Hitler’s Pre-Emptive War: The Battle for Norway, 1940 by Henrik Lunde (popular e readers .TXT) 📗

risk of discovery increased when the troops and shipping for the operation began assembly in the north German ports of Stettin, Hamburg, Wesermünde, Cuxhaven, Swinemünde, and Wilhelmshaven. Any intelligence forces monitoring German troop dispositions would have had ample reason to suspect that an important operation was underway.

Betrayal

Admiral Canaris, Chief of the Abwehr, was an opponent of Hitler and his policies, and that included the Scandinavian operation. Colonel Hans Oster, Chief of Staff at the Abwehr, was the center of Abwehr opposition and more aggressive than his superior in his anti-Hitler activities. Both eventually paid for their actions with their lives. Oster and others hoped to remove Hitler and come to an understanding with the British. They believed that a confrontation with the Allies in Scandinavia would harden British determination and make it difficult or impossible to arrive at an agreement. With respect to this issue, the views of the opponents of Hitler in Germany paralleled those of Prime Minister Chamberlain and Lord Halifax in Great Britain.

As a last resort Colonel Oster and his associates decided to leak information about the impending operation as soon as they had certain knowledge about its details. They may have felt this treasonous act as being justified by their belief that they were acting for the greater good of their country. They hoped that their warnings would lead the British and Norwegians to take countermeasures that would spoil the German operation, or plans for that operation. They anticipated that the Germans would detect active Norwegian and British preparations to meet the threat and therefore cancel the operation. To this end, Colonel Oster passed information about the operation to his contact in the Vatican and to his friend Major Gijsbertus J. Sas, the Dutch Military Attaché in Berlin, on April 3. Oster informed Sas that the German invasion of Norway and Denmark would take place early the following week (April 8-10) and asked that this information be passed to the Norwegians, Danes, and British.3

The information was passed to the Dutch War Ministry in two messages on April 3 and 4. Sas had a casual friend at the Norwegian Embassy, Councilor Ulrich Stang. Sas met Stang at the bar in the Adlon Hotel in the afternoon of April 4 and they had lunch together. Sas told Stang the Germans would invade Norway and Denmark on Tuesday (April 9) and that the attack in the west was sure to follow in short order. Stang dismissed the warning, stating that he did not believe it. Both Deutsch, in his book, and Roger Manvell and Heinrich Fraenkel, in their book, write that Sas did not know that Stang was a Quisling follower and claim that Stang never forwarded the warning to Oslo.4

Sas also informed Commander Kjølsen, the Danish Naval Attaché in Berlin, who forwarded the warning to the government in Copenhagen by courier, concluding that it was an OKW plant. His superiors in Denmark apparently shared this conclusion. Kjølsen met Arne Scheel, the Norwegian Ambassador in Berlin, the same day (April 3) and told him about the conversation he had with Major Sas. While Kjølsen’s report to Scheel was less precise than Sas’ statement to Stang, it is obvious that both the Norwegian Ambassador and his Councilor received clear warnings of an impending German attack.

In 1945, the Norwegian Investigative Commission looked into what the Norwegian Embassy did with these warnings. Scheel’s explanation was never obtained since he died during the war. Scheel sent the following message to the Foreign Office in Oslo on April 4:5

The military attaché at one of the neutral nations legations here has today—in strict confidence—stated to one of the Legation’s officials that according to information he had received from a responsible source, one should expect an attack on Holland in the near future, possibly already next week…. The Legation repeats the above—with all possible reservations—because the military attaché in question is known as a sober minded and well-informed man, and this Legation does not wish to fail to report the matter. The military attaché also hinted at a German invasion of Denmark with the intention of acquiring air and submarine bases on the west coast of Jutland.

The report failed to mention the warning about a German invasion of Norway on April 9. Another message the next day (April 5) from the Norwegian Embassy in Berlin read:

The same report that is treated in my message 683 (above) was also received by the Danish Legation, which also heard rumors about occupation of points on the southern coast of Norway. The objective of the attacks that the rumors deal with was to step up the tempo of the war and to forestall the Allies.

Again, there is no mention of the direct warning from Major Sas about a full-scale invasion. The message on April 5 is obviously based on Scheel’s conversation with the Danish Naval Attaché. The 1945 Investigative Commission concludes that Sas’ report to Stang was forwarded in a misleading manner and that Scheel’s report of his conversation with Kjølsen was only “a weak echo” of what was actually said. It is possible that Stang only reported to Scheel that part of the conversation with Major Sas that dealt with the anticipated attack in the west and possible moves against Denmark, conveniently leaving out the part that dealt with a direct attack on Norway.

Dutch intelligence ignored Sas’ request to inform the British. Sas was not aware that his information was not forwarded to its intended recipient. If he had known, he may have employed other means to get the intelligence to the British. The failure to pass the information to the British intelligence and the failure of the Norwegian Embassy in Berlin to forward all the information it received to Oslo may not have changed the lethargic behavior of the two governments since other signs of impending events were ignored, discounted, or misinterpreted. However, it is possible that if the information had reached the right people, precautions could have been taken in London and Oslo that