World War I & II topic

Ill keep to the drunk posting afther this. But to solve some of it.

1 and 2. I mixed upp axis and Germany, Norway stood longest against Germany invasion, and Blucher was biggest German ship. (at that time)

3rd did some research. Some places list it as a good move from Germany others dont. Germany lost Blucher, and several other boats. They built a massive defence line, where Allies never attacked, They failed to get that explosive thing. (not sure english) And alot equippment destroyed. They did stop allies from using Norway tho.

Also the that show on discovery now, the nazi build things, narrator there also said they lost too much money and differnt supplies. Maybe not all in all, but they did definatly have some losses there. Norway isnt that big, and i see it as a failure. Or a loss loss, you can might convince me othervise but right now i see it as a bad move.
 
FattyFooty said:
Ill keep to the drunk posting afther this. But to solve some of it.(when drinking that is)

1 and 2. I mixed upp axis and Germany, Norway stood longest against Germany invasion, and Blucher was biggest German ship. (at that time)

3rd did some research. Some places list it as a good move from Germany others dont. Germany lost Blucher, and several other boats. They built a massive defence line, where Allies never attacked, They failed to get that explosive thing. (not sure english) And alot equippment destroyed. They did stop allies from using Norway tho.

Also the that show on discovery now, the nazi build things, narrator there also said they lost too much money and differnt supplies. Maybe not all in all, but they did definatly have some losses there. Norway isnt that big, and i see it as a failure. Or a loss loss, you can might convince me othervise but right now i see it as a bad move.
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Oh, conquering Norway probably harmed the Axis more than it helped. Denmark was likely sufficient - and even then, it was probably not needed. Where it hurt Hitler most, though, was that he retained 11 veteran divisions in Norway through the end of the war. 11 veteran divisions that could have been in France in '44 - or spearheading Operation Neptune in '41.
 
LooseCannon said:
Oh, conquering Norway probably harmed the Axis more than it helped. Denmark was likely sufficient - and even then, it was probably not needed. Where it hurt Hitler most, though, was that he retained 11 veteran divisions in Norway through the end of the war. 11 veteran divisions that could have been in France in '44 - or spearheading Operation Neptune in '41.
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I mixed upp Nazi mega structure episode with kamikaze, with the German navy in Norway. I have no idea how i did that.

Im a lil unsure whats ment with sufficent and Denmark, But im pretty sure the battles was harder in Norway. Atleast in boats and planes destroyed. I have a book thats pretty good, called "Kampen om Norge" It means something like: the fight in Norway. It list all boats, a number of planes and even personel killed/destroyed.

Only in Oslo they attacked with Blucher, Lutzow and Emden, Along with 3 subs, parachuters, they also brought planes.

I actually listed one more thing a lil wrong, (would you belive that) deaths on Norwegians its lover. That was the total allies deaths in Norway. Britan and Poland fought in Norway aswell.

Norway did some massive bloopers aswell. Even kitchen employes fired cannons. Norway didnt prepare. Didnt take it seriusly. Or something like that.
 
Norway and Denmark certainly weren't ready for an attack, and while the navy lost a lot of manpower and ships in the Norwegian campaign, they had to keep tens of thousands of soldiers there to hold the place down. That's why I say the biggest problem, from a strategic standpoint, was maintaining the nation.
 
LooseCannon said:
Norway and Denmark certainly weren't ready for an attack, and while the navy lost a lot of manpower and ships in the Norwegian campaign, they had to keep tens of thousands of soldiers there to hold the place down. That's why I say the biggest problem, from a strategic standpoint, was maintaining the nation.
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Heh.. also read that Norway had 30-40 rebuilt Fishing boats on D-DAY. Not to sure what thats about.
 
LooseCannon said:
Where it hurt Hitler most, though, was that he retained 11 veteran divisions in Norway through the end of the war.
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The way I understand it, nobody is really certain why that was the case. Most of my sources state that the primary objective of Weserübung and the whole occupation of Denmark and Norway was to secure supply routes from Sweden. I get that - but did this outweigh more direct combat needs in 1944/45 when there were hardly any industrial capacities to use the Swedish ore anyway?

