Hitler’s Pre-Emptive War: The Battle for Norway, 1940 Read online

  By September 12, 1939, an outline plan, codenamed Catherine, was ready. In broad terms, it called for a force of two or three battleships, one aircraft carrier, five cruisers, a detachment of submarines, and two destroyer flotillas supported by a fleet of tankers and supply ships. The fleet was to remain in the Baltic for several months and it was assumed that Danish and Swedish bases would be available after the fleet had been there long enough to remove Scandinavian fears of the Germans. It was further hoped that the presence of the British fleet would cause Sweden, Denmark, and Norway to join the war on the side of the Allies.

  It is hard to understand the logic behind these assumptions. The opposite is more likely to have occurred. Sweden and Denmark could interpret the passage of a large fleet of warships through the narrow strait between them for attacking a state bordering the Baltic (Germany) as contrary to their international obligations. It is equally logical that forcing these approaches and seizing bases could bring Sweden and Denmark into the war on the side of Germany. Sweden would not have reacted kindly to having its trade with Germany and to other parts of Europe through Germany interrupted in this manner.

  Moulton writes that the plan should “not be dismissed too lightly,” although it seemed “in retrospect clumsy and improbable” because “it seemed to offer the prospect of a relatively easy and bloodless way of winning the war by stopping Swedish ore.”1

  That prospect was rather dim. The Germans could hurl at least 1,300 combat aircraft at the British ships from nearby bases. Moulton writes that the fleet was expected to operate in the Gulf of Bothnia, thereby placing it beyond the range of German bombers. However, to reach its destination, the fleet would have to make a long passage well within the range of German aircraft, and we can assume that the Germans would make every effort to ensure that the British fleet would not escape from what may well have become a deadly trap. The project shows that Churchill had not yet realized the effects of air power on naval operations, effects that proved enormously detrimental to operations in Norway within seven months. Furthermore, the Kiel Canal offered the Germans the opportunity to move ships between the North Sea and the Baltic without the use of the Baltic approaches.

  The plan seems not to have been supported by the Navy. Admiral Pound pointed out that several conditions would have to be met before the operation could be carried out: active Swedish support, no opposition from the Soviet Union, upgrading the ships to withstand air attacks, and an ice-free Baltic. The last two conditions postponed any possibility of carrying out Catherine until the following spring, while the first two had the practical effect of eliminating any prospect of launching it. Admiral Pound may have hoped that by spring Churchill would have turned his boundless energy to other projects.

  Iron Ore and Other Motives

  Churchill began looking around for other immediate opportunities to strike at the enemy. He advanced the idea that the British government should take immediate action to prevent German ships from using Norwegian territorial waters for transit to Germany. Most of Churchill’s colleagues agreed with his reasoning, but their respect for the neutrality of small states and their hope for a peaceful settlement with Germany prevented them from making an early decision. Churchill presented his views to the Cabinet on September 19, 1939.

  Churchill suggested that certain steps were necessary before a closing of the corridor within Norwegian territorial waters could be undertaken. First, the negotiations with the Norwegians for chartering their merchant fleet had to be completed. Second, in order to prevent a quarrel with the Swedish government, the British Board of Trade should arrange to buy that country’s iron ore, which would otherwise go to Germany.

  The suggestions advocated by Churchill proved to be more difficult to achieve than envisioned. Negotiations with the Norwegians for the use of their fleet had been underway since the war began. The Norwegians were aware of their fleet’s value, used it to obtain advantage, and dragged out the negotiations. A major agreement was signed in mid-November 1939, but many issues were not settled until March 1940. The Allies realized that any massive violation of Norwegian neutrality would end the negotiations. This consideration, the neutrality arguments, and the hope for a peaceful resolution of the war meant that Churchill’s ideas languished, although he provided the War Cabinet with a more detailed memorandum on September 29.

