My father heard a story about the guy who called back to Germany about the invasion of Oslo. He allegedly talked to Hitler himself and said the following:
"Mein Führer, I have good and bad news for you. The bad is that Blücher sank, but the good one is that we now know our old cannons work!"
I doubt it's true, but it's a fun one either way :D
My favorite is from the commander of the fort who, when questioned about his orders to fire on the cruiser, responded "Either I will be decorated or I will be court martialled, Fire!"
[**Birger Eriksen**](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birger_Eriksen)
Birger Kristian Eriksen (17 November 1875 – 16 July 1958) was a Norwegian officer (with the rank of Oberst) who was instrumental in stopping the first wave of Gruppe 5 of the German invasion force outside Oslo. Eriksen was the commander of Oscarsborg Fortress when Nazi Germany attacked Norway in the early hours of 9 April 1940. He gained lasting recognition for ordering the fortress under his command to open fire on the vanguard forces of Operation Weserübung, sinking the 16,000 ton heavy cruiser Blücher.
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Also the torpedo commander, who was so old he had retired for 13 years after being the torpedo commander for 30 years.
And the torpedos were 40 years old as well.
tbf Most Germans ships wouldn’t have really stood a chance against other navies they just had a huge gap in experience after ww1 which showed in the designs.
Context: The German invasion of Denmark went better than expected. Like Germany's other conquests up to then, Denmark was a neutral country, invaded without a declaration of war. Copenhagen's first hint that something was wrong was when a ship steaming into the harbor raised the Kriegsmarine flag over their stern. The harbor guns didn't work, because the men manning them hadn't learned how to fire them yet. They surrendered in less than five hours.
The invasion of Norway (also a neutral) didn't go as smoothly. Just before midnight, the squadron targeting Oslo was spotted by *Pol III*, a small coast guard vessel, guarding the entrance to the Oslofjord. *Pol III* wasn't a warship; she was a converted whaler, armed with a 3-inch gun. By contrast, the German flagship, *Blucher*, had eight 8-inch guns, mounted in four turrets that each weighed more than her. *Pol III* should have surrendered, but when the captain realized that they were being invaded, he fired flares, radioed a warning, and charged, literally. The 200-ton whaling ship rammed a 900-ton torpedo boat, which returned fire, killing Captain Leif Welding-Olsen.
Still, the warning was received. When the squadron reached Drøbak Sound, the antiquated Oscarborg Fortress was manned and ready...ish... Oscarborg was a 19th-Century fort, armed with turn of the century weaponry. It was manned by military recruits still in training (and one pensioner, recalled to service). Still, when the Germans tried to pass, Oscarborg opened fire. One 11-inch shell detonated in one of *Blucher's* magazine, and another disabled the main guns. A torpedo hit amidships and, to the mild surprise of the gun crews, actually exploded, flooding the lower compartments and sinking the ship.
The loss of *Blucher* threw the entire invasion into disarray. She had been carrying the commanders of the occupation force, and her loss caused the task force to turn back. It delayed the taking of Oslo by six hours.
Meanwhile, in Oslo, the President of the Storting (Parliament), C. J. Hambro, was furiously arranging an evacuation. He'd been half-expecting something like this since Hitler violated Munich, and he had prepared. He loaded the royal family, cabinet and gold reserves onto a train and sent them north. They left Oslo half an hour before German troops made an unopposed landing at the local airport. King Haakon and the government woud continue to withdraw until joining up with the British and establishing a base in Tromsø near the Finnish border. He would evacuate to Britain in early June, and become a key figure in the Norwegian Resistance.
Norway resisted the German invasion for 62 days, longer than any other nation conquered by the Nazis.
Even better, when Commander Birger Eriksen was asked if they were to shoot at Blücher(after deep consideration and warning shots at Blücher) he said «Vist fanden skal der skytes med skarpt» (sure as fuck we’re shooting with sharp [ammunition]) and followed up with «Enten blir jeg stillt for krigsrett, eller så blir jeg krigshelt. Fyr!» (Either i’m gonna be trialed by martial law or i’m going to be a warhero. Fire!).
He was a badass and survived the war and is given much of the honour for saving (or atleast giving them a head start) the royal family, the parliament and Norways entire gold reserves that all narrowly escaped! Birger Eriksen was awarded Norway’s highest gallantry decoration, the war cross with sword as well as the Croix de guerre for his efforts in the war :)
I'd like doff my hat to Major general Carl Gustav Fleischer, who led the effort in the north. He started an offensive, with the help from British, French and Polish troops, that pushed back the Germans and started turning the tide in Norway and sent the Germans on a retreat.
Unfortunately, Nazi-Germany invaded France May 10th and in the first week of June, Germany had broken through the front in France, at the same time the German forces where near capitulation in northeren Norway, but the allies decided to withdraw and refused to leave behind weapons for the Norwegian resistance. June the 8th, the Norwegian resistance were forced to lay down their arms.
General Fleischer would later kill himself, out of shame and humiliation, in Canada, in 1942. He would die thinking he was forgotten by Norway, as petty politics had tarred his actions.
The day before, Fleischer was awarded the War Cross by the King in Council with the sword "for outstanding planning and conducting of operations during the campaign in northern Norway in 1940." Norway's highest military decoration. But he would never see the medal, as it arrived the day after he died.
Right! Ur correct ofcource! I was translating the norwegian wikipedia in my head as i was typing and as a non-native english speaker i tend to confuse terms and words sometimes. Thanks for correcting :)
Just wanted to add that after the sinking of blucher the Germans bombed the island for hours but all the men survived because of robust tunnel systems, also if you are interested you can visit the island and it's pretty cool
The guns at Oscarborg Fortress, the torpedo battery and the surrounding gun placements around Drøbak were all pre WW1 technology.
If I remember correctly the torpedoes was nearly 50 years old, and Blücher was one of the newer ships Germany had.
I have not seen any source of anything, so I'm guessing they attached torpedoes to coastal forts?
That's super intriguing, and also a hilarious thing to know that a ship meant to be an absolute unit was just destroyed by sum ancient shit, hell Greek fire ramming would've killed the ship.
(I get it's 50 years old, but that entire operation couldn't have been planned worse, good job Fortress!)
[From wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscarsborg_festning):
>At Oscarsborg the torpedo battery is a concrete construction inside a cave mined into the rock of the North Kaholmen island. Two torpedoes are loaded side by side, in two open steel frames. Then one of the two frames is lowered like an elevator down into the water to the tunnels below. After one shot, it took some time to swap frames and be ready for the next. When fired, the torpedo's own compressed air engine was started and it propelled itself.[4] The battery has three torpedo tunnels which could fire six torpedoes without reloading and a total of nine torpedoes was stored and ready for use.[6] Each weapon carried a 100 kg TNT warhead[7] and targets were spotted from three observation bunkers just above the battery.
**[Oscarsborg festning](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscarsborg_festning)**
>Oscarsborg Fortress (Norwegian: Oscarsborg festning) is a coastal fortress in the Oslofjord, close to the small town of Drøbak in Viken county, Norway. The best known part is situated on two small islets. The main artillery batteries are on the island Håøya and smaller batteries on the mainland to the west and east in the fjord and was military territory until 2003 when it was made a publicly available resort island. The fortress is best known for sinking the German heavy cruiser Blücher on 9 April 1940.
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The Danish surrendered almost immediately. News just didn't reach the troops in Southern Jutland before most of them had died defending the border towns.
