Talk:Operation Weserübung

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[edit] More info on Norwegian Campaign in the works...

To put it mildly, any Norwegian with a slight semblance of historical interest would probably take this article in its previous form as an insult -- without there being as much as a notice of the total lack of info on the military events of Weserübung in Norway -- not even the sinking of the heavy cruiser Blücher on April 9 is mentioned; nor is the two month long campaign... (compare with, eg., the Polish September Campaign, as regards breadth of coverage for an even shorter campaign, although the latter is of course of singular interest as it "opened" WWII).

Wikipedia being what it is, this is of course not a complaint addressing the lack of info as such, but the missing disclaimer of same lack -- which in this case must be said to have been misleading to a novice reader. --Wernher 20:30, 9 Jan 2004 (UTC)

So there, now there's a list of events to show people that invading Norway must at least have been a nuisance to the uninvited guests, not to mention to the little mustachioed man in Berlin... --Wernher 04:25, 14 Jan 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Norway now a Baltic state...

The 'listbox' of WWII theatres places Weserübung in the Baltic states. Needless to say, this is unconventional geography, at the least, so I have put a comment questioning this in the relevant article. I suggest Scandinavia as the name of the theatre. --Wernher 22:40, 30 Apr 2004 (UTC)

There are rare instances when editing a talk page is necessity; this is one of them. I have replaced all links to "List of World War II theaters and campaigns" with a link to the page it moved to: List of theaters and campaigns of World War II, to avoid double-redirects. Thanks.—Chidom talk  18:08, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
The misunderstanding was quickly fixed – a tribute to Wikipedia. --Wernher 01:30, 1 May 2004 (UTC)
Well, actually, you can see Scandinavia annoted as "Baltic" in some English-language works, however, this does not seem to be common in more recent works. As usual, the locals can not change such a bad habit. /Tuomas 03:54, 2 May 2004 (UTC)
Yes, I noticed that definitions of the Baltic region contain Scandinavia, which is OK; there have been trade relations within this greater region for a thousand years or so. But the three Baltic states should not be confused with the larger region. --Wernher 09:53, 2 May 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Re the mention of Heydrich

Just a short note: Heydrich as a Luftwaffe fighter pilot is mentioned misc places on the 'web, and a couple of years ago I read somewhere (now, if I only could remember which book...) that he was one of those landing at Kjevik (Kr.sand) at Wesertag. He also flew some recon missions from Sola (Stavanger) over the UK, before returning to Berlin in May. Some proper refs will have to be digged out. --Wernher 10:58, 13 May 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Rationale for misc edits 2 Sep 2004

  1. Reinstating the former version of the intro paragraph where the details of Weserzeit are kept out of the main paragraph body makes the prose float better, and (re)fixes/repairs some of the prose which had been somewhat grammatically mutilated.
  2. Changing the note markers from this¹ and this² to this* makes the notes significantly more visible, and reduces editing work as well as helping avoid goofs when adding/removing notes.
  3. The fact of the Fornebu landing being the ...first paratrooper attack in history... is conveyed more clearly to the reader if the lk txt of the Fallschirmjäger lk is the general English language word for that type of troops.
Update: see the thread Descending (Wehrmacht) soldiers... below. --W

--Wernher

[edit] Merge proposal

I believe that this should be merged with Allied campaign in Norway to avoid duplication. DJ Clayworth 14:34, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)

It hopefully will not. The German and the British operations were interconnected, but many things in history and life are so. Merging these articles has the potency to cause more confusion and problems than it may solve. /Tuomas 22:04, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I don't believe they should be merged. The main problem (I think) is the lack of an overview of the Scandanavian Campaign, which would include both. Oberiko 10:35, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)
The merge-banner is now removed.
--Ruhrjung 07:04, 2004 Nov 6 (UTC)