  In addition, there had been a marked decline in the iron ore traffic to Germany via Narvik. One contributing factor was that the crews of merchant ships were unwilling to sail through dangerous waters in wartime, but in addition the German decision-makers diverted some of the Narvik ore to Luleå to be stored. The shipments had declined from 457,482 tons in February 1939 to only 99,391 in February 1940. During the same period, the shipments to Great Britain had more than doubled. These figures, made public by the Norwegians, apparently gave Churchill some temporary concerns.

  Before submitting his more detailed memorandum to the War Cabinet on September 29, Churchill asked the Naval Staff to reconvene the committee on iron ore and look over his draft memorandum in order to insure that he was not completely off the mark. He wrote, “It is no use my asking the Cabinet to take the drastic action suggested against a neutral country unless the results are in the first order of importance.” He had heard that the shipment of iron ore from Narvik was much reduced and that the Germans were stockpiling ore in southern Sweden for shipment to Germany during the winter months. He wanted to know if these statements were true and stated, “It would be very unpleasant if I went into action on mining the Norwegian territorial waters and was answered that it would not do the trick.”2

  Since Churchill did submit his memorandum to the War Cabinet on September 29, it seems that the Naval Staff dispelled some of his concerns. The memorandum takes note of the decline in shipments from Narvik, but urges more dramatic action if they start moving again. Churchill concluded that the prevention of the Narvik supplies would greatly reduce Germany’s power of resistance. By December 1939, he tried to convince his reluctant colleagues that the interruption of the ore coming through Norway could be decisive for the outcome of the war.

  Churchill was a man of vast knowledge and experience; however, it is difficult to square his stated views with realities. It was obvious to Churchill and his colleagues that mining Norwegian waters would stop only that portion of iron ore shipped via Narvik. Other efforts were required to achieve a great reduction in Germany’s warmaking power. However, stopping iron ore shipments along the Norwegian coast was for Churchill only a means to an end. It became obvious in the months after his initial flurry of memoranda dealing with the iron ore issue that he and a few other members of the British Government wanted to expand the war into Scandinavia, particularly Norway. To accomplish this, Germany had to be provoked. The mining of Norwegian territorial waters would serve as that provocation. The expected German counteraction presented possibilities for easy military victories because of the vast superiority of the British fleet, and would give the Allies reasons to occupy various parts of Norway. This would accomplish four important goals: 1) Stop the flow of ore along the coast; 2) Make the blockade of Germany more effective; 3) Increase the air threat to German Baltic and North Sea harbors; and 4) Bring Sweden under Allied influence. While these points remained unstated at the outset, they were undoubtedly the strategic reasons for the preoccupation with the flow of iron ore along the coast, the stoppage of which would only have a minor effect on German war industry.

  The belief that stopping German ore shipments from Sweden would be an immediate and decisive factor in the war was overstated. Germany’s import of high-grade iron ore from Sweden came mostly from deposits in the Kiruna and Gällivare regions of northern Sweden, while a small amount came from mines in central Sweden. From May to November, the ore from the Kiruna/Gällivare region reached Germany by sea via the port of Luleå at the northern end of the Baltic Sea (Gulf of Bothnia). This port was normally ice-bound from December to April and the ore was then shipped by rail to the
ice-free Norwegian port of Narvik. It was estimated that the Germans imported 22 million tons of iron ore in 1938. About nine and one-half million tons came from sources that were no longer available to Germany after the outbreak of war. The Allies estimated that another nine million tons came from Sweden.3 The scheduled deliveries to Germany for 1940, as specified in the German-Swedish agreement, were actually 10 million tons. The Swedes considered it necessary to ship two to three million tons of this commitment through Narvik.

  The Germans were prepared to ship about three million of the 10 million tons via rail to the ice-free port of Oxelösund or other ports in southern Sweden, provided arrangements were made for storage during the winter months.4 This would almost remove their reliance on Narvik as a shipping port. Churchill’s plans to sever the ore shipments from Narvik by mining Norwegian territorial waters would therefore have little impact on Germany’s receipt of Swedish iron ore, while risking driving Norway into the German camp. Churchill’s plans also risked alienating public opinion in neutral countries, particularly in the United States.

