Hitler’s Pre-Emptive War: The Battle for Norway, 1940 (33 page)

The Norwegian forces left in Narvik were disarmed and imprisoned. This included the headquarters company that had been the the last unit to move from Elvegårdsmoen. The troops in this company were welcomed by German troops as they came off the ferry at Vassvik. Many officers and men managed to slip out of town later and join Norwegian forces in the interior. About three-fourths of the engineer company managed to escape in this manner.

Colonel Sundlo’s Performance

Finally, a few words about Colonel Sundlo and his actions on April 8 and 9 are necessary. Sundlo is mentioned in the German directives for Narvik. Admiral Raeder describes him as “an officer with reportedly pro-German feelings,” with whom they should establish contact at the earliest opportunity. Quisling provided information about Sundlo to the Germans but there is no indication that Sundlo was aware of this. Rosenberg mentions him in the memorandum he prepared for Hitler in preparation for his December 16 meeting with Quisling. Sundlo was not the only officer mentioned by Quisling, who was eager to convince the Germans that he had important connections within the Norwegian military establishment. There is no evidence that Sundlo provided any useful information to the Germans. The best indication of this is the fact that the Germans were unaware that there were no Norwegian shore batteries at the Ofotfjord entrance.

Despite this, Konrad Sundlo became Norway’s Benedict Arnold. Word spread everywhere after April 9 that Colonel Sundlo was in German service and that he had betrayed his country by surrendering Narvik. For example, the very competent researcher Hans-Martin Ottmer, writing in 1994, refers to Sundlo as a betrayer of his country. He claims that he failed to carry out the orders from the division by not alerting his troops or occupying defensive positions, despite having adequate time to do so. Consequently, the Germans were able to land their troops at their leisure without any resistance.
²⁴

Sundlo’s scapegoating began when General Fleischer sent out a communiqué after the loss of Narvik. The communiqué, while carefully worded, left no doubt that Fleischer meant to convey that Narvik fell to the enemy due to Colonel Sundlo’s treason and several newspapers receiving the communiqué stated so without hesitation. The communiqué read, in part:
²⁵

Hovland writes that on October 5, 1948 Sundlo was sentenced to life in prison at hard labor for failing to make the necessary dispositions and preparations to meet the expected German attack on Narvik, and for surrendering his troops to the enemy. It is true that Sundlo was sentenced to life in prison at hard labor in 1948, but the statement leaves the wrong impression with respect to why this sentenced was imposed. A military court of inquiry after the war cleared Sundlo of the charge of treason and did not reprimand him for surrendering the town.
²⁶
With respect to Narvik, the court found Sundlo guilty of “negligence and incompetence.” Sundlo was stripped of his commission and sentenced to life in prison for his actions as a province official during the war and his effort to secure Norwegian volunteers for the German army on the eastern front.

In General Fleischer’s biography, Hovland refers to Colonel Sundlo as a “rotten apple.” He denounces Sundlo’s failure to follow orders and states that Sundlo was the direct reason why very weak German forces managed to capture Narvik through a bluff. He writes that Colonel Sundlo must bear the responsibility for the serious consequences the loss of Narvik had for the country and Norwegian and Allied forces.

Colonel Sundlo and his staff made inexcusable mistakes. He neglected to alert the engineer company and the 75mm railroad gun unit, or include them in two important meetings. The commander of the antiaircraft battery was not invited to the last commanders meeting at Sundlo’s headquarters. Major Omdal failed to include these three units on his itinerary when he drove around alerting commanders shortly before 0400 hours. Elvegårdsmoen was not alerted. Finally, there were no efforts made to notify and seek the cooperation of the civilian authorities in town.

There were serious leadership problems in Narvik on April 8 and 9, especially in the 1/13th Infantry. The blame for the poor performance of this battalion cannot be placed on the soldiers. They would undoubtedly have performed as well as those in other battalions in the 6th Division if they had competent leadership. The leadership of both their officers and NCOs failed at virtually every level. There are examples of orders not carried out, breakdowns in the chain of command, troops not kept informed, a glaring lack of initiative, indecisiveness, failures to follow directives, and lack of plain common sense in the absence of orders. The remnants of the 1/13th Infantry battalion continued to turn in a poor performance after its withdrawal from Narvik.

Most of these failures can be traced to inadequate training, very limited periods of active duty in the 1930s, leaders well past what is considered an acceptable age for the rigorous physical and mental demands of combat at battalion and company level, and of course, to total lack of combat experience. Most units facing the shock of combat for the first time have problems, but strong leadership and extensive training can minimize these.

A conclusion repeated by several authors is that Colonel Sundlo failed to take the proper “military precautions” before the “expected German occupation of Narvik.” The “military precautions” he failed to take are not spelled out. No military officer in North Norway expected a German attack before receipt of the British message around 2000 hours, and that message came with a note from the highest military authorities that it was not believable. On his own authority, Sundlo ordered the machinegun company and mortar platoon at Elvegårdsmoen into Narvik and reinforced the Nordal Bridge guard detail. He did not intend to move the other two rifle companies into Narvik but when the order came, he implemented it as quickly as possible.