I agree with Oberiko and Tuomas. An overview is to be expected in the article structurally one tier above this, i.e. in the European Theater-article.
--Ruhrjung 07:12, 2004 Sep 21 (UTC)

I recently amended the article to beef up the stuff about the sinking in the narrows, but my one little clause packs a lot of expandable information. The aftermath of the sinking was the successful escape of the government, the king, and the treasury, which had great impact, not only on Norway, but on the war as a whole. The Norwegian merchant fleet, for instance, was transferred wholesale to the allied cause and the treasury was used, among other things, to finance a Norwegian warship that participated in the sea campaigns against the Germans, and, I believe, sunk a ship. In addition, the Norwegian resistance sank ships for the rest of the war, with the Norwegian resistance aiding the British to sink several battleships (don't have my reference handy) that were hiding in the fjords. Furthermore, vast numbers of German troops were tied up in Norway, prisoners of British deceptions about plans to invade and the genuine resistance of the Norwegians. When they finally departed, the Germans destroyed much of the north of Norway. Any article about the "Scandanavian campaign" is really going to be an article about the Norwegian campaign. Denmark was overrun in days (although there was some action in Greenland), Sweden . . . well, we know about that, Finland was a vastly complicated story that should also be told separately. I don't know what Iceland did. Norway was counted among the victorious allies of World War 2. The story is less well known than the French story, but much more to Norway's credit. Ortolan88 15:36, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I agree with you Ortolan. Scandinavia (originally my wording for the campaign) is a bad choice. Norway was the only nation really involved and Finland (with the Winter and Continuation War) is not only vastly to complicated to fit here, but has little relevance to the Norwegian Campaign <-- (Proposed overview page). Oberiko 15:50, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Descending (Wehrmacht) soldiers...

Regarding the disagreement over using the term paratrooper vs Fallschirmjäger in the following sentence in the article:

German airborne troops landed at Oslo airport Fornebu, Kristiansand airport Kjevik, and Stavanger airport Sola – the latter constituting the first TERM1 (TERM2) attack in history...

As said attack was the first ever (in history) made by airborne troops descending in parachutes, I argue that the general English language term for such troops should be used as TERM1. TERM2, if present, should be used for specifying the particular type of paratroopers employed on this occasion. From The Random House Dictionary of the English Language, the Unabridged Edition, 1983, reprinted in 1989 as part of Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary (ISBN 0-517-68781-X) we have:

paratrooper, n. Mil. a member of an army infantry unit trained to attack or land in combat areas by parachuting from airplanes. [PARA(CHUTE)+TROOPER]

This seems to indicate that paratrooper is, indeed, the general English language term. If anyone wants to comment on this "editing controversy" (?), you're welcome to. --Wernher 20:49, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)

So are you suggesting that we perhaps transpose the two terms? -Joseph (Talk) 21:05, 2004 Oct 5 (UTC)

Yes, that would definitely be better, I think, i.e. putting the German word in parentheses following the general English term. The German term is of course also referred/linked to very visibly in the paratrooper article, but the solution you mention would inform readers of the specific German term directly. BTW, the Fallschirmjäger article seems to indicate that the G. term was/is used for WWII G. paratroopers exclusively -- is that the case? Are today's Bundeswehr's paratroops (if any) called otherwise? --Wernher 14:46, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Transposition performed. I think they do still use the term. I'll have to check and modify that article accordingly. -Joseph (Talk) 19:58, 2004 Oct 6 (UTC)

In german the the word Fallschirmjäger is used for all paratroopers regardless of era and nationalityNevfennas 22:24, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Article linking

  • It's common practice not to have multiple links to the same location within an article. Perhaps the phrase simply needs to be reworded to match your criteria here? Oberiko 23:25, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • An alternative would of course be to make different articles for the transitations through Sweden and Finland respectively, but I don't think that's such a good idea. The Russian and German policies are linked both by practice, time, and by their then-concordance of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. As long as it isn't done frequently, I think Ruhrjung's solution is suitable in this particular case — ...but if you wish to improve the wordings, maybe that can be accomplished; although, I fear that to be a hornets' nest that I don't want to mess with. /Tuomas 23:59, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Temp article