  One reason the Allies believed that the imports of iron ore from Sweden were all-important to Germany’s war industry can be traced back to statements made by the prominent German industrialist Fritz Tyssen, who lived in exile in Switzerland. He concluded that Germany would not be able to wage active war for more than one year if the supplies from Sweden were cut off. The Ministry of Economic Warfare appears to have endorsed Tyssen’s view without a detailed examination of its validity.

  The later years of the war demonstrated that the use of scrap iron, German domestic supplies of low-grade ore, and stockpiling had been severely underestimated. The German capture of the Lorraine fields in May 1940 reduced the importance of Swedish ore. However, while there is little doubt that a successful Allied invasion and seizure of the iron ore districts in northern Sweden would have led to acute shortages of high-grade ore in Germany, the likelihood of driving Norway, Sweden, and possibly the Soviet Union into the German camp was a high price to pay for this advantage.

  The Winter War and Contending Plans

  The outbreak of the Winter War between Finland and the Soviet Union on November 30, 1939 put the Scandinavian question in a new light. There was a strong desire in both France and Britain to help the Finns with volunteers and materiél. The only possible route for such help was through Norway and Sweden. The Allied Supreme War Council decided on December 19, 1939 to send help to Finland if requested.

  The Allied governments recognized that this new situation would give them a chance to interrupt Germany’s ore supplies. It would certainly be easy to prevent shipment of iron ore to Germany through Norwegian waters if Narvik became an Allied supply base for the Finns. However, Churchill was still arguing for the more limited action of mining Norwegian territorial waters. He hoped that the consequent interruption of iron shipments would lead to German counter-action and the opening of a new front where Allied naval superiority would lead to military victories. Furthermore, the British War Cabinet believed that German counter-action was likely to add Norway and Sweden to the Allied camp.

  Chief of the Imperial General Staff, General Edmund Ironside, was even more ambitious. He argued for the occupation of the Swedish mining districts. At the same time, he argued against mining Norwegian territorial waters since that would make a move against Narvik and the Swedish iron districts more difficult and could push the Norwegian government into alliance with Hitler. While this was a logical assumption, it appears that General Ironside did not recognize that direct aid to the Finns through Scandinavia—against the wishes of the Scandinavian states—and the occupation of the iron ore districts in Sweden could have a far graver repercussion, by pushing Josef Stalin, the Russian leader, into backing Hitler. To assume that the Swedish and Norwegian governments would acquiesce in the use of their territories for direct aid to the Finns, particularly since they were well aware of the real objective of the operation, was unrealistic, as events were to prove.

  Ironside’s plan, if successful, might stop Germany’s importation of Swedish ore, but it was ill-founded. In December 1939, a report from the intelligence division of the British War Office estimated that Germany would need 25–30 divisions for a successful invasion of Sweden and Norway.5 In spite of this, Allied war planners never considered using anything near that force level in their own plans in Norway and Sweden. At the most, they considered that only a few brigades were required and, if the Germans intervened, a force of no more than 150,000. Part of this force was also intended to aid the Finns in their campaign against the Soviet Union.

  Chamberlain and Halifax were still hoping for a change of leadership in Germany that could lead to peace, a chance that could be destroyed through aggressive actions in Scandinavia. However, members of their own party were demanding action, and the two leaders turned the differences in the plans of Churchill and Ironside to good advantage. Churchill’s more limited plan could be executed within a few days, but would not assist the Finns, while Ironside’s proposal would take months to prepare.

