Chapter 958 "Exercise Weser"

For Hitler, the Battle of Poland was a gamble, and he won the gamble.

Most of the German forces were engaged in the Polish operation, and on the Western Front, only a small number of covering troops were symbolically deployed in the face of the overwhelming superiority of the 70 divisions of the French Army and a small part of the British Expeditionary Force.

Although this danger was obvious, Hitler accurately predicted that if he invaded Poland, the Allies would not take any action. Once Poland was captured in early October, Hitler was free to turn his attention to the campaign on the Western Front.

However, the fighting in Eastern Europe was far from over, and although Germany was not directly involved, the Winter War of 1939-1940 was also a direct consequence of the German victory in the invasion of Poland.

At that time, there was a dangerous belief in Britain that the war might be resolved in a more peaceful way, avoiding unpleasant events such as actual firefights. True, both sides have their own losses at sea. In September, the British aircraft carrier HMS Brave was torpedoed by German troops and sank; In October, the battleship "Royal Oak" was attacked and sunk by a German submarine in Scapa Bay. However, the German Navy's pocket battleship "Count Spee" was also attacked by British ships and was finally forced to sink itself, which to some extent leveled the two sides. In Britain, there is a growing impression that the entire maritime conflict has been a sad misunderstanding since the passenger liner Athena was torpedoed and sunk within hours of the declaration of war between the two sides.

Chamberlain believed that as soon as the German people "realized that they could not win this war", they would naturally break away from their Führer, and perhaps by that time other German politicians, such as Field Marshal Goering, would run to England to sue for peace. Therefore, Chamberlain was reluctant to accept any proposal to act against Hitler.

At the same time, Britain printed 18 million leaflets, which were distributed to Germany by the Royal Air Force, pointing out Hitler's criminal deeds to the German people. In carrying out its mission, the British Air Force was strictly required not to cause any damage to the private property of the German people, even in the event of an attack. There is no doubt that the Royal Air Force often suffered losses in order to maintain this chivalrous self-control.

When winter came, the British expeditionary force, some 400,000 men, crossed the English Channel and entered positions near Arras and Lille on the Franco-Belgian border, where they built ammunition depots and dug trenches. In December, when Major General Montgomery inspected his division, Chamberlain asked, "I don't think Germany has any intention of attacking us, don't you think?" The general's answer is not recorded, however, this idea of the British Prime Minister reflects the general thinking of the British population. This kind of thinking is also popular in France, especially at the French decision-making level.

In France, the generals were convinced that they were in an advantageous position in the war. After the end of World War I, France spent billions of francs to build a border defense, the Maginot Line. The Maginot Line, which stretched from the Swiss border to the Belgian border, was lined with a number of well-constructed fortifications. By design, conventional offensive operations would not be able to breach the Maginot Line. The Maginot Line was defended by more than 400,000 troops and could be supplemented by large numbers of men from France. However, for political reasons, the line did not extend to the Belgian border. Most of the forts along this line are disconnected, and many were built before the First World War.

Britain and France still believed that an all-out war with Hitler could have been avoided. For this reason, when Poland was attacked by the Germans, Britain and France did nothing to relieve the pressure on Poland. This was both astonished and comforting to many senior German officers, who revealed after the war that a forced attack by Britain and France on the Saar region in the first month of the war would meet with little resistance, and that it was likely to lead to an early rise against the Nazi Party and its Führer, Hitler. …,

Yet nothing happened. After the defeat of Poland, the German army, which had been tested on the battlefield and baptized by war, quickly moved from the east to the western line of defense, that is, the Western Wall. The Germans did not take action after being stationed on the Western Front, and the opposing sides exchanged angry eyes and hurled insults at each other through loudspeakers on a daily basis.

But other than that, neither side has taken substantive action. However, in Hitler's creed, defense had no place at all, and behind the lines, the Germans were massively increasing their forces and actively preparing for the next even more brutal battle.

The Allies expected Germany to invade France according to their standard plan. The so-called standard plan was developed by the German General Alfred. Feng. The "Schlieffen Plan", first proposed by Count Schlieffen at the beginning of the 20th century, was conceived to attract the main forces of the French field army to the battle in Alsace, and then the main German forces quickly advanced from the Low Countries, attacking the flanks and rear of the French army, forcing it to retreat to Paris!

To counter this plan, the Allies planned to advance their forces to Belgium and the Netherlands, establish the Deere Line, and use the natural obstacle of numerous waterways in the region to stop the German advance.

However, Belgium and the Netherlands insisted on strict neutrality, which meant that the military leaders of the two countries did not dare to engage with France and Britain on the coordination of defense plans.

