A World at Arms (189 page)

241
On this, see also
DRuZW
, 2: 245–46. Note Jacobsen,
Vorgeschichte
, p. 29.

242
See also the detailed letter of the Minister of Finance, Schwerin von Krosigk, of Nov. 6, 1939, to Göring arguing against an offensive in the West (BA, R 2/24243).

243
DRu ZW
, 2: 241–44; Deutsch,
Conspiracy
.

244
Weinberg,
Foreign Policy, 1937–39
, pp. 384–85.

245
Klaus-Jurgen Muller,
Das Heer und Hitler, 1933–1940
(Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1969), pp. 675–76.

246
Ibid., pp. 459–67.

247
See
KTB OKW
, 1: 951–52.

248
The memorandum is printed in
Trial of the Major War Criminals before the International Military Tribunal
, 42 vols. (Nurnberg, 1947–49), 26: 466–86, and Jacobsen,
Vorgeschichte
, pp. 4–21. On the conference of Nov. 23 there is a whole series of reports, see
ADAP
, D, 8, No. 384;
Grosscurth Tagebuch
, p. 414; von Reichenau notes in BA/MA, N 372/22 and 29; von Waldau notes in BA/MA, Tagebuch von Waldau. A good summary in
DRu ZW
, 2: 249. Hitler’s comment that the German army had been built up for employment in war has numerous pre-war antecedents; see the von Rinte1en “Vermerk,” probably of April or May 1959, in BA/MA, N 433.

249
Ciano,
Diary
, 26 Dec, 1939, 2 Jan. 1940.

250
The U.S. also received such warnings, especially in November (Moffat Diary, 10–12 Nov. 1939, Moffat Papers, Vol. 43), and this was the basis of FDR’s offer of refuge in the U.S. to the Belgian and Dutch royal families on Nov. 11, 1939 (
FDR Letters
, 2: 953; cf. ibid., p. 971).

251
At one point Hitler thought it possible that Holland might be occupied peacefully (the way Denmark and Romania would be), while he always assumed that Belgium would fight (Jod I Diary, I Feb. 1940,
TMWC
, 28: 397–98; Hans-Adolf Jacobsen, “War die deutsche Westensive 1940 eine Praventivrnassahme?”
Wehrwissenschaftliche Rundschau
7 [1957], 288–89 n 62). The use of Dutch uniforms by German troops was a feature of German plans for the seizure of Holland at least from Nov. 1939 on (see “Besprechung beim Fuhrer am 20. November 1939, Abw.II Nr. 32/39 Chefs.” Imperial War Museum, AL 1933).

252
Inside the German government during the war, Raeder always called attention to his own role in pushing the invasion of Norway; after the war, he invariably blamed it on the British. There is a discussion of this issue by Patrick Salmon in Richard Langhorne (ed.),
Diplomacy and Intelligence during the Second World War
(Cambridge: Cambridge Univ.
Press, 1985), pp. 258–59. See also Loock,
Quisling, Rosenberg,
pp. 207 n 1, 271 n 1, n 5.

253
Carl-Axel Gemzell,
Raeder, Hitler und Skandinavien
(Lund: Gleerup, 1965).

254
A survey of the background in
DRuZW,
2: 190–96.

255
ADAP
, D, 8, No. 188; KTB Skl A, 6, 5 Oct. 1939,
BA/MA,
RM 7/5 f. 52–54; Dönitz memorandum “Sttitzpunkte in Norwegen,” 9 Oct. 1939,
TMWC,
34: 159–61; Raeder note of 10 Apr. 1944 on Boehm’s report in which Raeder refers to a letter from Admiral Carls and a discussion with him before the meeting with Hitler on Oct. 10, 1939, in BA/MA, Boehm Nachlass. it should be noted that all of these materials, as well as the Hitler-Raeder meeting of Oct. 10, date long before any German concern about an Allied action in Norway.

256
Text in Wagner,
Lagevorträge,
pp. 26–28. This edition is good for text and technical terms; the commentary is generally apologetic and often unreliable.

257
DRuZW, 2: 197–98; Loock,
Quisling, Rosenberg,
pp. 217–24, 230–34.

258
DRuZW, 2: 200; Rich,
Hitler’s War Aims,
2: 140. Commenting on Denmark and Norway to Goebbels on April 8, 1940, Hitler said that “we will never give up the two countries" (die beiden Länder geben wir nie wieder heraus) (Fröhlich, Goebbels Tagebücher, 4:102).

259
Some recent efforts to rehabilitate Quisling are not likely to be successful. A good account in Oddvar K. Hoidal,
Quisling: A Study in Treason
(Oslo: Norwegian Univ. Press, 1989), chaps. 9–10. Loock’s book remains very useful. As the German landing date approached, Quisling wanted to meet a German officer in Copenhagen so that he could provide details on the Norwegian army and indicate places which ought to be seized (Bürkner memorandum of 29 Mar. 1940, BA/MA, RM 6/72, f. 57–58). He met Lt.Col. Hans Pieckenbrock of OKW intelligence on April 4 (Hermann Boehm,
Norwegen zwischen England und Deutschland
[Lippoldsberg: Klosterberg, 1956], p. 63, claims this meeting was requested by the Germans).

