NARVIK - The Struggle Of Battle Group Dietl In The Spring Of 1940

摘要

To British readers the name Narvik conjures up thoughts of daring naval battles and the mighty battleship Warspite blasting at enemy positions with her massive 15-inch guns. It does seem to have always been a somewhat one-sided narrative of the events that occurred in this northern Norwegian port city famed for its precious iron ore supplies. Narvik by Alex Buchner and translated by Janice W.Ancker is the answer to this one sidedness and this is the first time that the book, readily available in Germany, has been published in English.This book is part of a series of tomes written by members of the German Army during World War Two on strategic and significant events in the timeline of the Second World War, subtitled as Die Wehrmacht in Kampf (Battles and Problems of the Second World War). This book focuses on the invasion of Norway in the spring of 1940 and the crucially important port of Narvik. Interestingly, the opportunity has been taken to give the book, first published in 1940, a fresh new modern perspective with the advantage of 80 years of analysis and study. To give this new view, publishers, Casemate, have asked series editor Matthias Strohn, Head of Historical Analysis at the CHACR, the British Army's Strategic think tank and Professor of Military Studies at Buckingham University, to provide an introduction. The author was born in 1920 in Starnberg, Bavaria and in 1939 joined the German Army Mountain troop which gave him the skills necessary for the rugged cold environment found in Norway. Within the first two pages the scene is set by Buchner with the book reading like the opening of a thriller novel - but this was real life as he and his comrades of the 139th Mountain Infantry boarded the destroyers Wilhelm Heidkamp and Bernd von Arnim at Bremerhaven.'The long Columbus Pier thundered with the sound of spiked mountain boots, as company after company of mountain infantry soldiers clambered aboard ships.These were men who had come from the Alps the Dolomites and the Karawanks - destination unknown." For the German Wehrmacht, Narvik was the first large scale amphibious operation of the Second World War and it was swiftly organised. So swift, in fact, that allegedly the General ordered to carry out the operation based it on a Baedeher Travel Guide to Norway.That the Germans succeeded is also extraordinary when one considers the odds they faced, 4,000 German soldiers against an Allied Expeditionary Force of 25,000 men. Narvik fell to the Germans on 9 April 1940 but they lost it on 28 May to renewed Allied attacks, only for the Germans to recapture Narvik again on 8 June. For this reviewer, the lack of any photographs to illustrate the text was unfortunate but it is only a minor issue as there are several line drawings and maps with which the reader can properly orientate themselves.