Hitler’s Pre-Emptive War: The Battle for Norway, 1940 (41 page)

Captain Spiller’s “Private War” Ends Negotiations

The event that caused the Norwegian Government and the royal family to flee to Elverum was a daring raid organized by the German air attaché to Norway, Captain Eberhard Spiller. Spiller and Captain Erich Walther, the commander of the two airborne companies that landed at Fornebu earlier in the day, had quickly organized an expedition using one company of German paratroopers. These troops were loaded on requisitioned buses and trucks and headed north, intermingled with the stream of civilians fleeing the capital. It was an independent attempt to capture the Norwegian Government and royal family in a lightning raid on Hamar. In 1945 von Falkenhorst referred to the raid as “Spiller’s private war,”
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and it seems that neither he nor Bräuer knew about or sanctioned Spiller’s action.

The Germans arrived in Hamar only to learn that the Norwegian authorities had continued their flight to Elverum and Spiller continued on towards that town. Major O. Helset, a Norwegian officer scraped together some Royal Guard recruits, officers attending a chemical warfare course, and local gun club members. This improvised force of 93 men met the Germans at Midtskogen, a narrow passage on the road between Hamar and Elverum. The defenders hoped to catch the Germans in a deadly crossfire but the plan could not be executed because the German column was intermingled with civilian vehicles fleeing Oslo. The Germans encountered the Norwegian defenses around 0230 hours on April 10 and withdrew after a sharp engagement. Nine Norwegians were wounded. The exact number of German casualties is not known, but Captain Spiller was fatally wounded.

The Norwegian Government and royal family were saved from capture for a second time in a 24-hour period, first by Colonel Eriksen’s guns at Oscarborg and then by a motley and hastily assembled group at Midtskogen. After the loss of Captain Spiller, Captain Walther abandoned the deep penetration and returned to Oslo.

The ability of the Germans to make such a deep penetration into Norway served to illustrate the weaknesses of the Norwegian defenses at this stage but it also had political fallout that worked against German interests. It demonstrated that the Germans could not be trusted since they had undertaken offensive moves despite a Norwegian stipulation to the contrary in their reply to the German request for a meeting. Furthermore, although it was only a minor skirmish, the action at Midtskogen boosted Norwegian morale in the same way as Colonel Eriksen’s action at Oscarborg. In their mind, a scratch force of trainees and gun club members had stopped and driven back a force of German paratroopers of equal size.

The Germans were still hoping for a political solution. Minister Bräuer broadcast an appeal to the Norwegians to cease all resistance. This took place at about the same time as he requested the meeting with the Norwegian Government and King. The parliament, when it reconvened at Elverum, gave the government full powers to take the decisions necessary to ensure the country’s security. It also designated a delegation to negotiate with the Germans. The officials also learned that Quisling had formed a government in Oslo.

Quisling met Hans Wilhelm Scheidt, Rosenberg’s personal representative in Norway, in the morning of April 9 and claimed that he was the only person who could fill the political vacuum created when the Norwegian Government fled. Scheidt passed the question to Berlin and Hitler agreed that same afternoon, disregarding Foreign Minister Ribbentrop’s reservations. Bräuer was instructed to cooperate with Quisling and to demand that the Norwegian king accept Quisling as Prime Minister. Quisling also made a broadcast at 1930 hours. He announced that he had seized the reins of government and ordered the people to cease all resistance.

The news of Quisling’s coup in Oslo and the German raid to capture the government and the king served to stiffen the Norwegians resolution to resist, not only among those assembled at Elverum but also among a public that had long looked upon Quisling with disdain. Dr. Bräuer traveled to Elverum on April 10. He demanded a one-on-one meeting with the king. The king declared that he would only negotiate if his foreign minister was present and this was agreed.

The German envoy repeated the earlier demands with the addition that the king should accept Quisling as his prime minister. For their part, the Germans guaranteed Norwegian sovereignty and the continuation of the monarchy. If the Norwegians refused these demands, the full power of the German armed forces would be used to break all resistance, causing needless bloodshed. The king told Bräuer that he could not, under his constitutional responsibilities, answer without conferring with the government. The German Ambassador returned to Oslo while the king met with the government.