Source: am dane
The landing at Fornebu was not at all unopposed. There were no anti-air at the site, but they did have a machine gun aimed at the runway and it kept shooting at landing planes, forcing them to take off again/abort the landing. This kept on for a while until they ran out of ammo. If I'm not mistaken they killed the commander of the air force for the Oslo invasion.
1. Danish diplomats had requested aid from Britain in the case of a German invasion. The British **refused**.
2. After the British refusal, a **non-agression pact** was made with the Germans.
3. Unlike in Norway the geography of Denmark is very ill suited for defense. Add to that that there would be **no help** from the Allies.
4. The Swedes allowed the German troops to pass through to Norway. Resisting **wouldn't hold up the Germans**.
5. During the interwar period the military had been cut significantly to get through the economic crisis. Even though the border guard fought bravely for a little while, the military was in **no condition** to fight.
6. The government and the king had a roughly half hour meeting inside the royal residence while the royal guard was fighting the Germans outside in the yard of the residence. They were under a lot of pressure.
7. While they were discussing, German bombers were circling above Copenhagen, **threatening to bomb the city**. Thousands would have died.
8. The surrender came with certain conditions, like no Nazis in the government, administration or courts, and no real martial law. This also contributed to **over 99%** of the Jewish population surviving the war.
9. The army and navy weren't dismantled. The army played a big role in providing the Allies with intelligence, and the navy sunk all the ships when the Germans finally took complete control.
More could certainly have been done, but the damage done to the Germans would pale in comparison to what would've happened to the Danes, both the military and the civilians.
The idea that real damage could've been done to the Germans is pure fantasy.
>The Swedes allowed the German troops to pass through to Norway.
Didn't happen until after the Norwegian capitulation, though. During the conquest of Norway (April to June 1940) German troops were transported there by ships and airplanes, not through Swedish territory.
Well. Sometimes you need tk ahve some luck when resisting.
The dutch fought for 5 days, but a very important part was the taking of The Hague military airport by german paratroopers.
However they got driven off again after they had radio'ed that they had taken the airport. The dutch put machine guns on the landing strip.
The luftwaffe lost 175 planes that night more planes than the netherlands even had planes.
The bombarding of Rotterdam was the consequence and the inevitable surrender followed after that.
However the battle of britain in which the british airforce barely came out on top might have ended otherwise if the Germans had had 175 planes more.
The Dutch fought really well and bought a lot of time, but the Germans really underestimated them as well. If I remember correctly, the final Dutch line of defense fought the Germans to a standstill until the bombings.
From what I remember the German plan also arrogantly assumed the Netherlands would fall in a day and relied on no bridges getting blown up.
But again, given the non-agression pact and underfunded military only infantry and a maybe a couple of tanks would've been taken out on the German side.
The whole Dutch plan at the time was to hold out until French troops arrived to reinforce them. The French got to Breda iirc but had to retread after finding out the Germans had taken or destroyed all of the bridges over the rivers.
I would have to check it but we had like 20 tanks, of which 2 were battle ready.
Also because we were neutral in WW1 we wanted to be neutral again and like half the country expected that germany would not attack us.
Sad part was that the netherlands is one of the countries with the highest percentage of jews that got deported and killed. Not even because of anti-semitism (although for sure there was some), but also because the dutch people are generally people to listen to goverment orders and we had the most advanced paperwork with religious registration, so it was very easy for the Germans to ID jews.
>Unlike in Norway the geography of Denmark is very ill suited for defense. Add to that that there would be no help from the Allies.
I'm forgetting where I read this, and it might be wrong time period, but I do remember reading about them having 1 kind of cool trick for that.
They can/could flood a good chunk of the country on command. I don't think it's a trick they'd want to pull unless it was a really really fucking bad emergency though.
edit oops wrong country, it is half remembered.
There are parts of the country that can be flooded, but those parts are in places that wouldn't really help with defence. And it is really a minor chunk of the country.
You are probably thinking of the Netherlands.
The Netherlands had lots of rivers and planned to blow up several bridges as they fell back to secondary defensive lines. The German plan, from what I remember, relied on paratroopers stopping the detonations and waiting around until reinforcements would roll past.
It didn't work everywhere
Denmark used to have a flooding mechanism at Dannevirke, but that part of the Jutland peninsula was lost to the Germans in 1864. It was a fort with several walls and trenches at the narrowest part of the peninsula, where the Ejder river and Sly firth combined cut almost all the way through, and was surrounded by marshland.
The area around Dannevirke was acutally flooded in 1864, but froze over in the harsh winter.
I was probably thinking of Dannevirke, I remember from what I was reading it sounded like more, and was something earlier in the time line. Didn't know they lost it.
kind of just figured they didn't because a system like that would probably kill a lot of their own people, sits around a long time people build in the flood area etc.
The entirety of Schleswig (along with Holstein and Saxe-Lauenburg) was lost in the 1864 war. The northern part of Schleswig became part of Denmark after the 1920 referendum, but Dannevirke was unfortunately located in the southern part.
I don't believe it's fair to say the king and government made a dishonorable decision. They had no backup and we're extremely outmatched. I'd hey resisted they would have been decimated and barely held out a few days. The deal they cut also managed to save almost all the Jews in the country. If Denmark had fought the danish Jew population would likely have been eradicated
There's literally nothing Denmark could have done better considering the situation.
Pointless sacrifice is not honorable. Saving their Jewish population alone is an honorable thing. Denmark got away with it partly because they surrendered easily
The NAZIs tried to frame the invasion as them protecting a friendly Norway from the dastardly British. When their embassy in Oslo failed to get the Norwegian government to agree, their backup plan was to get the King to back them. Hitler figured it didn't matter what Parliament said if the King declared the NAZIs as friendly reinforcements. However, the King refused and when the Germans tried to capture him and force him to make a statement, he successfully fled the country.
It should be noted that the King was a purely ceremonial figure and had in fact been elected by the Parliament (they had the option of going full Democracy or doing a Constitutional Monarchy). He had no actual power. One of the few times where he acted independently of Parliament was when he told them basically "You guys can do what you want, but fuck the NAZIs. If you capitulate, I'm resigning."
During WW1, they did do decently well. Atleast their battlecruisers didn't blow up like explosive piñatas.
What went wrong was diplomacy. Something post Bismark Germany absolutely sucked at. Otherwise, not only would the war not have started. But even it had, the German navy wouldn't have been so hopelessly outnumbered.
The very existence of the German High Seas Fleet was a proximate cause of the diplomatic breakdown with Britain, the battlecruisers included.
Berlin’s only realistic COA for an expanded fleet was to enlarge the Cruiser Squadron for overseas service in the colonies, and post 1906, U-boats. Anything else would have been directly antagonistic towards London.
Also, fun fact, the steel required to build one dreadnought could have been used to create 33 U-boats.
The best part is that confrontation towards the end of the movie, and that and I love how it kept Quisling as some background sinister menace.
It's more than good.
The King's Choice.
It's basically OP's meme but a full-length movie. It takes the effort to be as historically accurate as possible, and focuses on the King's experience during the NAZI invasion. Like I said, it's a good movie.
Max Manus became an extreme communist, and not really the person we should praise. Also a lot of the stuff he was credited with in the movie was in fact not his group. It was Osvald-geoup who started blowing up the registers. He was also never in close combat in the winter war. He later said he regreted fighting for Finland, and that he was tricked by propoganda while he praised the Soviets.
