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

problem first at a Foreign Relations Committee session despite Koht’s protest that this would lead to delay.

Admiral Diesen and Defense Minister Birger Ljungberg met between 0900 and 1000 hours. Diesen recommended that the minefield in Oslofjord be laid as quickly as possible. This act required defense department approval. Commodore Corneliussen, the Admiralty Chief of Staff, was also present. He noted that the Hague Convention required that the mining by neutrals of their territorial waters had to be announced well beforehand and that it would present risks to merchant traffic since there was an insufficient number of patrol vessels available. Why this had not been recognized as a problem earlier is not explained. While two of the nine patrol boats assigned to the 1st Naval District were undergoing repairs, the district had eight torpedo boats and some of these could have filled the void temporarily. Ljungberg did not make a decision but said he would bring the matter to the attention of the cabinet. Diesen raised the issue again later in the day but he was never given authority to mine the approaches to Oslo.

A joint meeting of the cabinet and the foreign relations committee of the parliament began at 1000 hours, breaking up at 1130. This was about the time that the Norwegians began receiving reports of German naval units on a northerly course through the Great Belt and Kattegat. However, it appears that these events were not discussed. The focus was on what to do about the British mining operations. A decision was made to lodge strong protests against the Allied action and to clear the minefields. Diesen was ordered to prepare to sweep the mines. It was obvious to those present at this meeting that such action could draw Norway into the war, since clearing the minefields would probably lead to clashes with British forces; but if the steps announced were not taken the Germans would have good grounds to take strong measures. The underlying tone at this and subsequent meetings of the Norwegian Government on April 8 was that whatever happened, war with Great Britain was to be avoided. The instructions for clearing the minefields cautioned that force should not be used against overwhelming odds and that the navy should not engage in armed conflict with British destroyers near the minefields except in self-defense.

The Norwegian protest to the British and French governments was approved at a cabinet meeting that began immediately after the joint meeting of the cabinet and foreign relations committee broke up. The protests were sent to all Norwegian overseas embassies and released to the press at 1255 hours. The Parliament met in open session from 1715 to 1735 hours to hear a report by Foreign Minister Koht. He stated that the Allies were apparently trying to expand the war to Norway and reported on the protests that had been made. The parliament expressed unanimous support for the actions.

A closed meeting of the parliament started at 1800 hours and lasted until 1915. The Commander-in-Chief of the Navy, the Commanding General of the Army, and their respective chiefs of staff were present. There was a discussion about what do if the neutrality policy failed and Norway was forced to enter the war. This meeting also reached consensus that the Norwegian Government should seek to avoid being drawn into a war against the British. The results of the various meetings appear to give some authority to the conclusions reached by the various political and military leaders in Germany that the Norwegian Government was not willing to enforce its neutrality and that it would probably not offer any meaningful resistance to Allied attempts to occupy strategic points on the Norwegian coast. However, it should be borne in mind that occupation was a very different matter to the mining of waters, and it is possible that the Norwegian Government’s reaction to such an invasion would have been more forceful.

Warnings Received by the British

Operations Wilfred (the Allied mining of territorial waters) and R4 (the occupation of designated cities) were originally scheduled to begin April 5 but were postponed to April 8.

Part of the mining operation was carried out, so what of Allied plans to occupy portions of Norway? To answer this question we must go back and look at the intelligence received by the Allies about German movements, and the consequent decisions that were taken.

The British received many reports about concentrations of German forces in Baltic and North Sea ports. They also knew that a German intelligence collection ship, Vidar, was positioned off the Norwegian coast. The British decided to leave the ship alone in the hope of breaking the German radio code. As in the case of the Norwegians, the British did not properly piece together the various items of information arriving at the Foreign Office and the three services. This failure properly to coordinate, correlate and interpret the various warnings was a major blunder.

On March 26, the British Ambassador in Stockholm reported that the Germans had concentrated air forces and naval shipping in Baltic harbors and that their plans might involve the occupation of Norwegian air bases and ports. This was followed by a report by Admiral Darlan that the Germans had assembled shipping for an expedition against ports in southern Norway and Sweden. The Swedish military attaché in Finland, Curt Kempff, had a discussion with his German colleague on April 2 about the German activities in the Baltic. The German assured him that he had no knowledge about German plans in the Baltic and that all the activity had to do with Norway.10 A report of this conversation was forwarded to Stockholm and the Swedes provided the information to the British.

On April 3, the British War Office received a report that there was a large buildup of German troops near Rostock and that 200,000 tons of shipping had assembled in Stettin and Swinemünde with troops on board. Their alleged purpose was the invasion of Scandinavia. The British concluded that the Germans had taken these steps in