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Text originally published in 1956 under the same title.
Pickle Partners Publishing 2014, all rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means, electrical, mechanical or otherwise without the written permission of the copyright holder.
Publishers Note
Although in most cases we have retained the Authors original spelling and grammar to authentically reproduce the work of the Author and the original intent of such material, some additional notes and clarifications have been added for the modern readers benefit.
We have also made every effort to include all maps and illustrations of the original edition the limitations of formatting do not allow of including larger maps, we will upload as many of these maps as possible.
THE GERMAN NORTHERN THEATER OF OPERATIONS 1940-1945
BY
EARL F. ZIEMKE
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Contents
FOREWORD
The Office of the Chief of Military History of the Department of the Army is currently preparing a series of studies on German military operations in World War II against forces other than those of the United States. In addition to the volumes already published dealing with Poland and the Balkans and the present volume on Norway and Finland, these monographs will cover German operations in Russia, France and the Low Countries. These campaign studies are being made available to the General Staff and to the Army schools and colleges as reference works. They will also prove of value to all who are interested in military affairs.
The German campaigns in Norway and Finland established landmarks in the evolution of military science even though they failed in the long run to influence the outcome of the war. In the invasion of Norway the Germans executed the first large-scale amphibious (in fact triphibious) operation of World War II. The subsequent German operations out of Finland provided the first, and still unique, instance of major military forces operating in the Arctic and created a precedent, at least, for the inclusion of that region, once considered almost totally inaccessible, in strategic considerations. In these respects the operations in the German Northern Theater have a direct association with concepts of warfare which have not yet reached their final stage of development and are, therefore, of current and possible future interest.
PREFACE
This volume describes two campaigns that the Germans conducted in their Northern Theater of Operations. The first they launched, on 9 April 1940, against Denmark and Norway. The second they conducted out of Finland in partnership with the Finns against the Soviet Union. The latter campaign began on 22 June 1941 and ended in the winter of 1944-45 after the Finnish Government had sued for peace.
The scene of these campaigns by the end of 1941 stretched from the North Sea to the Arctic Ocean and from Bergen on the west coast of Norway, to Petrozavodsk, the former capital of the Karelo-Finnish Soviet Socialist Republic. It faced east into the Soviet Union on a 700-mile-long front, and west on a 1,300-mile sea frontier. Hitler regarded this theater as the keystone of his empire, and, after 1941, maintained in it two armies totaling over a half million men.
In spite of its vast area and the effort and worry which Hitler lavished on it, the Northern Theater throughout most of the war constituted something of a military backwater. The major operations which took place in the theater were overshadowed by events on other fronts, and public attention focused on the theaters in which the strategically decisive operations were expected to take place. Remoteness, German security measures, and the Russians well-known penchant for secrecy combined to keep information concerning the Northern Theater down to a mere trickle, much of that inaccurate. Since the war, through official and private publications, a great deal more has become known. The present volume is based in the main on the greatest remaining source of unexploited information, the captured German military and naval records. In addition a number of the participants on the German side have very generously contributed from their personal knowledge and experience.
MAPS
1. The Occupation of Narvik, 9 April 1940
2. The Landings in Norway, 9 April 1940
3. The Occupation of Denmark, 9-10 April 194.
4. Operations in Southern and Central Norway, 9 April-2 May 1940
5. The Zone of Operations of Group Trondheim, 9 April-4 May 1940
6. The Bergen-Stavanger-Kristiansand Zone of Operations, 9 April-1 May 1940
7. The Situation at Narvik, 7 May 1940
8. The Advance of 2d Mountain Division Toward Narvik, 5 May-13 June 1940.
9. The Situation at Narvik, 17 May and 6 June 1940
10. The First Attack Across the Litsa, 1 June-6 July 1941
11. The Second Attack Across the Litsa, 13-17 July 1941
12. The Last Attack Across the Litsa, 8-20 September 1941
13. Salla and the First Attack on Kayrala, 1-30 July 1941
14. Operations of Group F, Ukhta, July-November 1941
15. Group J and SS-Nord, Loukhi, June-November 1941
16. Encirclement at Kayrala and the Advance to the Verman Line, 19 August-15 September 1941
17. Finnish Operations, June-December 1941
18. Soviet Offensive in the Kesten'ga-Loukhi Sector, 24 April-23 May 1942
19. The Soviet Offensive on the Litsa, 27 April-14 May 1942
20. Study for an Operation Against Sweden, 1943
21. The Soviet Summer Offensive Against Finland, June-July 1944
22. The German Withdrawal from Finland, 6 September 1944-30 January 1945
23. The Soviet Offensive Against XIX Mountain Corps, 7-28 October 1944
ILLUSTRATIONS
Photographs are from captured German files
Mountain Troops Boarding the Cruiser Hipper
JU 52 Transports
Bandsmen Emplaning for Oslo
Improvised Armored Train
Infantry Advancing North of Oslo
Infantrymen Taking Cover
German Troops Clearing Fallen Rocks
Infantrymen Trudging up a Snow-Covered Slope
Mark II Tank
Waiting to Attack
Commanding General, Army of Norway
Tundra in the Pechenga-Litsa River Area
Engineer Using Jackhammer
Mountain Troops Picking Their Way through the Forest
Half-Tracked Motorcycles Pulling Antitank Guns
Motorcycle Stuck in the Thick Mud
German Submarine in a Northern Fiord
Finnish Lotta on Aircraft Spotting Duty
Finnish Engineers Using Bangalore Torpedo
The President of Finland, Risto Ryti
German Railway Gun
Winter Position on the Verman Line
Snow-Covered Road in Northern Finland
The New Marshal of Finland, Baron Carl Gustaf Mannerheim
Troop Quarters on the Litsa Front
Snow Tunnel on Reichsstrasse 50
German Submarine on Arctic Patrol
Reindeer Patrol
German Ships at Nickel Ore Docks
Camouflaged Supply Trail
The Tirpitz in a Northern Fiord
PART ONE THE CAMPAIGNS IN NORWAY AND DENMARK
Chapter 1 The Background of German Operations in Norway and Denmark
The Scandinavian Dilemma
Once, in the Dark Ages, the Norsemen had been the terror of the European coasts, and their search for plunder had carried them east to Byzantium and into the interior of Russia. In the eleventh century Cnut the Great of Denmark ruled England and Norway. Later, for a time, the Danes united all of Scandinavia under their crown. Under Gustavus Adolphus, a military genius who created the worlds first modern army, Sweden became a Great Power and brought the entire eastern shore of the Baltic Sea under its control.
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