significant part of their merchant fleet to the Entente , and Germany forced Denmark to partially block the Great Belt Strait with mines ^[5] . At the end of the war, Norway, at the request of Great Britain, continued in its waters a minefield against German submarines ^[6] .

On the eve of a new world war, the Scandinavians continued to maintain neutrality ^[6] . On May 31, 1939, a non-aggression pact was signed between Denmark and Germany; Sweden and Norway rejected similar proposals, not feeling the threat behind the straits ^[7] . The Germans unsuccessfully tried to conclude an agreement with Norway, followed by a series of incidents: the City of Flint, an American merchant ship captured by the Cruiser Deutschland , was confiscated in October in Haugesund ; in late November, the Norwegians allowed the German ship Westerwald to enter the military port of Bergen ; On December 7–13, British vessels or chartered by the British, Thomas Walton, Deptford, and Herodfelia, were sunk in Norwegian waters by a German submarine ^[8] .

In January 1940, the British Foreign Secretary, Lord Halifax, stated that this was forcing Britain to extend the war to Norwegian territorial waters. ^[8] It was decided to develop a plan to capture ports on the Norwegian coast, in particular Narvik , from which it was possible to occupy Swedish mines, and also to come to the aid of Finland , defending against the Soviet Union ^[9] . The French , after the Gelb plan “flew” to them , were interested in opening a second front to divert the forces of the Wehrmacht ^[9] . At one of the receptions with the participation of journalists from the Scandinavian countries, Churchill , as if in passing, said: “Sometimes you could wish for the northern countries to be on the opposite side, and then you could capture the necessary strategic points.” “One gets the impression,” the future UN Secretary-General Trygve Lee wrote about this event, “that Churchill made his statement with the clear intention to make it reach the ears of the Germans” ^[10] . Corps were created for shipment to the Balkans and Narvik ^[11] .

For the Germans, Norway was both the key to the North Sea and the transit of Swedish ore; The commander in chief of the Kriegsmarine, Grand Admiral Erich Raeder, especially insisted on its capture ^[12] . On December 14, 1939, the Wehrmacht command received a task from Hitler to investigate the possibility of capturing Norway ^[13] . Initially, the General Staff was skeptical of the necessity and possibility of fulfilling this goal, however, on January 27, a separate headquarters was created to develop a plan code-named "Teachings on the Weser" ( German Weserübung ) ^[14] . The incident with Altmark on February 16 weakened the position of opponents of the operation, and from that moment preparations for it were forced ^[15] . On February 24, the headquarters of the 21st Corps, under the leadership of General Nikolaus von Falkenhorst, began a detailed development of the operation ^[16] , and after 5 days he had already submitted to Hitler a finished project ^[17] . The principal feature of the plan was the desire to carry out lightning-fast simultaneous landings in key cities, if possible without the use of weapons ^[18] . Raeder advised to carry out the landing until April 7, that is, before the end of the polar night ^[19] . At the meeting on April 2, Hitler appointed the ninth day as “Weser Day” (landing) ^[19] . Contacts were established with the leader of the unpopular Norwegian party National Unity ( Norwegian Nasjonal Samling ) Vidkun Quisling , although this did not affect the conduct of the military operation ^[20] .

Soviet-Finnish War

After the Soviet attack on Finland (November 30, 1939), the allies of the anti-Hitler coalition, as well as neutral Sweden and Norway, considered it necessary to intervene in the war to help Finland repel the attack.

Norway

The Norwegian armed forces consisted of a land army ( Norwegian Hæren ) and a naval force ( Norwegian Sjoforsvarets ). King Haakon VII was the supreme commander, however, in the event of war, the army commander became the commander in chief, which since 1931 was Critstian Laak . The naval forces of Norway were commanded by Admiral Henry Dizen. Aviation was not considered a separate branch of the army and was "divided" between the army and the navy. As a result of the global economic crisis of 1929, the Norwegian Kingdom’s military spending was greatly cut back and amounted to only £ 2.5 million in the early 1930s. In 1938, Norway was in second place in Europe in terms of the relative size of the military budget - 11%. The unwillingness of the deputies of the Storting (the Norwegian parliament) to allocate large sums for the army was explained by the fear that a sharp increase in the army would be perceived as a desire to help one of the parties in the coming war ^[10] .

Third Reich

Initially, the operation was planned on the basis of a simultaneous attack on the Western Front , so the minimum number of ground units was allocated for it: the 3rd Mountain Rifle Division, Major General Eduard Dietl and some reserve regiments ^[21] . Later it was decided to divide the operations by time in order to preserve operational and political freedoms, and therefore significant forces were given to the northern campaign. The first echelon on the Norwegian coast was to land the 69th and 169th Infantry and 3rd Mountain Rifle Divisions; the second - the 181st and 196th ; the third is the 214th ^[18] . Although violation of the neutrality of yet another country was politically undesirable, the operation also included the capture of Denmark: to supply the “Norwegian” landing force, airfields of Jutland were needed; it was necessary to ensure the safe movement of sea transport along the Danish Straits ^[21] .

For the operation, almost all the ships of the military and merchant fleets of the Reich were used ^[22] . It was planned to unload transport vessels in the seized ports immediately after landing, therefore the vessels for Narvik had to leave 6 days before the “Weather Day” ^[17] . Warships could go out 3 days later, so that the point of no return to the beginning of the operation came just at that moment ^[17] . For the first time, the Kriegsmarine was able to transport large land units, so submarines were used to cover the landing and attacks against the possible counter-landing ^[23] . The surface fleet already suffered significant losses and now had the following forces: the battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau , the pocket battleship Lutz , 2 heavy and 4 light cruisers, 14 destroyers , 7 torpedo boats ^[24] .

The Luftwaffe was instructed to: transport paratroopers and ground units to Aalborg , Oslo , Kristiansand , Stavanger and Bergen ; defend ships and provide air assault support to the Wehrmacht ^[25] . These tasks were assigned to the 10th air corps of Lieutenant General Geisler ^[26] . It included the 4th, 26th, 30th combat squadrons , the 100th group of the combat squadron, 3 anti-aircraft squads, a paratrooper battalion, 7 air transport groups, one land and sea transport squadron ^[26] .

The areas of responsibility were divided as follows: naval group Vostok ( Admiral Rolf Karls ) - command on the water to Skagerrak ; Naval Forces Group West ( Admiral Alfred Saalwahter - command in the North Sea and Norwegian waters; 21st Corps (General Falkenhorst) - in Norway after landing; 31st Corps ( Kaupish Aviation General) - operations in Denmark; 10- The 1st air corps (Lieutenant General Geisler) - support for the ground and naval forces in Norway and Denmark ^[27] .At the same time, both naval groups were directly subordinated to OKM , the 31st Army Corps - 21st Corps, 10th Air - Command Air Force ^[27] .

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