Tromsø, Occupied Norway • June 7, 1940 Within days of the German invasion of neutral Denmark and Norway on April 9, 1940 (Operation Weseruebung), it became clear that the Norwegian armed forces could not resist the more powerful Wehrmacht (German armed forces), bristling with modern weaponry and supported by highly effective air cover. Caught largely by…
Oslo, Norway • May 8, 1945 On May 5, 1945, five days after Adolf Hitler’s suicide in the catacombs beneath his Reich capital, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in Europe, sent a telegram to resistance leaders in Norway, who passed it to the hardline commander in chief of German armed forces…
Berlin, Germany · June 8, 1940 In an operation remarkable for its precision and boldness, Germany launched Operation Weseruebung, the invasion of Norway on April 9, 1940, seized its capital, Oslo, and captured the important port of Narvik in Northern Norway. Narvik boasted an ice-free harbor during the long Scandinavian winters, and it was the rail…
London, England · December 19, 1939 In the afternoon of August 23, 1939, Adolf Hitler’s foreign secretary Joachim von Ribbentrop appeared in Moscow’s Kremlin fortress to sign off on the Nazi-Soviet Nonaggression Pact. The 10‑year pact, also known by the twin surnames of the Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov and the German foreign minister Ribbentrop, was…
Berlin, Germany · December 14, 1939 On this date in 1939 Adolf Hitler and high-ranking members of the German Navy and Army met with Norway’s Vidkun Quisling, whose private visit to Berlin had been sponsored by Alfred Rosenberg, the Nazi Party’s chief racial theorist. From 1931 to 1933 Quisling had served as Norway’s minister of…
Telemark, Occupied Norway · November 16, 1943 In the spring of 1940 Norway fell under the Nazi jackboot in a campaign that lasted 62 days and cost 5,000 lives on both sides. Three and a half years later, on this date in 1943, a massive daylight bombing raid by 143 U.S. Army Air Forces B‑17s caused extensive damage…
Tromsø, Occupied Norway · June 7, 1940 Within days of the German invasion of Denmark and Norway on April 9, 1940, it became clear that the Norwegian armed forces could not resist the more powerful Wehrmacht (German armed forces), bristling with modern weaponry and supported by highly effective air cover. Caught largely by surprise, the…
Reykjavik, Iceland · May 17, 1941 On April 9, 1940, Nazi Germany invaded Denmark and Norway, ostensibly to protect the neutrality of the two Scandinavian countries against Franco-British aggression. Adolf Hitler had become convinced in mid-December 1939 that the two West European Allies, at war with Germany for three and a half months now, were…
Oslo, Norway · May 8, 1945 On May 5, 1945, five days after Adolf Hitler’s suicide in the catacombs beneath his Reich capital, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in Europe, sent a telegram to resistance leaders in Norway, who passed it to the Commander in Chief of German armed forces in…
Narvik, Norway · April 29, 1940 Copenhagen, Denmark’s capital, and Oslo, Norway’s capital, succumbed to German invaders on April 9, 1940, the first day of Operation Weseruebung. Though planning for Weseruebung had begun the previous December, Adolf Hitler did not order full speed ahead until British warships entered the territorial waters of neutral Norway in…