The charge that Colonel Sundlo failed in his duties and surrendered his troops to the enemy applies to many Norwegian military officers on that eventful night or the weeks that followed. Admiral Smith-Johanssen, for example, surrendered Norway’s main naval base at Horten, including all ships in the harbor, to a much smaller German force than that confronting Sundlo. Colonel Østbye in Bergen, when confronting a somewhat similar situation that would have caused a large number of civilian casualties, wisely chose not to take up the fight in the city, but withdrew his forces to defensive positions on its outskirts.

Carl Joachim Hambro, the leader of the conservative party and the Storting, tried to have Sundlo removed from his post because of his political views long before the German attack. The campaign for his removal even led to a police investigation, which concluded that Sundlo had not done anything wrong.

The intrigues within the 6th Division for Sundlo’s removal and the activities of the conservative party leadership toward the same end may not have taken place in isolation from each other. The Allies posed the most serious threat to Narvik and no one seriously considered Germany capable of launching operations in North Norway. It is curious that individuals like Hambro and Fleischer considered it risky to have an officer with pro-German political views as the military commander in Narvik when all indications from 1939 on pointed to a British/French expedition being prepared against that city.

Colonel Sundlo could not mount a successful defense of Narvik with the forces located there and under the conditions that prevailed on 8 and 9 April. Combat in Narvik would not have changed the outcome of the German invasion, but would have caused a large number of civilian casualties. It would have been wiser to use these forces in the manner envisaged by the plans from an earlier generation.
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Those who claim otherwise forget that General Dietl had enormous firepower and additional forces at his disposal. The failure to leave adequate forces at Elvegårdsmoen to destroy that depot if it could not be defended had more serious consequences for future operations than the loss of the town. Colonel Otto Jersing Munthe-Kaas, who was a battalion commander in the 6th Division and later the Norwegian Military Attaché to the U.S., wrote:
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The facts that Sundlo was a member of Quisling’s party and held positions in his administration during the war made the charges with regard to his conduct in Narvik stick, while leaving the conduct of others untarnished. Sundlo’s subsequent behavior cannot be used as a basis for judging his conduct as military commander in Narvik or as an explanation for a spectacular German success that caught everyone in this part of the country by surprise.
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The failure of General Fleischer to curtail his inspection trip in East Finnmark was, in retrospect, a poor decision. The possibility of military action against Narvik should have been obvious to General Fleischer and it is difficult to understand why he did not head back to his headquarters as soon as the war clouds began to gather. The British mining operations on April 8 were clear signs of imminent hostilities, but even this failed to change Fleischer’s itinerary. The start of one of the worst winter storms of the season prevented the general and his chief of staff from returning to the divisional headquarters for several days.

D
ESTROYER
B
ATTLE

“Keep on engaging the enemy.”

C
APTAIN
W
ARBURTON
-L
EE’S LAST MESSAGE TO HIS DESTROYER FLOTILLA MOMENTS BEFORE BEING MORTALLY WOUNDED.

The German Situation in Narvik

General Dietl and Captain Bonte had good reasons to congratulate themselves in the morning of April 9. They had sailed almost 1,500 miles through waters dominated by the British Navy and had captured Narvik without the loss of a ship, a sailor, or a soldier. They had inflicted a crippling blow on the Norwegian Navy, captured, without firing a shot, nearly 600 Norwegian soldiers and sailors, seized one of the largest Norwegian army depots, and captured five armed British merchant ships and their crews.

Despite these impressive successes, the German position in Narvik was not enviable. Dietl and Bonte each faced serious problems. Dietl’s most immediate task was to consolidate his two beachheads against anticipated Norwegian and British attacks. Bonte’s most urgent task was to return to Germany with his destroyers, a highly dangerous venture now that the British were fully alerted. Several factors complicated the situation for both Dietl and Bonte.

German planners had placed much reliance on the quick capture of the Norwegian shore batteries at the Ofotfjord entrance. It was one of three primary goals. They planned to use these batteries against any British attempt to enter Ofotfjord. The fact that these batteries did not exist increased the danger to the German forces. Dietl did not have the heavy weapons, equipment, and supplies on which he had planned. Most of the weapons and equipment carried on the destroyers washed overboard on the way to Narvik. The ships
Bärenfels
,
Rauenfels
, and
Alster
were scheduled to have arrived in Narvik before the destroyers. They carried weapons, equipment, and supplies. These three ships left Hamburg on April 3. They proceeded separately in order to give the appearance of innocent merchant ships. None reached their destination.
Bärenfels
fell so far behind schedule that she was redirected to Bergen, where she arrived on April 11. The British destroyer
Havock
crippled
Rauenfels
at the Ofotfjord entrance as the British warship returned from battle with the German destroyers on April 10. A British destroyer captured
Alster
north of Bodø on April 14. The loss of these three ships was a serious blow to Dietl since he could not count on receiving any further supplies by sea. This made the capture of the depot at Elvegårdsmoen all the more important.

Bonte’s destroyers reached Narvik almost empty of fuel. They needed to refuel before they could start their return voyage to Germany but the two large tankers scheduled to be in Narvik when TF 1 arrived had not yet arrived.
Jan Wellem
sailed from Murmansk and reached Narvik on April 8. The
Kattegat
sailed from Germany and should also have reached Narvik on April 8. She stopped south of Bodø because of the British minefield and was intercepted by the Norwegian patrol boat
Nordkapp
and sunk in shallow water. The Norwegians later salvaged most of the cargo. German naval officers considered the loss of
Kattegat
the most serious blow to the Narvik operation since it prevented the German destroyers from departing Narvik on schedule.
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