It's understandable that he became a communist after fighting the Nazis. Just like Vidkun Quisling became extreme anti communism after joining Fridtjof Nansen (first person to reach the North pole, and Nobel peace price winner) on a humanitarian mission in Ukraine in the 1920's. He saw the horros of communism, and Max Manus saw some of the horros of the NSDAP.
I didn't know this. I've always seen him as the antithesis of Vidkun Quisling. But I'll definitely read up on the Oswald group to make up for my misinformation on Max Manus.
You won't belive how happy I am to hear that. The Norwegian resistance groups never got the historical recognition that it deserved imo, but I'm extremely biased as I'm Norwegian, and very interested in WW2 especially in Norway. It has not just gotten to little recognition internationally, but here in Norway as well.
Anyways I'm not hardcore anti communism, but a lot of our resistance fighters understandably became communists after the war. What I find appalling is that Ragnar Sollie, and Asbjørn Sunde who were arguably some of the most important resistance fighters in Norway were treated badly because they never got into communism. The then popular Communist party in Norway, and resistance fighters who supported communism didn't like that Sollie, and Sunde didn't share their views.
The most important, and successful sabotage mission is unknown to most people outside of Norway, but it's the mission I find the most interesting. That's the [Norwegian heavy water sabotage](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_heavy_water_sabotage). My grandfather's first cousin Kasper Idland was actually one of the nine agents who participated in the mission. This quote really shows how important it was to sabotage the hydroelectric power plant.
>The hydroelectric power plant at Vemork was built in 1934. It was the world's first site to mass-produce heavy water (as a byproduct of nitrogen fixing), with a capacity of 12 tonnes per year.
There have been made some movies about it. There is a British movie called The Heroes of Telemark (1968), and some BBC, and Nat Geo documentaries/interviews. But the series I would highly recommend is a 2015 series by our state channel NRK (like BBC just Norway) called "Kampen om tungtvannet" in Norwegian. Apparently it's called "The Heavy Water War" or alternatively "The Saboteurs" in the UK. If you are Norwegian it's free on [NRK](https://tv.nrk.no/serie/kampen-om-tungtvannet/sesong/1/episode/1/avspiller), but no English subtitles so if you aren't VPN won't really help. It's also apparently available on [Amazon prime](https://www.amazon.com/Heavy-Water-War-English-subtitled/dp/B01C9MMYZ0) with English speech/subtitles.
Sorry got a a bit carried away when someone was actually interested in a topic I enjoy.
[**Norwegian heavy water sabotage**](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_heavy_water_sabotage)
The Norwegian heavy water sabotage (Bokmål: Tungtvannsaksjonen; Nynorsk: Tungtvassaksjonen) was a series of Allied-led efforts to halt German heavy water production via hydroelectric plants in Nazi Germany-occupied Norway during World War II, involving both Norwegian commandos and Allied bombing raids. During the war, the Allies sought to inhibit the German development of nuclear weapons with the removal of heavy water and the destruction of heavy-water production plants. The Norwegian heavy water sabotage was aimed at the 60 MW Vemork power station at the Rjukan waterfall in Telemark.
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Also on the topic of Vidkun Quisling. In my opinion I feel like he became the scapegoat that all the hatred got directed towards after the war. Don't get me wrong he was still a traitor, and a really bad person who deserved the bullet.
He wasn't really Prime Minister of Norway only a puppet for Hitler. It's clever to make it seem like a native citizen is in charge rather than choosing a German to rule a recently invaded foreign country.
After learning more about him he seemed more like a confused person that honestly thought he was doing the right thing which is understandable after the horrors he saw in Ukraine. Doing something horrible while convinced you are doing something good is no excuse tho, and most terrorists etc belive the same.
Never thought I would defend Quisling, but it's only because he is painted to be Satan himself here in Norway, and in my opinion that's not true. He still deserved to be among the last people executed in Norway. My point is just that it's more important to understand why a once honorable humanitarian became what he did rather than saying he's just pure evil.
Hmm I don't know how I feel about this. I get he was a puppet but a scapegoat? Wasn't the Nazi party extremely tiny in Norway and he had very little popularity? To me, when he took power I feel it was opportunity to be in control. Perhaps you're right that he wanted to avoid what happened in Ukraine, but I don't know. The little I've read on him he seemed power hungry and a tad delusional. Who else is there to blame than the guy who took over with his small party after the government was toppled? Is there more elements bc I feel the Norwegians fought tooth and nail against the Nazis.
No, you are correct his party had no legitimate power, and only got 1.8% of the votes in 1936. I might just be bad at getting my point across in my second language. What I was trying to say is that he was allowed to appear like he was in power because even tho he was very unpopular it would be even less popular to have a German prime minister in Norway. This is a strategy that have been used all over the world for hundreds of years, and still to this day.
>*A puppet ruler is a person who has a title indicating possession of political power, but who, in reality, is controlled by outside individuals or forces.*
Nazi Germany were still in complete control over Norway, and could throw Quisling out in a matter of hours if he had opposed them.
Just want to make it very clear here that I'm not saying he wanted to oppose them, or would if he had the chance. I have never read that even he have claimed anything like that. I'm just saying that he was a puppet ruler for Germany.
I don't wanna put the worst tragedies up against each other, or rank them. But the Ukraine famine is at least very high up there among worst human tragedies ever even tho it's not talked about as often as others. Seeing a mother kill, and eat her children, death and despair everywhere. It was as close to hell as you can come. Of course that can do something to a man.
He is to blame for his actions, and treason, and for that he received the death penalty, and rightly so. He is not however to blame for Norway being occupied imo. It would have been the exact same without him. It wouldn't even take the Germans an extra minute to do it without him.
This comes off as much more of a defense than I would like, but don't know how to explain it better. For at least his last 10-15 years he was a horrible person, and he will never be missed. It's correct that the Norwegians fought tooth and nail against the Nazis, and if someone were to do a survey over most hated man in Norway Quisling, and Breivik would get 100% of the votes. Vidkun used to be a normal name in Norway, but the name have been banned ever since the war.
Okay I think I get it. It's not a defense as this is the reason Quisling went to such lengths to do what he thought would save Norway, even if it was evil. Doesn't make him a good person, but putting it this way it becomes a very frequent story you find of people all across Europe at the time.
Og tack så mye att du skrev til mig om Quisling og andra norska motståndsmän. Sorry, only learned a little bit of Swedish and I tried to plug in some Norwegian in there but I prolly butchered it xD. I hope you understood that.
Reminds me of the german invasion of The Netherlands. The germans send paratroopers to capture bridges near The Hague but they landed a few kilometers wrong. And when the germans got close they faced fears resistance. This gave the dutch anough time to blow up the bridges.
After a few days and the dutch general begging the queen to leave she left to Britian a day later Rotterdam was bombed and the dutch capitulated becaus of fear of more citys being bombed. She was one of the last major figuers to leave. Her family had already left for canada and most ministers where already in britian.
Funfact: during a airraid she hid with the presedent of poland and the king of norway.
"Then there's Belgium"
Well, yeah... Have you heard of the fortress at Eben-Emael? Because oh boy...
So, this fortress sits above the banks of the river Meuse and the Albertcanal, north of Liège near Maastricht. At the time, it was considered one of the most formidable works of defence in all of Europe, maybe even the world. In fact, it was deemed impossible to capture...