In the meeting with his government, the king stated that he saw it as a breach of his constitutional duties to accept a government that did not have the people’s support. If the government felt it necessary to accept the German conditions, he would abdicate. The government decided unanimously to reject the German demands and this decision was telephoned to Bräuer while he was on his way back to Oslo.

The Germans changed their approach from persuasion to force. An air attack on Elverum, with the obvious goal of eliminating the government and the royal family, destroyed the town’s central district and caused 32 fatalities. While no officials were killed, the government and the royal family were forced to move to Otta and later to the town of Molde on the west coast. As in the case of Spiller’s raid and the appointment of Quisling as prime minister, the bombing only served to galvanize the Norwegian resolve to resist.

A New Norwegian Commander-in-Chief

Justice Minister Terje Wold met General Laake and his staff at the army headquarters on April 10 in what he describes as a defeatist setting. In this heated meeting, the officers accused the government of bringing on a catastrophe by its neglect of the defense establishment and its failure to heed earlier calls for mobilization. Laake, who did not have faith in Allied promises of timely support is alleged to have stated that the only choices open to the government were those of negotiation or capitulation. It was obvious that there had to be a change in the military leadership to energize defense measures after the rejection of Germany’s demands for a second time on April 10. The exhausted and sickly Laake understood the situation and offered his resignation, which was quickly accepted.

Colonel Otto Ruge, Inspector General of Infantry, had argued for resistance and he was now promoted to Major General and given the daunting task of trying to organize a defense to stop the Germans. Ruge accepted the appointment and his first priority was to orient himself on the exceedingly confused situation. He discovered that General Hvinden-Haug had ordered the mobilized parts of the 2nd Division to withdraw from its main defensive line along the Nittedal River north of Oslo. Ruge made it clear that he did not believe it possible to save eastern Norway.

The Germans were not pressing the 2nd Division and there was no apparent reason for it to give up the advantageous forward defensive positions. Spiller’s deep penetration in the division area had given rise to wild and unfounded rumors of other German units operating behind the Norwegian lines, which had precipitated this unfortunate withdrawal. In the process, two mobilization depots were left defenseless and one cavalry and one infantry regiment lost more than 50% of their personnel and equipment.

Before General Ruge could make any plans on how to cope with the Germans, he needed to get an overview of the military situation in South Norway. First, he needed to know what forces he had at his disposal. He also moved the army headquarters from its location in Rena, Østerdal to the more central location at Øyer in Gudbrandsdal.

Norwegian Mobilization Efforts

Many individuals designated for mobilization who lived in the country’s population centers awoke on April 9 to find that the Germans had taken control of their area and had captured the nearby mobilization centers. This threw mobilization into a state of chaos. Many of those who were liable for military service in the cities and towns captured by the Germans managed to slip away but ended up reporting for duty at mobilization centers other than those designated in the mobilization plans.

The Norwegian Government had a very liberal policy in granting exemptions from military service in the 1920s and 1930s. Untrained and sometimes medically unfit individuals now showed up at mobilization centers to offer their services, but they had no unit assignments and were not included on any mobilization rolls. While this feeling of duty to country was a laudable and positive development at the outset, problems developed. Since these men reported of their own volition, they felt no obligation to remain if they chose otherwise. Many came from social groups and families with strong anti-military views and a strong skepticism of military authorities.

A large number did not understand the reason for the chaos that accompanied an emergency mobilization under conditions where many population and mobilization centers were already under enemy control and others under threat of capture. They saw the confusion and disorder as proof of treason and sabotage and these rumors spread like wildfire. Lindbäck-Larsen writes that, in some units, the rumor-mongering tendencies began to disappear as units became organized but in others they lingered below the surface as “poisonous wells” that reappeared in times of hardships and reverses and contributed to the breakdown of esprit de corps, discipline, and the will to resist.