As a result, the British and French armies were also unable to build forts in their expected combat positions. While the Allies were building defensive positions conservatively, Germany was massively massing invading forces behind the "Siegfried Line". On the long border from northern Holland to Switzerland, the Germans amassed more than 2 million men, including 104 infantry divisions, 9 motorized divisions, and 10 armored divisions.

The last time the Germans invaded France was in 1914, when the Germans attacked Paris in one fell swoop, but they were eventually repulsed and forced to engage the French in a bloody trench war that lasted for four years. And this time, the blitzkrieg will ensure a different ending.

This time, the Germans were to break through the main positions of the enemy's line within a week. In two weeks' time, Britain would withdraw its troops and France would be at Hitler's mercy. The humiliation suffered by Germany in 1918 would be avenged - revenge for the First World War, which was the main strategic objective established by Hitler, not by the German General Staff. However, before Hitler's Wehrmacht could defeat the German enemy of the First World War era, the Germans must first secure their flanks and take control of the Scandinavian countries and the Low Countries.

When Hitler invaded Poland in September 1939, the Germans left only a small covering force on the Western Front to deal with the 70 divisions of the French army, supported by 3,000 tanks. In addition, the French army had absolute air superiority. As long as the French Air Force was ordered to enter the war. Hitler had a feeling that France was not going to act, and this instinct paid off. When a small British expeditionary force crossed the sea to northern France, the huge French army had been sitting quietly and watching.

This "false war" lasted from the winter of 1939 to the following spring, until the Germans invaded Denmark and Norway before the Allied landings in Northern Europe were carried out. It was only on May 10, eight months after the outbreak of the war, that Hitler began to use troops on the Western Front.

Although Germany had been working on a plan for an invasion of Scandinavia since the early 1940s, Hitler had always regarded this plan as a necessary means of preparation as a precautionary measure, and had no intention of putting it into practice. In April 1940, the need to implement this plan became apparent.

On April 8, British Admiralty Secretary Winston. Churchill's announcement that the Royal Navy would lay mines in Norwegian waters was clearly aimed at cutting off iron ore shipping lines from the northern Norwegian port city of Narvik to Germany. This blatant violation of Norway's neutrality rests on the strange reason that Germany might act even more excessively to undermine Norway's neutrality. Since Norway had always maintained a distinctly friendly neutrality, this move made an odd impression on many Britons. Even more bizarre, however, was the morning news the next day. …,

Hitler's first attention to Norway was during the Soviet-Finnish Winter War, when British and French reinforcements and relief supplies could pass through Narvik to the northeastern Swedish port city of Luleå, which would cut off the supply of iron ore to Germany. Until then, Hitler's attention on the Western Front had been focused on the Low Countries, but seeing that the Allies might take advantage of the danger of Norway controlling Germany, and the benefits that capturing Norwegian ports and controlling the Norwegian coast would bring to the German Navy, he ordered an invasion of Northern Europe, codenamed "Exercise Weser".

After the incident on the "Altmark" on February 16, Hitler ordered to speed up the development and revision of the plan for the "Weser exercises". Two days later, Hitler authorized von . General Falkenhorst and his staff commanded the operation. Perhaps a trick of fate, Hitler decided at the end of March to launch the attack, at dawn on April 9, the day after Churchill announced the mine-laying order.

As a result, Germany's response to the Royal Navy's minelaying in Norwegian waters, whether or not it blatantly undermined Norway's neutrality, was incredibly swift in the eyes of the outside world. With the beginning of the invasion of Denmark and Norway, the German High Command released such a message to the press: "In order to crush the British attempts to undermine the neutrality of Denmark and Norway, the Wehrmacht is taking over the military defense of both countries. ”

The first step in the German invasion was to occupy Denmark and use it as a springboard for an advance into Norway. At the start of the war in April 1940, the Danish army had just over 14,000 men, of whom 8,000 were temporarily conscripted in February and March!

The Danish soldiers had a low level of training, little to no armored units.

At 5 a.m. on April 9, German paratroopers successfully landed at the unmanned Madeniso Fort and Allerborg airfield.

At 6 o'clock, a battalion of German infantry, hidden in a merchant ship in the port of Copenhagen, burst out of the shadows in an attempt to capture the Danish king and members of his government.

Two divisions of the German 21st Infantry Corps also crossed the border into Jutland.

Due to the disparity in strength, the Danish army barely put up any resistance, except for a brief exchange of fire with the Germans in the North Schleswig area to protect the Royal Palace in Copenhagen!