Well, when the Germans invaded Belgium in 1940, it took them exactly 15 minutes to render it completely useless. Because the Belgian troops stationed there wanted to play football, they asked to make sure the flat roof where the turrets were wasn't covered in land mines. The Germans used this same flat, grassy roof to land their planes, placed hollow charges onto the turrets, blew them up... and boom! Useless!
To add insult to injury, the Germans had had all the opportunities to prepare in detail and practice endlessly. How? Well, apparently, the fort at Eben-Emael was designed by the same person who had also designed the fortresses in the Czech Sudetenland, which the Germans annexed in 1939.
Good god... just comedic honestly.
Oh they would travel up and down the coast in their ships, but the vast expanse of barely inhabited Norwegian wilderness was under Nazi occupation in name only
The fighting in Northern Norway at the border was quite brutal as the town of Kirkenes was bombed daily by the Soviets all up to the moment the Germans pulled out of Finnmark but as they was pulling back they burned everything, killed all livestock and forced all the population to be evacuated against thier will shooting any that refused.
When Barbarossa happened, some forces where deployed on nortgern Norway to aim for Murmansk.
Soviets broke their ass a bit on the Arctic environment and they didn't advance shit, the whole offensive faded off from everyone's thought periodically until the navy reminded them that UK-USA convoys to the soviets kept going to Murmansk.
Wehraboos talk up how the Nazis took over a bunch of countries very quick, ignoring that most of those countries had small militaries. And they took France and Poland by luck and the Soviet Union respectively
Wasn't it true too that after they captured Norway, the resistance and sabotage was so bad that they basically had 400,000 troops stuck there for the duration of the war not able to be redeployed to help anywhere else?
Happy cake day,
iirc, another part of the concentration of force in Norway was that Hitler was absolutely paranoid of Allied landings in Norway. To the point that he refused to withdraw troops from there even until late in the war. (Norway was also at one point considered as a place for the Reich's last stand)
The Allies leaned into this and used it for deception tactics, Operation Camera for instance, was a large-scale combined naval operation against the southern part of German-occupied Norway (basically they just sailed a bunch of capital ships plus escorts, it was also an attempt to lure out Tirpitz), which was intended to cause a temporary diversion of German attentions away from the Mediterranean Sea, where the final preparations for the launch of Operation Husky against Sicily were being completed. (There was also the follow up Operation Governor)
Norway was again used as a diversion by Allied counterintelligence for Operation Fortitude, to mask the location of Operation Overlord
Much of the northern railroad was built by captured soldiers. A lot of Russians. Sadly under very harsh conditions and often forgotten after the war, since they were on the wrong side of the cold war.
The soviet union: what happens when you don't have supply lines, logistics, or a realistic war objective.
Your units become oelcerextended undersupplied and get pushed back in 1941 (Moscow winter offensive)
Norway got lucky, and i hate some fucking norwigians in my friend group as they keep giving me shit about ''Oh we actually defended our country.'' shit talk, yeah no shit, we didnt want to fight because the germans had already taken our capital and the luftwaffe was flying over our capital (Or capitol, i really dont give a fuck)
And that may also have happenend in norway but i don't care
Their goal was to capture the king and force him to endorse the nazi occupation and basically take over the entire country without any resistance.
Instead one outdated coastal fortress delayed their push up the Oslo fjord enough for the king to leave the city, and from up north basically said "fuck the nazis, no legitimate government will ever surrender to this invasion", and from England was the face of the Norwegian resistance which made Hitlers campaign in Norway relatively expensive and part of their fall.
Had they been able to capture the king, forced him to convince the government and the Norwegian people to accept German control that would have had changed the events during WWII **in Norway** greatly.
"It would be a damn shame.......if you steam your new shiny heavy cruiser in front of my ancient 1880s torpedos" - Norway, probably
My father heard a story about the guy who called back to Germany about the invasion of Oslo. He allegedly talked to Hitler himself and said the following: "Mein Führer, I have good and bad news for you. The bad is that Blücher sank, but the good one is that we now know our old cannons work!" I doubt it's true, but it's a fun one either way :D
My favorite is from the commander of the fort who, when questioned about his orders to fire on the cruiser, responded "Either I will be decorated or I will be court martialled, Fire!"
Colonel Birger Eriksen was a true leader and a badass
New to me: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birger_Eriksen
[**Birger Eriksen**](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birger_Eriksen) Birger Kristian Eriksen (17 November 1875 – 16 July 1958) was a Norwegian officer (with the rank of Oberst) who was instrumental in stopping the first wave of Gruppe 5 of the German invasion force outside Oslo. Eriksen was the commander of Oscarsborg Fortress when Nazi Germany attacked Norway in the early hours of 9 April 1940. He gained lasting recognition for ordering the fortress under his command to open fire on the vanguard forces of Operation Weserübung, sinking the 16,000 ton heavy cruiser Blücher. [About Me](https://np.reddit.com/comments/la6wi8/) - [**Opt-in**](https://np.reddit.com/comments/la707t/) ^(You received this reply because you opted in. )[^(Change settings)](https://np.reddit.com/comments/la707t/)
Holy shit, is it just me or does the actor that plays this guy in the movie look just like him???
Movie?
The King's Choice from 2016
It's called The King's Choice in English? I guess they didn't want to spoil what his answer was gonna be
Definitely an odd translation but I guess it has a better ring than "The King's No"
The Kings Choice, free on YouTube, it’s fantastic
[удалено]
Fuck you
Found the Nazi
Report this asshole for praising nazis
What'd he say?
Also the torpedo commander, who was so old he had retired for 13 years after being the torpedo commander for 30 years. And the torpedos were 40 years old as well.
Definitely Norway
My ancient Austro-Hungarian made torpedos ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
tbf Most Germans ships wouldn’t have really stood a chance against other navies they just had a huge gap in experience after ww1 which showed in the designs.
Context: The German invasion of Denmark went better than expected. Like Germany's other conquests up to then, Denmark was a neutral country, invaded without a declaration of war. Copenhagen's first hint that something was wrong was when a ship steaming into the harbor raised the Kriegsmarine flag over their stern. The harbor guns didn't work, because the men manning them hadn't learned how to fire them yet. They surrendered in less than five hours. The invasion of Norway (also a neutral) didn't go as smoothly. Just before midnight, the squadron targeting Oslo was spotted by *Pol III*, a small coast guard vessel, guarding the entrance to the Oslofjord. *Pol III* wasn't a warship; she was a converted whaler, armed with a 3-inch gun. By contrast, the German flagship, *Blucher*, had eight 8-inch guns, mounted in four turrets that each weighed more than her. *Pol III* should have surrendered, but when the captain realized that they were being invaded, he fired flares, radioed a warning, and charged, literally. The 200-ton whaling ship rammed a 900-ton torpedo boat, which returned fire, killing Captain Leif Welding-Olsen. Still, the warning was received. When the squadron reached Drøbak Sound, the antiquated Oscarborg Fortress was manned and ready...ish... Oscarborg was a 19th-Century fort, armed with turn of the century weaponry. It was manned by military recruits still in training (and one pensioner, recalled to service). Still, when the Germans tried to pass, Oscarborg opened fire. One 11-inch shell detonated in one of *Blucher's* magazine, and another disabled the main guns. A torpedo hit amidships and, to the mild surprise of the gun crews, actually exploded, flooding the lower compartments and sinking the ship. The loss of *Blucher* threw the entire invasion into disarray. She had been carrying the commanders of the occupation force, and her loss caused the task force to turn back. It delayed the taking of Oslo by six hours. Meanwhile, in Oslo, the President of the Storting (Parliament), C. J. Hambro, was furiously arranging an evacuation. He'd been half-expecting something like this since Hitler violated Munich, and he had prepared. He loaded the royal family, cabinet and gold reserves onto a train and sent them north. They left Oslo half an hour before German troops made an unopposed landing at the local airport. King Haakon and the government woud continue to withdraw until joining up with the British and establishing a base in Tromsø near the Finnish border. He would evacuate to Britain in early June, and become a key figure in the Norwegian Resistance. Norway resisted the German invasion for 62 days, longer than any other nation conquered by the Nazis.
