Abstract
As the English proverb has it, ‘The onlooker sees most of the game.’ Twelve years after I published my first book on the Norwegian campaign of 1940, a senior German officer, who had, as he thought, played a leading role in the planning of the campaign, wrote to me that he was amazed to encounter himself again in a wider historical context, taking part in an enterprise the size and direction of which he had so far not suspected. But what more important task can the historian of today have than this: to help to find the correct point of view from which the significance of historical events can be estimated; to gain detachment in order to investigate happenings which have now become part of history; to analyse and to describe them?
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Select Bibliography
J. R. M. Butler, Grand Strategy, n: Sep 1939–June 1941 (London, 1957).
T. K. Derry, The Campaign in Norway (London, 1952).
Documents on German Foreign Policy 1918–1945, Ser, D., vols VIII: 1939–40, and IX: 18 Mar–22June 1940 (London, 1954, 1956).
Walther Hubatsch, ‘Weserübung’. Die deutsche Besetzung von Dänemark und Norwegen 1940. Nach amtlichen Unterlagen, 3rd edn (Göttingen, 1970).
Walther Hubatsch, ‘Die skandinavischen Weissbücher über den Zweiten Weltkrieg’, in Unruhe des Nordens. Studien zur deutsch-skandinavischen Geschichte (Göttingen, 1956), pp. 226–41.
Walther Hubatsch, ‘Diplomatische Beziehungen Deutschlands zur, Skandinavien unter dem Schatten des Zweiten Weltkrieges’, Zeitschrift für Ostforschung, 9 (Marburg, 1960) pp. 161–84.
Innstilling fra undersökelseskommisjonen av 1945 (Oslo, 1946).
Krigen i Norge 1940, 6 vols (Oslo, 1952–6).
Norges Sjökrig 1940–1945, ed. E. E. Steen, 4 vols (Oslo, 1954–8).
S. W. Roskill, The War at Sea, I (London, 1954).
Johan Scharffenberg, Norske Aktstykker til Okkupasjonens Forhistorie (Oslo, 1950).
Earl F. Ziemke, The German Northern Theater of Operations 1940–1945, Department of the Army pamphlet no. 20–271 (Washington, DC, 1959).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 1985 Walther Hubatsch
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Hubatsch, W. (1985). The Norwegian Campaign, 1940: Strategy in Critical Retrospect. In: Studies in Medieval and Modern German History. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-17822-3_10
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-17822-3_10
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-17824-7
Online ISBN: 978-1-349-17822-3
eBook Packages: Palgrave History CollectionHistory (R0)