Operation Weserubung

A short introduction to the German invasion of Norway 1940.
* An hour before midnight 8. April 1940, the Norwegian security vessel "Pol III" was on a patrol in the Oslo fjord, when it discovered unidentified ships in the horizon. A few minutes later it was rammed and shot at by a German torpedo boat. The invasion of Norway had started.
In february 1940, General Nikolaus von Falkenhorst (Kn.Cross 30.04.1940) was given the important task to plan the invasion of Norway. He was to invade both Denmark and Norway as quickly as possible. In five hours he had made a rough sketch of the invasion, presented it to Hitler, and was given order to proceed developing his plans.
Falkenhorst reported back in March, that all the units in heer, luftwaffe and kriegsmarine was now ready for attack.
The Kriegsmarine was to attack 6 major cities in Norway (Oslo, Bergen, Trondheim, Kristiansand, Egersund and Narvik.)

The kriegsmarine used the following warships to attack Norway:

1. Gneisenau, Scharnhorst and 10 destroyers headed for Narvik. 4 u-boats nearby.
2. Hipper and 4 destroyers headed for Trondheim. 2 u-boats nearby.
3. Koeln, Koenigsberg, Bremse, Carl Peters, 2 torpedoboats and 5 MTB`s headed for Bergen. 5 u-boats nearby.
4. 4 minesweepers headed for Egersund.
6 u-boats near Egersund and Kr.sand.
5. Karlsruhe, Tsingtau, 3 torpedoboats and 7 MTB`s headed for Kristiansand, and later Arendal.
6. Blucher, Lutzow, Emden, 3 torpedoboats and 8 minesweepers headed for Oslo.

You can find more information
about the attacking kriegsmarine here.

Luftwaffe would, by the end of the invasion, have participated with 1082 aircrafts.
By the end of 9. April, there would be about 16 000 German soldiers on Norwegian soil.
Operation Weserubung was to be the first major combined operation where the army, navy and air force was joined together.
The whole operation was directly under Hitler's special high command- Oberkommando der Wehrmacht. This was also a new strategy, as the earlier campaigns was led by the army's high command.
The operation depended on the enemy to be surprised and quickly surrender. Any interference from the Allies would destroy the whole invasion, and probably led to the totally destruction of the kriegsmarine.
The attack caused much confusion among the Norwegian defenders, and their resistance was halted by the Norwegian government who misunderstood the situation and bad luck. In Narvik was the 40 years old Norwegian panzer ships "Norge" and "Eidsvold" sunk within a short time, and 276 Norwegians died. Narvik surrendered shortly after.
In Trondheimsfjorden was Agdenes fort ready for battle, as they received messages from both Bergen and Oslo where the invasion already had started. However, the fort was unable to stop the enemy, because of their high speed, and 3 hours later Trondheim surrenders. In Bergen the forts was able to damage 3 ships, but that was not enough to prevent the surrender that came within hours.
In the Oslofjord, the men on the Oscarsborg fortress was able, with their near antique guns, to sink the cruiser Blucher. The rest of the fleet awaited the invasion, because they thought the fjord was full of mines, and had to put the troops on land much further away from the capitol than planned, hence the King, Storting and the government was able to escape the Germans.
It should go 2 months before Norway finally surrendered. The Operation Weserubung was finally over.
*

A group of relieved soldiers safely landed on Fornebu. It should go
2 months before they really could cheer up.
*
Facts: The Norwegian army was probably mobilized with 50-55 000 men during Operation Weserubung. Early morning 9. April, the government decided mobilization of Norwegian soldiers. However, misunderstanding led to the order that every soldier was to receive this by mail! It took many days to mobilize the army because of this terrible mistake.

Not only the King and government manage to escape, but also the gold reserves in Norges Bank. 50 tons worth 240 million kroner (18 mill.£) was loaded into trucks and brought to Åndalsnes, and Molde, where it was shipped to Tromsø in small fishing boats, and from there brought to England. Finally it all ended in USA.

What about Denmark?
Denmark surrendered early morning the 9. April, they totally relied on the nonaggression pact they had with Germany. The invasion was only a few hours old, when the Danish Prime minister Thorvald Stauning officially surrendered Denmark to the Germans. 17 Danish soldier died, and 24 was wounded.

853 Norwegians , 4 400 Englishmen, and about 500 soldiers from France and Poland died during Operation Weserubung.
The Germans lost 3 700 men. In addition to this, they also lost 2 400 men during the transport to Norway.


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