At Operation Weserübung/temp I've relocated some text I originally had for the Norwegian Campaign. I'll integrate it here later. Oberiko 13:04, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Why all the redundancy? Couldn't the Norwegian Campaign be the main history page and Operation Weserübung concern the German plan for the operation? That would seem the most logical. — RJH 02:15, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)
That's why I put it here. The temp article contains my first draft for the Norwegian Campaign article, but I thought it was to focused on Weserubung so I started over. Instead of simply deleting the old one, I put it in the temp just in case someone might find something useful in there. Oberiko 02:43, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Actually I meant why all of the redundancy in this article of material that more properly belongs in Norwegian Campaign. In the Invasion of Norway section is a big long list of content that "should" be included here, but is really more appropriate for the Norwegian Campaign page. I added a merge tag to that part of the text, but somebody then deleted it. But I don't see a good argument for keeping that list here. Thanks. — RJH 14:58, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Merge with Norwegian Campaign

These articles seem to be almost entirely redundant with each other. In reading Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history, it appears we should avoid using the operational codeword (in this case Weserübung); but Norwegian Campaign is a bit misleading (since Denmark was part of Weserübung) and because there is no clear agreed-upon term for this offensive. Also, more articles link to this article rather than Norwegian Campaign. On the other hand, Norwegian Campaign seems to be a longer and better structured article. --Leifern 22:45, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Denmark was captured solely due the fact that it would allow the Luftwaffe airbases close to Norway. It was never really an objective in and of itself. Oberiko 00:15, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
To Leifern: We should have in mind, though, that Norwegian Campaign describes the entire campaign including the allied efforts, while Weserübung was the German invasion as such. That's the reason I haven't suggested such a merge myself; I think both articles might have a place here. --Wernher 00:53, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
Yes, but even so, the two have an enormous amount of redundancy. If you look at Operation Barbarossa, you'll see this includes the Soviet preparations as well as the German plans. I'm not opposed to two articles, but the distinction has to be clear and redundancy minimized. --Leifern 02:35, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
Point taken. This was also discussed above and I believe the consensus was to keep both articles, which I also support. What could be done to minimize redundancy? I was thinking of crosslinks between the two articles. One can jump directly to a section by linking thusly: German Plans. Cheers Jbetak 03:03, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Sorry to reopen this but, as a newcomer to the article, I was confused to find that "Norwegian Campaign" included Denmark as a participant - when the Danes scarcely opposed their own occupation. For British readers, I suggest "Norwegian Campaign" is just that: the fighting in Norway, which is covered elsewhere, eg Battles of Narvik, so the title is a misnomer. IMO, either rename this article appropriately (and it could serve as the overview article pointing to specific, detailed articles), merge it as proposed or rationalise our whole coverage of WWII in Scandinavia. I'll attempt to put together a campaign template. Folks at 137 12:18, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

