Alexander Rooksmoor
Well-known member
I have often read that there were 400,000 German 'service personnel' - not just soldiers, but police, technicians, etc. in Norway that surrendered in 1945. At the war's end 28,500 Norwegians were imprisoned for serving in German police or army units in their country. To me then, 428,000 armed men supporting the Reich, seems unusual, given that the population of Norway in 1940 had been below 3 million, meaning there was around 1 German serviceman for every 7.5 Norwegians. This seems an incredibly high ratio especially after June 1944 when it was clear that the invasion of western Europe was coming through Normandy. Added to that, it had taken only 120,000 German soldiers, plus naval support, to conquer Norway in 1940.
First, I wonder if this 400,000 is an accurate figure or if it is simply one that has been bandied around for so long that people no longer question it. Second, I wonder what difference could these 400,000 men made, given that they represented equivalent to a field army, even two? Why were they not sent to Normandy, to the Battle of the Bulge or to defend the Rhine? Did soldiers somehow get themselves reassigned to Norway which actually was not fought over after 1940? It seems unlikely that the German garrison in Norway would have altered the outcome of the war, but surely throwing even just 200-300,000 extra men into the battle for Normandy or Belgium or in Poland and Hungary would have slowed up the British/Americans or the Soviets by some weeks, perhaps even months. It may have allowed the British/Americans to reach Berlin before the Soviets. Of course, they would have withdrawn as they did from the areas of Czechoslovakia that they advanced into, so as to fit the agreement with Stalin. However, for many in the German armed forces being overrun by the western Allies rather than being carted off to Siberia, would have been a very different outcome.
First, I wonder if this 400,000 is an accurate figure or if it is simply one that has been bandied around for so long that people no longer question it. Second, I wonder what difference could these 400,000 men made, given that they represented equivalent to a field army, even two? Why were they not sent to Normandy, to the Battle of the Bulge or to defend the Rhine? Did soldiers somehow get themselves reassigned to Norway which actually was not fought over after 1940? It seems unlikely that the German garrison in Norway would have altered the outcome of the war, but surely throwing even just 200-300,000 extra men into the battle for Normandy or Belgium or in Poland and Hungary would have slowed up the British/Americans or the Soviets by some weeks, perhaps even months. It may have allowed the British/Americans to reach Berlin before the Soviets. Of course, they would have withdrawn as they did from the areas of Czechoslovakia that they advanced into, so as to fit the agreement with Stalin. However, for many in the German armed forces being overrun by the western Allies rather than being carted off to Siberia, would have been a very different outcome.