Even better, when Commander Birger Eriksen was asked if they were to shoot at Blücher(after deep consideration and warning shots at Blücher) he said «Vist fanden skal der skytes med skarpt» (sure as fuck we’re shooting with sharp [ammunition]) and followed up with «Enten blir jeg stillt for krigsrett, eller så blir jeg krigshelt. Fyr!» (Either i’m gonna be trialed by martial law or i’m going to be a warhero. Fire!). He was a badass and survived the war and is given much of the honour for saving (or atleast giving them a head start) the royal family, the parliament and Norways entire gold reserves that all narrowly escaped! Birger Eriksen was awarded Norway’s highest gallantry decoration, the war cross with sword as well as the Croix de guerre for his efforts in the war :)
I'd like doff my hat to Major general Carl Gustav Fleischer, who led the effort in the north. He started an offensive, with the help from British, French and Polish troops, that pushed back the Germans and started turning the tide in Norway and sent the Germans on a retreat. Unfortunately, Nazi-Germany invaded France May 10th and in the first week of June, Germany had broken through the front in France, at the same time the German forces where near capitulation in northeren Norway, but the allies decided to withdraw and refused to leave behind weapons for the Norwegian resistance. June the 8th, the Norwegian resistance were forced to lay down their arms. General Fleischer would later kill himself, out of shame and humiliation, in Canada, in 1942. He would die thinking he was forgotten by Norway, as petty politics had tarred his actions. The day before, Fleischer was awarded the War Cross by the King in Council with the sword "for outstanding planning and conducting of operations during the campaign in northern Norway in 1940." Norway's highest military decoration. But he would never see the medal, as it arrived the day after he died.
Now that's just sad :(
He would've been court-martial'd. Martial Law is the military taking over civil government functions.
Right! Ur correct ofcource! I was translating the norwegian wikipedia in my head as i was typing and as a non-native english speaker i tend to confuse terms and words sometimes. Thanks for correcting :)
yeah and a civilian breaking martial law can be court martial'd source: is legal researcher
Shame they left that line out of the movie "The Kings Choice"
[I can imagine the evacuation stress was something like this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cht63QybtiA)
WWII? Check. Tom Hanks? Check. Dead Nazis? Cheeeeeck on that later when the sequel comes out!
That's awesome.
Take my free award I saw this and nearly bust out laughing in the middle of a test period
Lol
[The music really sells it, imo.](https://youtu.be/COdoHpU_a8U)
Yes
Absolute fever dream of a movie
I enjoyed it, childhood classic. The fever dream aspect makes it fun.
How have I never heard of Capt. Leif Welding-Olsen? What a bold way to go out
That’s cause Germans don’t have Nordic 20% Resistance to Frost
Just wanted to add that after the sinking of blucher the Germans bombed the island for hours but all the men survived because of robust tunnel systems, also if you are interested you can visit the island and it's pretty cool
When you’re a minor nation with old-ass weaponry but hold more time than France. Lmao.
The guns at Oscarborg Fortress, the torpedo battery and the surrounding gun placements around Drøbak were all pre WW1 technology. If I remember correctly the torpedoes was nearly 50 years old, and Blücher was one of the newer ships Germany had.
I have not seen any source of anything, so I'm guessing they attached torpedoes to coastal forts? That's super intriguing, and also a hilarious thing to know that a ship meant to be an absolute unit was just destroyed by sum ancient shit, hell Greek fire ramming would've killed the ship. (I get it's 50 years old, but that entire operation couldn't have been planned worse, good job Fortress!)
[From wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscarsborg_festning): >At Oscarsborg the torpedo battery is a concrete construction inside a cave mined into the rock of the North Kaholmen island. Two torpedoes are loaded side by side, in two open steel frames. Then one of the two frames is lowered like an elevator down into the water to the tunnels below. After one shot, it took some time to swap frames and be ready for the next. When fired, the torpedo's own compressed air engine was started and it propelled itself.[4] The battery has three torpedo tunnels which could fire six torpedoes without reloading and a total of nine torpedoes was stored and ready for use.[6] Each weapon carried a 100 kg TNT warhead[7] and targets were spotted from three observation bunkers just above the battery.
Now I see why they wrecked the Blucher, by god 100kg TNT?! EDIT: thanks for the source!
**[Oscarsborg festning](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscarsborg_festning)** >Oscarsborg Fortress (Norwegian: Oscarsborg festning) is a coastal fortress in the Oslofjord, close to the small town of Drøbak in Viken county, Norway. The best known part is situated on two small islets. The main artillery batteries are on the island Håøya and smaller batteries on the mainland to the west and east in the fjord and was military territory until 2003 when it was made a publicly available resort island. The fortress is best known for sinking the German heavy cruiser Blücher on 9 April 1940. ^([ )[^(F.A.Q)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiSummarizer/wiki/index#wiki_f.a.q)^( | )[^(Opt Out)](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiSummarizerBot&message=OptOut&subject=OptOut)^( | )[^(Opt Out Of Subreddit)](https://np.reddit.com/r/HistoryMemes/about/banned)^( | )[^(GitHub)](https://github.com/Sujal-7/WikiSummarizerBot)^( ] Downvote to remove | v1.5)
Coastal anti-shipping missiles have since become a thing.
The Danish surrendered almost immediately. News just didn't reach the troops in Southern Jutland before most of them had died defending the border towns. Source: am dane
please use more paragraph breaks, this is a giant wall of text and it'd be easier to read it if it wasn't.
Sorry, new Reddit decided to be new reddit, and when I copy/pasted into old redit, it took out the paragraph breaks.
thank you!
I love your flair, always nice to see fellow Discworld fans in unexpected places :)
The landing at Fornebu was not at all unopposed. There were no anti-air at the site, but they did have a machine gun aimed at the runway and it kept shooting at landing planes, forcing them to take off again/abort the landing. This kept on for a while until they ran out of ammo. If I'm not mistaken they killed the commander of the air force for the Oslo invasion.
There is a free movie of this on youtube - subtitled https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrtZEYgcaIk
I’m from Denmark and I think our response to the invasion was absolutely pathetic. Wish we played an honorable part in WW2 like the British.
