Hitler. 1936-1945: Nemesis полностью

It became clear in early 1940 that, before the western offensive could be launched, it was imperative to secure control over Scandinavia and the northern sea passages. A key consideration was the safeguarding of supplies of Swedish iron-ore, vital for the German war-economy, which were mainly shipped through the port of Narvik in the north of Norway. Hitler had acknowledged to Raeder as early as 1934 how essential it would be for the navy to guarantee the iron-ore imports in the event of war.¹⁹ But he had shown no actual strategic interest in Scandinavia until the first months of 1940. Alongside the need to secure the supplies of ore went, in Hitler’s mind, the aim of keeping Britain off the European continent.²⁰ The navy itself had developed no operational plans for Scandinavia before the outbreak of war. But as the prospect of war with Britain began to take concrete shape in the later 1930s, naval planners started to weigh up the need for bases on the Norwegian coast.²¹

Once war had started, the navy leadership, not Hitler, took the initiative in pressing for the occupation of Denmark and Norway. In October, and again in early December 1939, Raeder, elevated the previous April to the rank of Grand-Admiral, stressed to Hitler the importance to the war-economy of occupying Norway. Eventually, after introducing him to Norwegian nationalist leader Vidkun Quisling on 12 December, Raeder persuaded Hitler to agree to an exploratory study by the High Command of the Wehrmacht for the occupation of Norway. Increasingly worried by the possibility of being pre-empted by British occupation (under the pretext of assisting the Finns in the war against the Soviet Union), Raeder continued to lobby Hitler for early action. In January, he instructed the naval leadership to prepare an operational plan. Hitler became seriously alerted to the danger of Allied intervention in Norway after the Altmark, carrying around 300 Allied merchant seamen captured in the south Atlantic, had been raided on 16 February in Norwegian waters by a boarding-party from the British destroyer Cossack, and the prisoners freed.²² Now the matter became urgent for him. Five days later he sent for General von Falkenhorst, known to have experience of Finland from the First World War. This sufficed for Hitler to put him in charge of the preparations for ‘Weser Exercise’. To retain maximum secrecy, Falkenhorst was initially given no documents or maps to help him plan the operation. Instead, he bought himself a Baedecker of Norway, retired to a hotel room, and returned in the afternoon with proposals that Hitler accepted.²³ Rumours, passed on by the German embassy in Stockholm, of a major British action in the near future, made plain that there was no time to lose. On 1 March Hitler put out the directive for ‘Weserübung’ (‘Weser Exercise’).²⁴ Two days later, he underlined the urgency of action in Norway. He wanted an acceleration of preparations, and ordered ‘Weser Exercise’ to be carried out a few days before the western offensive.²⁵ As fears of a British occupation mounted throughout March, Raeder finally persuaded Hitler, towards the end of the month, to agree to set a precise date for the operation. When he spoke to his commanders on 1 April, Hitler closely followed Raeder’s lines of argument. The next day, the date for the operation was fixed as 9 April.²⁶ Within forty-eight hours it was learnt that British action was imminent. On 8 April British warships mined the waters around Narvik.²⁷ The race for Norway was on.²⁸

The Allied mine-laying gave Germany the pretext it had been waiting for. Hitler called Goebbels, and explained to him what was afoot while they walked alone in the grounds of the Reich Chancellery in the lovely spring sunshine. Everything was prepared. No worthwhile resistance was to be expected. He was uninterested in America’s reaction. Material assistance from the USA would not be forthcoming for eight months or so, manpower not for about one and a half years. ‘And we must come to victory in this year. Otherwise the material supremacy of the opposing side would be too great. Also, a long war would be psychologically difficult to bear,’ Hitler conceded. He gave Goebbels an insight into his aims for the conquest of the north. ‘First we will keep quiet for a short time once we have both countries’ — Denmark and Norway — ‘and then England will be plastered (bepflasteri). Now we possess a basis for attack.’ He was prepared to leave the kings of Denmark and Norway untouched, as long as they did not create trouble. ‘But we will never again give up both countries.’²⁹