260
Earl F. Ziemke,
The Gennan Northern Theater of Operations 1940–1945
(Washington: GPO, 1959), p. 46.

261
On the
Jan Wellem
and its use of the Soviet-provided naval base near Murmansk, see the documents in BAl MA, Case 20/3, PG 48804; KTB Skl A 8,2,5,9, 13 Apr. 1940, RM 7/11, f. 17,37–38,73–75, 123; RM 7/111, f. 117, 123; Walther Hubatsch,
Die deutsche Besetzung von Dänemark und Norwegen
1940 (Göttingen: Musterschmidt, 1952), p.111 (this book is useful only for operational details).

262
These fairy tales then had to be protected in later years. Note the warning of State Secretary von Weizsacker that an article on the military operations could not be published without revealing that the claim of having merely responded to British mining of Norwegian waters was false (von Weizsacker to Schumburg, 9 Jan. 1941, AA, St.S., “Aufzeichnungen tiber interne Angelegenheiten,” Bd. 2, JPD 1333; see also Loock,
Quisling, Rosenberg
, pp. 259–60). Raeder had been especially insistent that the Germans invade Norway after it became certain that the British were not going to do so (ibid., pp. 256–57).

263
KTB Skl, “Notiz für das Kriegstagebuch 1.4.40 über den Vortrag der Befehlshaber, Führer und Kommandeure über das Unternehmen ‘Wesertibung’,” BA/MA, M 1689, PG 33955; cf. KTB Skl A 7, 5 Mar. 1950, RM 7/10, f. 114.

264
Text in
ADAP
, D, 8, No. 644.

265
Churchill to Halifax, 14 Mar. 1940, PRO, FO 800/328, f. 424–26; Halifax answered that the location was bad for the exercise of British power (ibid., f. 428–29).

266
Henry Denham,
Inside the Nazi Ring: A Naval Attache in Sweden 1940–1945
(London: John Murray, 1984), p. 4; on the British intelligence failure, see
Kahn, Seizing Enigma
, p. 121.

267
Ziemke,
Northern Theater
, pp. 39, 60.

268
Ibid., map p. 50.

269
Ibid., pp. 51–52; see also Loock, pp. 281–83, 287–330.

270
The views expressed in the text are, in general, shared by Ziemke, Salewski, and Bernd Stegemann, the author of the relevant section of the German official history.

271
Hans-Adolf Jacobsen and Jürgen Rohwer, “Planungen und Operationen der deutschen Kriegsmarine im Zusammenhang mit dem Fall ‘Gelb’,”
Marine-Rundschau
57, No. 2 1960), p. 75;
DRuZW
, 2: 221-25. A document of 3o April 1940 appended to the British Cabinet minutes shows that the real change in Germany’s naval position as a result of the Norwegian operation was fully understood there (PRO,
CAB
65/6, f. 302).

272
The Times
, 5 Apr. 1940.

273
Some details, generally understated to make the best possible case for Sweden, in Lutz-h öft,
Deutsche Militärpolitik
, pp. 81–82; Wittmann,
Schwedens Wirtscha Jtsbeziehungen
, pp. 182–85, 187–95.

274
Note the Goebbels diary for 21 April 1940 where there is discussion of Norway as a “super-Singapore” against England (Fröhlich,
Goebbels Tagebucher
, 4: 121–23, also 9 July 1940, 4: 234).

275
On Greenland, Iceland, and the Faeroe Islands, see FRUS, 1940, 2: 343ff;
ADAP
, D, 9, No. 235; Donald F. Bittner,
The Lion and the White Falcon: Britain and Iceland in the World War II Era
(Hamden: Conn.: Archon, 1983); Stetson Conn and Byron
Fairchild, The Framework of Hemisphere Defense
(Washington: GPO, 196o), PP.45–56.

3: THE WORLD TURNED UPSIDE DOWN

1
Jacobsen,
Vorgeschichte
.

2
See the Memorandum of 21 Oct. 1940 on a conversation with the former Dutch Counsellor of Legation in Berlin, in NA, RG 165 (War Dept. G-2), Entry 77, Box 1428, File 6910 – Holland and Belgium; Moffat Diary, 7 May 1940, Moffat Papers, Vol. 44.

3
Chamberlain to Churchill, 16 Sept. 1939, quoted in Dilks, “Twilight War,” p. 67.

4
Gunsburg (
Divided and Conquered
) claims that the French learned from the Polish campaign, but see Patrick Facon and Arnaud Teyssier, “Les leçons de la campagne de Pologne vues par l’etat-major aerien français,”
Revue historique des armèes
161 (1985), 103–8. The best account of French strategy and its defects is Don W. Alexander, “Repercussions of the Breda Variant,”
French llistorical Studies
8, NO.3 (1974), 459–88. On the French air force, see A.D. Harvey, “The French Armée de l’Air in May-June 1940: A Failure in Conception,”
JCH
25 (1990),447–65.