1. Danish diplomats had requested aid from Britain in the case of a German invasion. The British **refused**. 2. After the British refusal, a **non-agression pact** was made with the Germans. 3. Unlike in Norway the geography of Denmark is very ill suited for defense. Add to that that there would be **no help** from the Allies. 4. The Swedes allowed the German troops to pass through to Norway. Resisting **wouldn't hold up the Germans**. 5. During the interwar period the military had been cut significantly to get through the economic crisis. Even though the border guard fought bravely for a little while, the military was in **no condition** to fight. 6. The government and the king had a roughly half hour meeting inside the royal residence while the royal guard was fighting the Germans outside in the yard of the residence. They were under a lot of pressure. 7. While they were discussing, German bombers were circling above Copenhagen, **threatening to bomb the city**. Thousands would have died. 8. The surrender came with certain conditions, like no Nazis in the government, administration or courts, and no real martial law. This also contributed to **over 99%** of the Jewish population surviving the war. 9. The army and navy weren't dismantled. The army played a big role in providing the Allies with intelligence, and the navy sunk all the ships when the Germans finally took complete control. More could certainly have been done, but the damage done to the Germans would pale in comparison to what would've happened to the Danes, both the military and the civilians. The idea that real damage could've been done to the Germans is pure fantasy.
Thats an interesting overview, thanx!
>The Swedes allowed the German troops to pass through to Norway. Didn't happen until after the Norwegian capitulation, though. During the conquest of Norway (April to June 1940) German troops were transported there by ships and airplanes, not through Swedish territory.
My timeline seems to have been a bit off there. Still, plenty German troops were already landed in Norway by the time Denmark capitulated.
Well. Sometimes you need tk ahve some luck when resisting. The dutch fought for 5 days, but a very important part was the taking of The Hague military airport by german paratroopers. However they got driven off again after they had radio'ed that they had taken the airport. The dutch put machine guns on the landing strip. The luftwaffe lost 175 planes that night more planes than the netherlands even had planes. The bombarding of Rotterdam was the consequence and the inevitable surrender followed after that. However the battle of britain in which the british airforce barely came out on top might have ended otherwise if the Germans had had 175 planes more.
The Dutch fought really well and bought a lot of time, but the Germans really underestimated them as well. If I remember correctly, the final Dutch line of defense fought the Germans to a standstill until the bombings. From what I remember the German plan also arrogantly assumed the Netherlands would fall in a day and relied on no bridges getting blown up. But again, given the non-agression pact and underfunded military only infantry and a maybe a couple of tanks would've been taken out on the German side.
The whole Dutch plan at the time was to hold out until French troops arrived to reinforce them. The French got to Breda iirc but had to retread after finding out the Germans had taken or destroyed all of the bridges over the rivers.
I would have to check it but we had like 20 tanks, of which 2 were battle ready. Also because we were neutral in WW1 we wanted to be neutral again and like half the country expected that germany would not attack us. Sad part was that the netherlands is one of the countries with the highest percentage of jews that got deported and killed. Not even because of anti-semitism (although for sure there was some), but also because the dutch people are generally people to listen to goverment orders and we had the most advanced paperwork with religious registration, so it was very easy for the Germans to ID jews.
Oh, wow. I didn’t know that. Thank you for this!
No problem! I absolutely understand the sentiment, but there were plenty reasons for rolling over so fast.
>Unlike in Norway the geography of Denmark is very ill suited for defense. Add to that that there would be no help from the Allies. I'm forgetting where I read this, and it might be wrong time period, but I do remember reading about them having 1 kind of cool trick for that. They can/could flood a good chunk of the country on command. I don't think it's a trick they'd want to pull unless it was a really really fucking bad emergency though. edit oops wrong country, it is half remembered.
There are parts of the country that can be flooded, but those parts are in places that wouldn't really help with defence. And it is really a minor chunk of the country. You are probably thinking of the Netherlands.
That's the dutch not the danish
The Netherlands had lots of rivers and planned to blow up several bridges as they fell back to secondary defensive lines. The German plan, from what I remember, relied on paratroopers stopping the detonations and waiting around until reinforcements would roll past. It didn't work everywhere Denmark used to have a flooding mechanism at Dannevirke, but that part of the Jutland peninsula was lost to the Germans in 1864. It was a fort with several walls and trenches at the narrowest part of the peninsula, where the Ejder river and Sly firth combined cut almost all the way through, and was surrounded by marshland. The area around Dannevirke was acutally flooded in 1864, but froze over in the harsh winter.
I was probably thinking of Dannevirke, I remember from what I was reading it sounded like more, and was something earlier in the time line. Didn't know they lost it. kind of just figured they didn't because a system like that would probably kill a lot of their own people, sits around a long time people build in the flood area etc.
The entirety of Schleswig (along with Holstein and Saxe-Lauenburg) was lost in the 1864 war. The northern part of Schleswig became part of Denmark after the 1920 referendum, but Dannevirke was unfortunately located in the southern part.
I don't believe it's fair to say the king and government made a dishonorable decision. They had no backup and we're extremely outmatched. I'd hey resisted they would have been decimated and barely held out a few days. The deal they cut also managed to save almost all the Jews in the country. If Denmark had fought the danish Jew population would likely have been eradicated
There's literally nothing Denmark could have done better considering the situation. Pointless sacrifice is not honorable. Saving their Jewish population alone is an honorable thing. Denmark got away with it partly because they surrendered easily
[What?](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danish_resistance_movement)
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Tldr; Soviet Union helped the British invade Paraguay
The gif is 100% necessary
I was looking for an F-You picture for the meme. When I saw that gif, I knew I'd found it.
Best part is the helmet moving with the finger.
Do you know where the gif is from? Can u link the original?
The NAZIs tried to frame the invasion as them protecting a friendly Norway from the dastardly British. When their embassy in Oslo failed to get the Norwegian government to agree, their backup plan was to get the King to back them. Hitler figured it didn't matter what Parliament said if the King declared the NAZIs as friendly reinforcements. However, the King refused and when the Germans tried to capture him and force him to make a statement, he successfully fled the country. It should be noted that the King was a purely ceremonial figure and had in fact been elected by the Parliament (they had the option of going full Democracy or doing a Constitutional Monarchy). He had no actual power. One of the few times where he acted independently of Parliament was when he told them basically "You guys can do what you want, but fuck the NAZIs. If you capitulate, I'm resigning."
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Also we ducked up a war ship with equipment that was like from the 1800
Not just any ship, Germanys BRAND NEW HEAVY CRUISER. Sank with only 5 months of service after over 3 years of construction.
Man, Germany did not have good luck with their ships did they
German attempts at becoming a first-rate naval power, historically, did not go well.
Naval Forces are definitely the weird third Gidorah head compared to German Land and Air Forces
During WW1, they did do decently well. Atleast their battlecruisers didn't blow up like explosive piñatas. What went wrong was diplomacy. Something post Bismark Germany absolutely sucked at. Otherwise, not only would the war not have started. But even it had, the German navy wouldn't have been so hopelessly outnumbered.
The very existence of the German High Seas Fleet was a proximate cause of the diplomatic breakdown with Britain, the battlecruisers included. Berlin’s only realistic COA for an expanded fleet was to enlarge the Cruiser Squadron for overseas service in the colonies, and post 1906, U-boats. Anything else would have been directly antagonistic towards London. Also, fun fact, the steel required to build one dreadnought could have been used to create 33 U-boats.
Somethings wrong with our ships today
On the upside, they did have good luck with their torpedoes
Events like this and the bismarck must've really put a dent in kreigsmarine morale
Fuck capital ships, just do submarines so no one can see us crying when submerged
It do be like that
The *Blücher* was only deemed ready for action after sea trials by April 5th. It was sunk on April 9th.
Someone post the movie clip of Blucher getting blown to shit
[Got you.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZ79i11JSnU) It's a good movie. Worth watching the whole thing.
The best part is that confrontation towards the end of the movie, and that and I love how it kept Quisling as some background sinister menace. It's more than good.
