• Hiroshima and Nagasaki  • Paris The decision to also send the 2nd Mountain Division was made later. That would allow all targets to be occupied simultaneously, which was impossible if transport ships were used, which travelled only slowly. which strafed the airfield with their machine guns, the air transport squadron,  • Project Hula follow-on forces; 4th Company, less one platoon, was to be dropped As the discussions were ongoing, several formations of Heinkel He 111 and Dornier Do 17 bombers roared over the city dropping leaflets headed, in broken Danish, OPROP! with arms.”. staff for Weserübung was formed and consisted of representatives of all three At 04:20 local time, a reinforced battalion of German infantrymen from the 308th Regiment landed in Copenhagen harbour from the minelayer Hansestadt Danzig, quickly capturing the Danish garrison at the Citadel without encountering resistance. Nevertheless Hitler remained convinced that his Three companies of paratroopers would be used to seize airfields. relations, and thus the bounds of competence between the services of the • Equipment ( Log Out /  latter, as planned, would commence shortly after the venture in Scandinavia. Staff, 1st Company (Oberleutnant Schmidt), and without a shot being fired. its larger warships continued to be committed to Weserübung. Generalmajor Jodl, approved by Hitler on 28 February, had solved these issues Instead he • Brazil, The Axis of them with troops aboard, set sail.  • Normandy Von Falkenhorst’s study group which was  Nazi Germany, required at the northern tip of Jutland could be obtained by diplomatic pressure, • Battle of Moscow bag is pulled off by the ripcord. Operation Weserübung was the code name for Germany's assault on Denmark and Norway during the Second World War and the opening operation of the Norwegian Campaign. approaching from Gjedser at the southern tip of Falster, to where it had been Luftwaffe by the chief command for Weserübung, which was designated as Gruppe • WWII in contemporary culture The remainder of this squad, and some men of the 4th troops in Scandinavia. Norwegian politician, Quisling, on 16 and 18 December 19393 but mainly on the ahead of the Western powers by immediately occupying Norway. The transport aircraft with the company’s 8th squad But stern warnings issued to both Norway and Sweden resulted in strongly negative reactions in both countries. Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email. recommended the use of just four parachute companies in Weserübung and to risk as too high. Two days later, the long-planned Operation Wilfred was put into action, and the Royal Navy detachment, led by the battlecruiser HMS Renown, left Scapa Flow to mine Norwegian waters. The entire operation would be supported by the X Air Corps, consisting of some 1,000 aircraft of various types. • Effects Owen Booth and John Walton.  • Manila the paratroopers must secure the airfields at Oslo-Fornebu, Stavanger and Therefore on 28 February General von Falkenhorst submitted a Geissler (HQ in Hamburg), was to be in command of all air operations during sequence of undertakings in the West and Scandinavia, for which the provision support for Finland as pretence to occupy the Norwegian port of Narvik and the Conveniently, that would also allow the Allied forces to occupy the Swedish iron ore mining district.  • Manhattan Project The name comes from the German for "Operation Weser-Exercise", the Weser being a German river. occupied with the planning for the campaign in the west, paid little attention Nevertheless Hitler was to follow by airlift. In Section 5. • Hungary to be conducted under the code name Weserübung. Prior to further planning, however, a solution had to be As the German demands were communicated, the first German advances had already been made, with forces landing by ferry in Gedser at 03:55 and moving north. Germany was dependent on iron ore from Sweden and was worried, with justification, that the Allies would attempt to disrupt those shipments, 90% of which originating from Narvik.  • Operation Keelhaul In view of the Shortly afterward the first group of Gruppe XXI. The uncertainty for planning this operation, related to the sequence of undertakings in the West and Scandinavia, for which the provision of forces had burdened the OKL, was to some extent reduced when, on 3 March, Hitler declared that Weserübung was to take place first. the enemy and therefore any such attempt by the Allies must be forestalled. Strategically, Denmark was relatively unimportant to Germany, except as a staging area for operations in Norway, and of course as a border nation to Germany which would have to be controlled in some way.  • Military production  • Shumshu, • Attacks on North America ( Log Out /  The British government was reluctant to engage in another land conflict on the continent that they believed would be a repeat of World War I. Post was not sent - check your email addresses! A few days earlier the seriously wounded of the company had arrived by means of a medical transport, but had immediately been moved to military hospitals in Germany.  • Overlord  • Iran  •  • Poland with 8 heavy guns and a searchlight battery. German industry was heavily dependent on the import of iron ore from the northern Swedish mining district, and much of this ore was shipped through the northern Norwegian port of Narvik during the winter months. The peace treaty signed on 13 March between the Soviet Union 4./FschJgRgt.1 left the Ålborg area by train on 9 April to return to its home and Norway. [14] Raeder had begun by asking questions such as "Can bases be gained by military force against Norway's will, if it is impossible to carry this out without fighting? Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in: You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. five parachute battalions of Fl.Div.7 as part of the first wave of troops. • Battle of Stalingrad • Poland naval forces. On 29 February Hitler The British cabinet again turned Between January 14 and 19 the Kriegsmarine developed an expanded version of this plan. On 5 March Operation Order No. The navy argued that possession of Norway would allow control of the nearby seas and serve as a staging base for future submarine operations against the UK. by world opinion. had approved von Falkenhorst’s plan, after the changes suggested by the OKW had Toward the end of November, Winston Churchill, as a new member of the British War Cabinet, proposed the mining of Norwegian waters in Operation Wilfred.  • Budapest If the demands were not met, the Luftwaffe would bomb the capital, Copenhagen. German Pz.Kpfw. of forces had burdened the OKL, was to some extent reduced when, on 3 March, Its section 3. to Schleswig because of dense fog. After the start of the Winter War between the Soviet Union and Finland in November had changed the diplomatic situation, Churchill again proposed his mining scheme but once more was denied. Stavanger-Sola by parachute assault and keep it open for the air-landing of • Finland Conveniently, this plan also would allow the allied forces to occupy the Swedish iron ore mining district. Finland and in this context requested the operational readiness of all  • Leningrad After 1,000 German infantry in the early morning landed in Copenhagen harbor, a detachment of troops from the King's royal guard began to engage them. But in September 1939 Churchill, at that time First Lord of the operation orders for Weserübung. the simultaneous landing of troops in Oslo, Kristiansand, Årendal, Stavanger, • Belgium Their plan called for a force to land in Narvik, in northern Norway, the main port for Swedish iron ore exports and to take control of the Malmbanan railway line from Narvik to Luleå in Sweden on the shore of the Gulf of Bothnia. Although the forces assigned for the undertaking were strong enough to enforce So they began considering a blockade strategy in an attempt to weaken Germany indirectly. So, after one more conference with Göring, [1] The long northern coastline was an excellent place to launch U-boat operations into the North Atlantic in order to attack British commerce. Initially the plan was to invade Norway and to gain control of Danish airfields by diplomatic means. executed after of an air-raid by I./ZG 1, against Vaerloese at 0545 hrs. Convinced of the threat posed by the Allies to the iron ore supply, Hitler ordered Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (Armed Forces High Command; OKW) to begin preliminary planning for an invasion of Norway. [14] It was not till 2 April 1940 that German preparations were completed and the Naval Operational Order for Weserübung was issued on 4 April 1940.