rise-and-fall-of-the-third-reich-william-shirer-pdf

THE CONQUEST OF DENMARK AND NORWAY 637Major General, awarded the Ritterkreuz and hailed by Hitler as the Sieger vonNarvik.Despite his amazing successes the Fuehrer had had his bad moments duringthe Norwegian campaign. General Jodl’s diary is crammed with terse entriesrecounting a succession of the warlord’s nervous crises. ”Terrible excitement,”he noted on April 14 after news had been received of the wiping out of theGerman naval forces at Narvik. On April 17 Hitler had a fit of hysteria aboutthe loss of Narvik; he demanded that General Dietl’s troops there be evacuatedby air – an impossibility. ”Each piece of bad news,” Jodl scribbled that dayin his diary, ”leads to the worst fears.” And two days later: ”Renewed crisis.Political action has failed. Envoy Brauer is recalled. According to the Fuehrer,force has to be used . . . ∗ The conferences at the Chancellery in Berlin that day,April 19, became so embittered, with the heads of the three services blamingeach other for the delays, that even the lackey Keitel stalked out of the room.”Chaos of leadership is again threatening,” Jodl noted. And on April 22 headded: ”Fuehrer is increasingly worried about the English landings.”On April 23 the slow progress of the German forces moving up from Oslotoward Trondheim and Andalsnes caused the ”excitement to grow,” as Jodl putit, but the next day the news was better and from that day it continued togrow more rosy. By the twenty-sixth the warlord was in such fine fettle that at3:30 in the morning, during an all-night session with his military advisers, hetold them he intended to start ”Yellow” between May 1 and 7. ”Yellow” wasthe code name for the attack in the West across Holland and Belgium. Thoughon April 29 Hitler was again ”worried about Trondheim,” the next day he was”happy with joy” at the news that a battle group from Oslo had reached thecity. He could at last turn his attention back to the West. On May 1 he orderedthat preparations for the big attack there be ready by May 5.The Wehrmacht commanders – Goering, Brauchitsch, Haider, Keitel, Jodl,Raeder and the rest – had for the first time had a foretaste during the Norwegiancampaign of how their demonic Leader cracked under the strain of even minorsetbacks in battle. It was a weakness which would grow on him when, after aseries of further astonishing military successes, the tide of war changed, and itwould contribute mightily to the eventual debacle of the Third Reich.Still, any way one looked at it, the quick conquest of Denmark and Norwayhad been an important victory for Hitler and a discouraging defeat forthe British. It secured the winter iron ore route, gave added protection to theentrance to the Baltic, allowed the daring German Navy to break out into theNorth Atlantic and provided them with excellent port facilities there for submarinesand surface ships in the sea war against Britain. It brought Hitler airbases hundreds of miles closer to the main enemy. And perhaps most imporgroundsof his old age and senility. He was, however, tried and convicted for ”profiting fromthe Nazi regime,” and fined $65,000. He died on February 19, 1952, at the age of ninety-three.General von Falkenhorst was tried as a war criminal before a mixed British and Norwegianmilitary court on charges of having handed over captured Allied commandos to the S.S. forexecution. He was sentenced to death on August 2, 1946, but the sentence was commuted tolife imprisonment.∗ On April 13, General von Falkenhorst, no doubt goaded by Hitler, who was in a furybecause of Norwegian resistance, signed an order providing for taking as hostages twenty ofthe most distinguished citizens of Oslo, including Bishop Berggrav and Paal Berg, who, inthe words of Minister Brauer, ”were to be shot in the event of the continued resistance orattempted sabotage.” 843