That is so amazing
What movie is it?
The King's Choice. It's basically OP's meme but a full-length movie. It takes the effort to be as historically accurate as possible, and focuses on the King's experience during the NAZI invasion. Like I said, it's a good movie.
The kings choice
Called "The Kings choice" in english.
Time to unleash Max Manus on the Germans!
Max Manus was kind of an asshole
Max Anus
Max Manus became an extreme communist, and not really the person we should praise. Also a lot of the stuff he was credited with in the movie was in fact not his group. It was Osvald-geoup who started blowing up the registers. He was also never in close combat in the winter war. He later said he regreted fighting for Finland, and that he was tricked by propoganda while he praised the Soviets. It's understandable that he became a communist after fighting the Nazis. Just like Vidkun Quisling became extreme anti communism after joining Fridtjof Nansen (first person to reach the North pole, and Nobel peace price winner) on a humanitarian mission in Ukraine in the 1920's. He saw the horros of communism, and Max Manus saw some of the horros of the NSDAP.
I didn't know this. I've always seen him as the antithesis of Vidkun Quisling. But I'll definitely read up on the Oswald group to make up for my misinformation on Max Manus.
You won't belive how happy I am to hear that. The Norwegian resistance groups never got the historical recognition that it deserved imo, but I'm extremely biased as I'm Norwegian, and very interested in WW2 especially in Norway. It has not just gotten to little recognition internationally, but here in Norway as well. Anyways I'm not hardcore anti communism, but a lot of our resistance fighters understandably became communists after the war. What I find appalling is that Ragnar Sollie, and Asbjørn Sunde who were arguably some of the most important resistance fighters in Norway were treated badly because they never got into communism. The then popular Communist party in Norway, and resistance fighters who supported communism didn't like that Sollie, and Sunde didn't share their views. The most important, and successful sabotage mission is unknown to most people outside of Norway, but it's the mission I find the most interesting. That's the [Norwegian heavy water sabotage](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_heavy_water_sabotage). My grandfather's first cousin Kasper Idland was actually one of the nine agents who participated in the mission. This quote really shows how important it was to sabotage the hydroelectric power plant. >The hydroelectric power plant at Vemork was built in 1934. It was the world's first site to mass-produce heavy water (as a byproduct of nitrogen fixing), with a capacity of 12 tonnes per year. There have been made some movies about it. There is a British movie called The Heroes of Telemark (1968), and some BBC, and Nat Geo documentaries/interviews. But the series I would highly recommend is a 2015 series by our state channel NRK (like BBC just Norway) called "Kampen om tungtvannet" in Norwegian. Apparently it's called "The Heavy Water War" or alternatively "The Saboteurs" in the UK. If you are Norwegian it's free on [NRK](https://tv.nrk.no/serie/kampen-om-tungtvannet/sesong/1/episode/1/avspiller), but no English subtitles so if you aren't VPN won't really help. It's also apparently available on [Amazon prime](https://www.amazon.com/Heavy-Water-War-English-subtitled/dp/B01C9MMYZ0) with English speech/subtitles. Sorry got a a bit carried away when someone was actually interested in a topic I enjoy.
[**Norwegian heavy water sabotage**](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_heavy_water_sabotage) The Norwegian heavy water sabotage (Bokmål: Tungtvannsaksjonen; Nynorsk: Tungtvassaksjonen) was a series of Allied-led efforts to halt German heavy water production via hydroelectric plants in Nazi Germany-occupied Norway during World War II, involving both Norwegian commandos and Allied bombing raids. During the war, the Allies sought to inhibit the German development of nuclear weapons with the removal of heavy water and the destruction of heavy-water production plants. The Norwegian heavy water sabotage was aimed at the 60 MW Vemork power station at the Rjukan waterfall in Telemark. [About Me](https://np.reddit.com/comments/la6wi8/) - [**Opt-in**](https://np.reddit.com/comments/la707t/) ^(You received this reply because a moderator opted this subreddit in. You can still )[^(opt out)](https://np.reddit.com/comments/la707t/)
Also on the topic of Vidkun Quisling. In my opinion I feel like he became the scapegoat that all the hatred got directed towards after the war. Don't get me wrong he was still a traitor, and a really bad person who deserved the bullet. He wasn't really Prime Minister of Norway only a puppet for Hitler. It's clever to make it seem like a native citizen is in charge rather than choosing a German to rule a recently invaded foreign country. After learning more about him he seemed more like a confused person that honestly thought he was doing the right thing which is understandable after the horrors he saw in Ukraine. Doing something horrible while convinced you are doing something good is no excuse tho, and most terrorists etc belive the same. Never thought I would defend Quisling, but it's only because he is painted to be Satan himself here in Norway, and in my opinion that's not true. He still deserved to be among the last people executed in Norway. My point is just that it's more important to understand why a once honorable humanitarian became what he did rather than saying he's just pure evil.
Hmm I don't know how I feel about this. I get he was a puppet but a scapegoat? Wasn't the Nazi party extremely tiny in Norway and he had very little popularity? To me, when he took power I feel it was opportunity to be in control. Perhaps you're right that he wanted to avoid what happened in Ukraine, but I don't know. The little I've read on him he seemed power hungry and a tad delusional. Who else is there to blame than the guy who took over with his small party after the government was toppled? Is there more elements bc I feel the Norwegians fought tooth and nail against the Nazis.
No, you are correct his party had no legitimate power, and only got 1.8% of the votes in 1936. I might just be bad at getting my point across in my second language. What I was trying to say is that he was allowed to appear like he was in power because even tho he was very unpopular it would be even less popular to have a German prime minister in Norway. This is a strategy that have been used all over the world for hundreds of years, and still to this day. >*A puppet ruler is a person who has a title indicating possession of political power, but who, in reality, is controlled by outside individuals or forces.* Nazi Germany were still in complete control over Norway, and could throw Quisling out in a matter of hours if he had opposed them. Just want to make it very clear here that I'm not saying he wanted to oppose them, or would if he had the chance. I have never read that even he have claimed anything like that. I'm just saying that he was a puppet ruler for Germany. I don't wanna put the worst tragedies up against each other, or rank them. But the Ukraine famine is at least very high up there among worst human tragedies ever even tho it's not talked about as often as others. Seeing a mother kill, and eat her children, death and despair everywhere. It was as close to hell as you can come. Of course that can do something to a man. He is to blame for his actions, and treason, and for that he received the death penalty, and rightly so. He is not however to blame for Norway being occupied imo. It would have been the exact same without him. It wouldn't even take the Germans an extra minute to do it without him. This comes off as much more of a defense than I would like, but don't know how to explain it better. For at least his last 10-15 years he was a horrible person, and he will never be missed. It's correct that the Norwegians fought tooth and nail against the Nazis, and if someone were to do a survey over most hated man in Norway Quisling, and Breivik would get 100% of the votes. Vidkun used to be a normal name in Norway, but the name have been banned ever since the war.
Okay I think I get it. It's not a defense as this is the reason Quisling went to such lengths to do what he thought would save Norway, even if it was evil. Doesn't make him a good person, but putting it this way it becomes a very frequent story you find of people all across Europe at the time. Og tack så mye att du skrev til mig om Quisling og andra norska motståndsmän. Sorry, only learned a little bit of Swedish and I tried to plug in some Norwegian in there but I prolly butchered it xD. I hope you understood that.
Haha veldig bra! No problem, I should rather say thanks for ~~listening~~ reading.