In North Norway, either most units were mobilized at the time of the attack with several months of active duty and some training behind them or they were able to complete mobilization almost according to plans. The units in the western part of the country and in Nord-Trøndelag were also able to mobilize in a somewhat orderly manner, but the greater cohesion and training found in North Norway were lacking. In other areas of the country, the fight was initiated after a very disorderly and improvised mobilization that resulted in under strength units with little cohesion.

Those mobilization depots not captured at the outset were located by the Germans and bombed heavily. While this was further disruptive to Norwegian mobilization, it did not halt the effort. The extent of disruption due to the surprise capture of population centers and mobilization depots is illustrated by the fact that only about 55,000 saw service during the campaign, despite the fact that many who had no training or mobilization assignments showed up for service. This number constituted half of the planned mobilization strength and the effective fighting force at any one time probably did not exceed 30,000.

The greatest need was for infantry units and many who showed up for mobilization from other arms were used as infantry. Those with no military training were in some cases assigned to units sent to the front but for the most part, they were assigned to training units that supported and served as a replacement pool for the fighting units. There was a serious shortage of artillery and a total lack of tanks or antitank weapons. Most of the aircraft that could have been effective against the Germans were lost the first day. German air superiority was a decisive factor in most parts of the country.

Other factors also contributed to the confusion and uncertainties in the days following the German attack. Quisling took to the airwaves in the evening of April 9, announcing that he had taken over as prime minister. He ordered that resistance cease and he followed up this order by threats against those who did not obey. The legal government responded in a communiqué the following day but the answer lacked firmness and persuasion and was not a ringing appeal to arms. There was no confirmation that mobilization should continue. The government simply expressed confidence that the people would do everything to resurrect the freedom and sovereignty that a foreign power wanted to destroy by force.

General von Falkenhorst, on the other hand, communicated to the people in straightforward and unmistakable terms on April 13 what a refusal to follow Quisling’s demands would mean. Those who followed the bidding of the “former government” and obeyed its order to mobilize would face military tribunals that would most likely lead to executions. This communiqué was sent out over the state radio, published in proclamations that were displayed prominently, and through leaflets dropped in virtually all areas of the country. While most disregarded the admonitions and threats from Quisling and the Germans, they caused a number of breakdowns in the will to resist among both military and civilian authorities.

The German Breakout from Oslo

The Germans were temporarily thrown off balance by their failure to capture Oslo quickly and by the unexpected determination by the Norwegians to resist. Reports of Norwegian mobilization were flowing into von Falkenhorst’s headquarters and he adopted a more cautious approach than that envisioned in the original plan, which called for sending a battalion to Bergen and one to Trondheim by rail. For now, he took a guarded attitude pending the arrival of sufficient forces to undertake major offensive operations. Only local operations, primarily to the southeast, were undertaken. In the two days following the landing, the main elements of the 163rd and 196th Divisions were brought to Oslo by the 1st and 2nd Sea Transport Echelons and by air.

Having failed to bring about a Norwegian surrender, the Germans needed to move into the interior quickly, disrupt Norwegian mobilization efforts, prevent them from organizing a defense, and link up as quickly as possible with the other isolated beachheads. Von Falkenhorst impressed on his subordinates the absolute need for speed and relentless pressure in order to keep the staggering Norwegian defense from regaining its balance. German forces in Stavanger, Bergen, and Trondheim were directed to limit themselves to local offensive operations until reinforced.

Group XXI’s orders for the breakout from the beachhead were issued on April 12 and 13. The major units for the offensive from Oslo were the reinforced 163rd and 196th Infantry Divisions. The 196th Division, commanded by Major General Richard Pellengahr, would drive through the two great north-south valleys of Gudbrandsdal and Østerdal with the ultimate mission of linking up with the forces in Trondheim. This division was also assigned the sector east and southeast of Oslo. One battalion was to advance south along the east side of Oslofjord to capture Sarpsborg, Fredrikstad, and Halden. Another battalion operated further to the east, towards Mysen and the Swedish border.