Regarding Norway's situation under German occupation, I'm a bit surprised nobody here mentioned that Milorg had the largest per capita amount of members of all national resistance movements in the war - 20.000 for a general population of less than 3 million.
 
FattyFooty said:
Heh.. also read that Norway had 30-40 rebuilt Fishing boats on D-DAY. Not to sure what thats about.
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If by D-Day you mean the Allied invasion of France, I'm sure the biggest Norwegian contribution was exiled Norwegians fighting in British and American units. For the total war effort, our merchant fleet was by far our most important contribution.

To the topic discussed by @Perun and @LooseCannon, I can add that this summer I visited the museum site where the Germans had a big coastal fort with cannons - the Batterie Dietl at Engeløya. It covered the southern route for allied ships toward Narvik. But it was finished quite late in the war and it never saw action.

The purpose of Weserübung surely was to secure supply of iron ore from Sweden. but also to get hold of a coast from which they could easily attack ship traffic in the North Atlantic. Remember, they took Norway before they took France, and holding the Norwegian coast was valuable in case the invasion of France should fail.

Since you're the historians here, do you have knowledge about how much the Nazis knew about the size of the Milorg? Would that knowledge contribute to the decision of keeping a huge force in Norway towards the end of the war?
 
Dr. Eddies Wingman said:
Would that knowledge contribute to the decision of keeping a huge force in Norway towards the end of the war?
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Possibly. Hitler was obsessed with the concept of the Allies doing an end run on him. Perhaps he was concerned with the loss of Swedish iron ore - but it is entirely possible it's just something Hitler fixated on for some reason. It's not just the divisions themselves - 11 divisions, it should be noted, is the combined amount of divisions deployed at D-Day on both sides; 6th Army at Stalingrad had 22 undermanned divisions. It's a very large army.
 
Not sure how aware people are about how hard the Dutch fought the Germans before they surrendered. Very hard. The Germans needed a city bombardment and another threat to stop "us". Check this out (copied from wiki)

After four days, it seemed as if the Dutch had stopped the German advance, although at that time, they had already invaded some 70% of the country, excluding the urban areas to the west. Adolf Hitler, who had expected the occupation to be completed in two days (in Denmark in April 1940 it had taken only one day), ordered Rotterdam to be annihilated, leading to the Rotterdam Blitz on 14 May that destroyed much of the city centre and killed about 800 people; it also left some 85,000 homeless. The air attack was to be followed by every other major city if the Dutch people refused to surrender. The Dutch, having lost the bulk of their air force, realized they could not stop the German bombers and surrendered.

More here: Battle of the Netherlands
 
It's incredible what what air raid did - especially when you consider that within a few years, that level of air raid wouldn't be considered worth sneezing at. Not to denigrate the bravery of the Dutch - because it was at that time an unforeseen horror, and how could they know that it was going to get so much worse?

Now, even without the air raid, the Germans would have eventually shifted the Dutch out. Their forces were absolutely superior, and it's likely that Anglo-French forces would have moved to aid eventually, pulling them further and further away from the Schwerpunkt of Fall Gelb in the Ardennes. It could be that the quick surrender of the Dutch after the Rotterdam Blitz led to the Allies being able to withdraw their forces at Dunkirk.
 
For all you interested in WW2, might I recommend Christer Bergströms books? He's written 20 something books, the latest dealing with the battle of Britain.
I've only got the one on the Ardennes offensive (second latest), but man, is it thorough.
 
From the Great raids of WW2.

The first episode is about Heavy-water on Rujkan. The narrator actually calls it Heavy-water. Direct transilation from Norwegian: Tungt-vann
A group of Norwegians dressed as british soldiers, blew up a factory that the was very important from hindering the nazi to get atomic weaponds.


They said its the only raid in WW2 where everyone got the Medal of Honur. (if it was that medal)

Interesting episode.
 
Tonight I'm staying at Colditz Castle! Very interesting, historical place. The Kommandant's office was turned into a youth hostel. Incidentally, in room 101 (r101 ;-) ).
 
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