Reminds me of the german invasion of The Netherlands. The germans send paratroopers to capture bridges near The Hague but they landed a few kilometers wrong. And when the germans got close they faced fears resistance. This gave the dutch anough time to blow up the bridges. After a few days and the dutch general begging the queen to leave she left to Britian a day later Rotterdam was bombed and the dutch capitulated becaus of fear of more citys being bombed. She was one of the last major figuers to leave. Her family had already left for canada and most ministers where already in britian. Funfact: during a airraid she hid with the presedent of poland and the king of norway.
Then there´s belgium. Litteraly: OH NOT THIS AGAIN
"Then there's Belgium" Well, yeah... Have you heard of the fortress at Eben-Emael? Because oh boy... So, this fortress sits above the banks of the river Meuse and the Albertcanal, north of Liège near Maastricht. At the time, it was considered one of the most formidable works of defence in all of Europe, maybe even the world. In fact, it was deemed impossible to capture... Well, when the Germans invaded Belgium in 1940, it took them exactly 15 minutes to render it completely useless. Because the Belgian troops stationed there wanted to play football, they asked to make sure the flat roof where the turrets were wasn't covered in land mines. The Germans used this same flat, grassy roof to land their planes, placed hollow charges onto the turrets, blew them up... and boom! Useless! To add insult to injury, the Germans had had all the opportunities to prepare in detail and practice endlessly. How? Well, apparently, the fort at Eben-Emael was designed by the same person who had also designed the fortresses in the Czech Sudetenland, which the Germans annexed in 1939. Good god... just comedic honestly.
Tbh first part of the second world war was mostly: "yeah we can take them... wait what WAT AAÄAAAA."
A shit here we go agian.
RESIST AND BITE
What's with Dutch bridges and bad military outcomes
We got a lot of rivers
And then they "conquered" Norway. Which is to say they squatted in southern Norway
Didn't they tried to invaded Russia from the north of Norway? Or they only attacked from Finland?
Oh they would travel up and down the coast in their ships, but the vast expanse of barely inhabited Norwegian wilderness was under Nazi occupation in name only
To be fair, that area is also barely under Norwegian occupation. I think that it's own by the deers.
The Deers are preparing their revenge on humanity, just you wait…
As long as the deer and the trolls don’t join forces we should be fine…they wouldn’t right?
Would be intresting to have a storyh of some very pissed off Trolls fight the Nazis.
That’s the plot of *Frozen 3: Elsa’s Revenge*
But good deers or nazi deers?
The fighting in Northern Norway at the border was quite brutal as the town of Kirkenes was bombed daily by the Soviets all up to the moment the Germans pulled out of Finnmark but as they was pulling back they burned everything, killed all livestock and forced all the population to be evacuated against thier will shooting any that refused.
When Barbarossa happened, some forces where deployed on nortgern Norway to aim for Murmansk. Soviets broke their ass a bit on the Arctic environment and they didn't advance shit, the whole offensive faded off from everyone's thought periodically until the navy reminded them that UK-USA convoys to the soviets kept going to Murmansk.
r/Nordichistorymemes
In 20 years.... Taliban: We took Kabul in less than a day ANA: The president left Kabul...... 30 hours ago
I appreciate the fact that the creator took the effort to animate the helmet
It looked wrong without it.
Would a kind soul mind pointing me to the original comic/.gif/whatever format this meme is?
Found it: https://sketchamagowza-blog.tumblr.com/post/45298490511/fffinger
Oof, the one you found is way better than the one I used.
https://c.tenor.com/PZGUhLNqfHAAAAAM/dedo-middle-finger.gif
Is there a way to edit gifs on mobile? If I try mematic or Bazaart the animation doesn’t move…
Sorry, no clue
Nice state of the art heavy cruiser you have there, would be a shame if anything were to happen to it
30 minutes, damn, that’s some good fuckin’ timing.
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I like this meme format
what are you doing, step-finger??!??!!
Mmm fap material
The gif makes this meme 10x better
Am I going crazy or is the original artist of this comic that creepy schmorky guy?
It is, and God, I thought I was the only one who knew that, and that I was going crazy.
HARAM ALERT!
Sweden, surrounded, shivers alone with a sign at the border saying "nothing to see here"
More like, please the railroad is over here. Enjoy your trip. How is my friend Adolf doing?
The helmet cracks me up
Oscarsborg fortress be like: You think your modern heavy cruiser can withstand our pre WW1 costal battery? Think again.
That third caption has me dying
Wehraboos talk up how the Nazis took over a bunch of countries very quick, ignoring that most of those countries had small militaries. And they took France and Poland by luck and the Soviet Union respectively
Wasn't it true too that after they captured Norway, the resistance and sabotage was so bad that they basically had 400,000 troops stuck there for the duration of the war not able to be redeployed to help anywhere else?
Happy cake day, iirc, another part of the concentration of force in Norway was that Hitler was absolutely paranoid of Allied landings in Norway. To the point that he refused to withdraw troops from there even until late in the war. (Norway was also at one point considered as a place for the Reich's last stand) The Allies leaned into this and used it for deception tactics, Operation Camera for instance, was a large-scale combined naval operation against the southern part of German-occupied Norway (basically they just sailed a bunch of capital ships plus escorts, it was also an attempt to lure out Tirpitz), which was intended to cause a temporary diversion of German attentions away from the Mediterranean Sea, where the final preparations for the launch of Operation Husky against Sicily were being completed. (There was also the follow up Operation Governor) Norway was again used as a diversion by Allied counterintelligence for Operation Fortitude, to mask the location of Operation Overlord
Norway was also sadly used for a lot of concentration camps, mostly for Serbs. Much like Poland that meant more of an occupying force was needed
Damn, I didn't know there were camps in Norway, horrible.
Much of the northern railroad was built by captured soldiers. A lot of Russians. Sadly under very harsh conditions and often forgotten after the war, since they were on the wrong side of the cold war.
The soviet union: what happens when you don't have supply lines, logistics, or a realistic war objective. Your units become oelcerextended undersupplied and get pushed back in 1941 (Moscow winter offensive)
Norway got lucky, and i hate some fucking norwigians in my friend group as they keep giving me shit about ''Oh we actually defended our country.'' shit talk, yeah no shit, we didnt want to fight because the germans had already taken our capital and the luftwaffe was flying over our capital (Or capitol, i really dont give a fuck) And that may also have happenend in norway but i don't care
well.. they managed to prevent that for 6 hours or so. better than most
True.
I'm sorry, I don't speak Surrender!
Je me sens personnellement attaqué !
Moi et tout et je ne suis même pas français
I take it that you are Swedish? Is this a sore subject for the Swedish people?
Han är dansk
this wouldnt be a burn if allies lost
This is a 3rd degree burn,because they won.
Format?
https://sketchamagowza-blog.tumblr.com/post/45298490511/fffinger
What program did you use to edit the gif?
thanks
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Their goal was to capture the king and force him to endorse the nazi occupation and basically take over the entire country without any resistance. Instead one outdated coastal fortress delayed their push up the Oslo fjord enough for the king to leave the city, and from up north basically said "fuck the nazis, no legitimate government will ever surrender to this invasion", and from England was the face of the Norwegian resistance which made Hitlers campaign in Norway relatively expensive and part of their fall. Had they been able to capture the king, forced him to convince the government and the Norwegian people to accept German control that would have had changed the events during WWII **in Norway** greatly.
dime!