On February 20th of 1940, General Nikolaus von Falkenhorst was informed by Hitler that he will be placed in command for the invasion of Norway portion of Operation Weserübung due to his experience with arctic combat during his service in Finland during WW1. He was then given until 5pm of the same day to draw up a basic plan for the invasion. With no time to consult staff or experts, he bought a tourist guidebook of Norway and locked himself in his hotel room to draw up the plan to invade Norway, which was approved by Hitler, and further developed into a full operation to invade Norway. The invasion would be a success, though it did show the first cracks of the Nazi war machine, suffering their first major land defeat in the battle of Narvik and the navy taking heavy losses.
LeftLiner on
For all that Germany’s early victories in the second world war are impressive they also got crazy lucky at several critical moments.
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On February 20th of 1940, General Nikolaus von Falkenhorst was informed by Hitler that he will be placed in command for the invasion of Norway portion of Operation Weserübung due to his experience with arctic combat during his service in Finland during WW1. He was then given until 5pm of the same day to draw up a basic plan for the invasion. With no time to consult staff or experts, he bought a tourist guidebook of Norway and locked himself in his hotel room to draw up the plan to invade Norway, which was approved by Hitler, and further developed into a full operation to invade Norway. The invasion would be a success, though it did show the first cracks of the Nazi war machine, suffering their first major land defeat in the battle of Narvik and the navy taking heavy losses.
For all that Germany’s early victories in the second world war are impressive they also got crazy lucky at several critical moments.