5
The evolution of these plans can be followed in Gunsburg, chaps. 6 and 7, and Alexander, “Breda Variant”. On British-Belgian and French-Belgian staff contacts, see C 46, 1585/460/4, PRO, FO 371/30787,

6
See War Cabinet 47
³⁹
of 14 Oct. 1939, PRO, CAB 65/3, f. 123–27, War Cabinet 11940 of 10 May 1940, CAB 65/7, f. 58. On the German losses in airplanes during their overwhelming of the Dutch, see Kreis,
Air Base Defense
, pp. 66–69. On German terror bombing, see the material in Olaf Groehler’s contribution to Horst Boog (ed.),
The Conduct of the Air War in the Second World War: An International Comparison
(New York: Berg, 1992), pp. 282–83.

7
Anton Hoch, “Der Luftangriff auf Freiburg am 10. Mai 1940,”
VjZ
4 (1956), 115–44. The German fakery about this attack figured prominently in the 1943 publication designed to prove “Britain’s Sole Guilt for the Bombing War against the Civilian Population.” Germany, Auswärtiges Amt,
Weissbuch Nr. 8: Dokumente über die Alleinschuld Englands am Bombenkrieg gegen die Zivilbevölkerung
(Berlin: Deutscher Verlag, 1943).

8
Though not always reliable, a useful introduction is Hermann Gotzel’s edition of the memoirs of the key German airborne commander,
Generaloberst Kurt Student und seine Fallschirmjäger
(Friedberg: Podzun-Pallas, 1980). On the Louvain library, see Wolfgang
Schive1buch,
Die Bibliothek von Löwen: Eine Episode aus der Zeit der Weltkriege
(Munich: Hanser, 1988).

9
See War Cabinet 121(40) of 14 May 1940, PRO, CAB 65/7.

10
As in the case of Warsaw, the Germans insisted on unconditional surrender. See
KTB Halder
, 1: 322; KTB Skl A 9, 27 May 1940, BA/MA, RM 7/12. For the American intercept of the report on this by the Japanese ambassador in Paris, see Paris to Washington for Tokyo No. 434 of 28 May 1940, NA, RG 457, SRDJ 4519. A thoughtful account in Jan Vanwelkenhuyzen, 1940,
Quand les chemins se siparent: Aux sources de las question royale
(Paris: Duculot, 1988).

11
The British Minister in Paris, Sir Ronald Campbell, commented on May 27 in a letter to Lord Halifax: “The rot evidently started at the top” (PRO, FO 800/312, f. 72).

12
There is a balanced account in Brian Bond, “Leslie Hore-Belisha at the War Office,” in Ian F.W. Beckett and John Gooch (eds.),
Politicians and Defence: Studies in the Fonnulation of British Defence Policy
1846–1970 (Manchester: Manchester Univ. Press, 1981), pp. 110–31, which, however, omits reference to Hore-Belisha’s making the British army the only one in Europe which went into World War II no longer using horse transport. See also A.j. Trythall, “The Downfall of Leslie Hore-Belisha,”
JCH
16 (1981), 391–412.

13
Phipps to Halifax, 23 Mar. 1940, PRO, FO 800/312, f. 21–23.

14
On Reynaud’s firing of Alexis Leger, a key figure in the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, under her influence, see Erika Ostroyski,
Under the Sign of Ambiguity: Saint John Persel Alexis Leger
(New York: New York Univ. Press), pp. 144–46. See also Marc Ferro, Pitain (Paris: Fayard, 1987), pp. 63–64.

15
Note Martin Gilbert,
Winston S. Churchill
, Vol. 6:
Finest Hour 1939–1941
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1983), p. 385.

16
War Cabinet 121(40) of 14 May 1940, PRO, CAB 65/7.

17
Gilbert,
Churchill
chap. 21.

18
Hans Meier-Welcker, “Der Entschluss zum Anhalten der deutschen Panzertruppen in Flandern 1940,”
VjZ
2 (1954), 274–90. Hitler’s air force adjutant emphasized the importance attached to keeping the French from stabilizing a new front (Below, “Aufzeichnungen,” p. 152 [Irving’s excerpts, p. 52]). See also Hans-Adolf Jacobsen,
Dunkürchen
(Neckargemund: Scharnhorst, 1958).

19
The order to destroy the French and British forces in Flanders was also issued on May 24 (
ADAP
, D, 9, No. 427).

20
Very useful on this is the diary of the head of the German air force Operations Staff, “Tagebuch Gen. von Waldau, Chef Luftwaffenfuhrungsstab,” p. 14, in Munich, Institut für Zeitgeschichte.

21
ADAP
, 0, 9, No. 357.

22
See Williamson Murray,
Luftwaffe
(Baltimore: Nautical & Aviation Publ. Co., 1985), p. 42 .

23
David Fraser,
Alanbrooke
(New York: Atheneum, 1982), pp. 160–65; P. M. H. Bell,
A Certain Eventuality: Britain and the Fall of France
(Farnborough: Saxon House, 1974), pp. 21–29. Documents pertaining to the possible holding of a portion of Brittany are in PRO, WO 106/1713.