We don't need to merge the two articles, but we do need to separate them better. I think that the Norwegian Campaign article should be an article dealing just with what we in Norwegian call simply "Felttoget" - "the Campaign". Template:Campaignbox Nazi occupation of Norway includes all the battles of the Campaign (those created thus far at least...), but also the various occupation events. A pure campaign template would be nice, use the abovementioned template as a starting point. We shouldn't merge the two articles, just clean them up a bit. Get the Danes out of Norwegian Campaign, they belong under Operation Weserübung and move most of the pre-planning suff to Weserübung too, leaving a short summary and a link like: "main article: Operation Weserübung". I totally agree that Norwegian Campaign should deal mostly with the actual campaign, there's more than enough material for that to work. Manxruler 12:45, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
Ok, it's not my area, I'll sit back. There's good material, but the organisation does need review and discussion. I've applied a new template, mainly to highlight the overlaps. It does duplicate aspects already in the WWII & Norway box but also includes Swedish, Danish and Finnish topics: there was a fair amount of interlinking after all. Keep it if it's useful. Also have a look at the main Template:World War II: it lists Operation Weserubung as the main article for the campaign (as do other articles: take a look at the "what links here" tab). Maybe a new article to record the invasion of Denmark and thus separate it. Folks at 137 14:02, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
I'm just saying, we totally need a new "Norwegian Campaign" template, the Occupation of Norway template is an awful mix of events from the campaign and from the occupation. I'll support a new template, and help make it a good one. Manxruler 22:45, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
I think the problem stems from the lack of a good History of Norway during World War II article, which can be the summary of all things Norway while the "children" articles can focus on the specifics. Oberiko 00:11, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
I agree. If I had had the time I would have done something about it. When Christmas comes I might be able to take care of this issue. Merging is certainly not a solution here. Manxruler 05:59, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
As this last merge proposal has led to no debate at all, and this subject has already been extensively debated TWICE before with the conclusion not to merge I say we remove the whole "merge proposal" sign and focus on improving and separating the the two articles better. I'll get working on both articles as soon as I have some spare time. Manxruler 02:16, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Invasion of Norway - Concise timeline

This section has a lot of useful infomation but is currently in the form of a very long list and could use to be cleaned up. --Peter Robinett 15:44, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Possible Misleading Statement

This is a minor and insignificant point, but it keeps me up at night. In the section "Timeline", the last point says:

"Norway capitulated on 10 June 1940, two months after Wesertag, this made Norway the invaded country which withstood the German war machine for the second longest time. Only the Soviet Union provided the Germans with a more prolonged fight."

To me, at least, the parallel is not valid. In the first place, Norway eventually capitulated, and the Soviet Union did not. And again, if the author is instead reffering to the time between the start of the conflict and the conclusion of a peace, then Great Britain technically fought the Germans for a longer period than even the Soviet Union, thus giving them (the Germans) the more "prolonged fight".

Again, I apologise for bringing up such a minor issue, but I feel that it had to be mentioned.

Agreed, even though UK proper was never invaded. Some of her colonies were, though. But the question of surrender is a complicated one. Personally, I would rank Yugoslavia, and possibly Greece, as two non-surrendering countries as well... Asav 13:14, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
Greece was invaded by Germany 6 April 1941, was overrun and the government had to evacuate by the end of May [1]. Yugoslavia was invaded April 6th 1941 and signed an armistice on April 17th [2]. Then you have to include the fact that the Norwegian government only capitulated the combattant forces in mainland Norway (on 10 June)[3]. The Norwegian state never capitulated, the Government and armed forces able to fight from other places (mainly Britain) continued to do so. If you want to nitpick some more and include British colonies well then you have to include Norwegian colonies and conclude Norway was never totally invaded by Germany. The bottom line is as stated that Germany had to fight for two months to gain controll of Norway. The Soviet Union held on longer and were to my knowledge the only ones to hold on longer (I haven't checked all invaded countries). I think the sentance should be reworded to make it better, but the main point is still corect.Inge 13:52, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
The point I'm making is that only the Soviet Union managed to withstand a Nazi German invasion for more than two months. They, of course, turned the tables on the Nazis and counter-invaded them, but that's besides the point. I'm not talking colonies and resistance movements here, but regular armies within states that had been invaded by the Germans. Poland: a bit over a month; Denmark: a couple of hours; the Netherlands: 5 days; Belgium: 19 days; France: 6 weeks; Yugoslavia: 11 days; Greece: 25 days. Norway: 63 days. Do the math, Norway resisted the longest of all the nations conquered by Nazi Germany in World War Two. I'll edit to make that clearer and avoid any confusion. Manxruler 05:35, 1 July 2007 (UTC)