  In a memorandum dated December 16 and considered by the war cabinet on December 22, Churchill attempted to secure approval for his scheme of mining Norwegian waters. In this memorandum he states:

  The effectual stoppage of the Norwegian ore supplies to Germany ranks as a major offensive operation of the war. No other measure is open to us for many months to come which gives so good a chance of abridging the waste and destruction of the conflict, or of perhaps preventing the vast slaughters which will attend the grapple of the main armies… If Germany can be cut from all Swedish ore supplies from now onwards till the end of 1940, a blow will have been struck at her war-making capacity equal to a first-class victory in the field or from the air, and without any serious sacrifice of life. It might indeed be immediately decisive.6

  However, Churchill knew that the mining would not cut Germany off from all Swedish ore supplies and he was already thinking about submarine mining of the approaches to Luleå and sabotage action (“methods which be neither diplomatic nor military”) at Oxelösund.7

  The distinct possibility that the contemplated actions in Scandinavia would bring additional countries into the German camp and severely damage Allied reputations in the Dominions and among neutrals did not seem to worry Churchill. In a memorandum to the War Cabinet dated February 19, 1940, dealing with the stoppage of German traffic in Norwegian territorial waters, he wrote:

  Finally I do not hesitate to say that if the worst case came to worst and Norway and Sweden joined Germany and invited their troops into their country to protect them, a step which would be fatal to their independence and also extremely unpleasant for them at the time, even so, a state of war with Norway and Sweden would be more for our advantage than the present neutrality which gives all the advantages to Germany for nothing and imposes all disadvantages upon us. Germany would then have to defend and victual the Scandinavian peninsula, thus diverting her strength and consuming her strained supplies. Our blockade would become far more effective, and using sea-power we could easily supply ourselves with varying temporary bases on the Norwegian coast.8

  Some of these conclusions are certainly open to question. It is difficult to see how it would be more advantageous for the British to have the Scandinavian countries in the German camp rather than neutral. The loss of the large Norwegian merchant fleet and the raw materials coming from Norway and Sweden would certainly lead to a strained situation for the British, and seems a strange contention in view of Churchill’s emphatic statement two months earlier that “it cannot be too strongly emphasized that British control of the Norwegian coast-line is a strategic objective of first-class importance.”9 That the British forces would be able to establish and supply themselves at temporary bases on the Norwegian coast using sea power was a dangerous assumption.

  Furthermore, it was unlikely that the Germans would need to move any forces into Sweden for that country’s defense. What they needed to move into Norwa
y were primarily air and naval forces. This move, which was being urged by high officials in the German Navy, would immediately improve the German strategic position without a shot being fired.

  While Allied policy was shortsighted, the military planning for carrying it out was ineffective. The expeditionary force would risk facing not only Norwegian resistance but also that of Sweden, a country with a large citizen army that was better trained and equipped than that of its neighbor to the west. In addition, the expeditionary force could expect to meet the full fury of the German armed forces, as well as those of the Soviet Union if the Allies made good on their promise to help the Finns.

  It appears that the Allied policy makers had become so preoccupied with the importance of interrupting Germany’s importation of iron ore, and of embroiling that nation in military operations in Scandinavia, that they ignored realities and the obvious risks to themselves.

  Chamberlain and Halifax came down on the side of Ironside. In this way, they demonstrated willingness to aggressively pursue the war and to bring help to the Finns, while winning precious time for their desired peaceful solution to the war. Such action was also in line with Chamberlain’s well-known anti-Soviet views and the views of the military leaders that supporting the Finns was necessary not only to prevent a Soviet attack on Norway and Sweden but also to protect Allied interests against possible Soviet aggression in other areas of the world. Churchill, on the other hand, had expressed considerable understanding for the Soviet demands vis-à-vis Finland, and he viewed a war between the Scandinavian countries and the Soviet Union as an advantage to the Allies, since it would give them excellent reasons for establishing themselves in Scandinavia.10 A number of key Allied policy-makers believed that the landings could be carried out with the approval of Norway and Sweden and would therefore not be regarded by the United States and the Dominions as a breach of neutrality in the way that mining Norwegian waters almost certainly would be.