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All available submarines, including some training boats, were used as part of Operation Hartmut in support of Operation Weserübung. Initially, the plan was to invade Norway and to gain control of Danish airfields by diplomatic means. However, Hitler issued a new directive on 1 March that called for the invasion of both Norway and Denmark.
The attack was a prelude to the invasion of Norway (German: Weserübung Nord, 9 April – 10 June 1940). Denmark's strategic importance for Germany was limited. The invasion's primary purpose was to use Denmark as a staging ground for operations against Norway, and to secure supply lines to the forces about to be deployed there.
The German operation for the invasion of Denmark and Norway in April 1940 was code-named Weserübung, or "Weser Exercise."Opposing the invasion were the partially mobilized Norwegian military, and an allied expeditionary force composed of British, French, and Free Polish formations.
Already in low-priority planning for months, Operation Weserübung [note 1] found a new sense of urgency after the Altmark incident. [1] The goals of the invasion were to secure the port of Narvik and the costal waterways for ore transport, and to control the country to prevent collaboration with the Allies.
On 9 April 1940 Norway was invaded by German forces as part of the Operation Weserübung. The northern port of Narvik, defended amongst other sea and land units by HNoMS Eidsvold and her sister ship HNoMS Norge, was one of their most important targets due its role as an all-year export port of Swedish iron ore.
On 1 March 1940, Adolf Hitler ordered the invasion of Norway, codenamed Operation Weserübung as a preventive manoeuvre against a planned, and openly discussed, Franco-British occupation of Norway. [3] This operation would involve most of the Kriegsmarine. Participating units were divided into five groups, which were to occupy six of the main ...
1: Hitler approves final plans for the attacks on Norway and Denmark. 2: Germany sets 9 April 1940 as the date for Weserübung. 3: Winston Churchill becomes the chair of the British Ministerial Defence Committee. One of his first actions is to get consent for mining operations in Norwegian territorial waters.
During their first operation, the two ships sank the British auxiliary cruiser HMS Rawalpindi in a short battle. Gneisenau and Scharnhorst also participated in the German invasion of Norway: Operation Weserübung. During operations off the coast of Norway, the two ships engaged the battlecruiser HMS Renown and sank the aircraft carrier HMS ...