WI: The Nazi leadership evacuates to Norway?

Inspired by this Reddit post.

So at the time of the German surrender most of Norway was still under German occupation. What if the Nazi leadership had decided to evacuate to Norway and set up a rump German Reich there?
Of course, it probably wouldn’t have lasted very long, seeing as the Soviets were moving in from the north…
 
Inspired by this Reddit post.

So at the time of the German surrender most of Norway was still under German occupation. What if the Nazi leadership had decided to evacuate to Norway and set up a rump German Reich there?
Of course, it probably wouldn’t have lasted very long, seeing as the Soviets were moving in from the north…
What Nazi leadership - Hitler didn't want to leave Berlin and anybody doing so was deemed a traitor.
Following the death of Hitler it would be darn difficult for any remaining leadership to go to Norway much less taking staff etc. along for them to be able to rule. Of course some Luftwaffe pilots did make off to Norway and there was Nazi occupation regime in Norway.
The British had a Parachute Brigade ready for being flown into both Copenhagen, Denmark and Oslo, Norway when the Germans would surrender so forces had been detailed. It would only be a matter of time before the British and Norwegians probably other Allied troops would land in Norway and the Soviets set up to move south.
There was lots of German troops in Norway but the OKW decided once Hitler had died that the game was up and decided to capitulate.
 
So who makes it - let’s assume they escape by plane - probably Albert Speer, Karl Dönitz, Martin Bormann. Either way I think the Allies will sweep them away with ease. IIRC Sweden was making plans to invade in the event Nazi troops in Norway did not surrender. Not to mention the advancing Red Army coming in from the north. The German troops garrisoning Norway are unlikely to be thrilled at the thought of throwing away their lives for a lost cause expect mass defections and mass surrender.
 
Of course, it probably wouldn’t have lasted very long, seeing as the Soviets were moving in from the north…
Soviets had halted their operations in norway in october the year prior. It wasn't a front they wanted to devote much resources to as norway was not part of what they envisioned to be their future sphere of influence. Moving from the north to the south was not really a viable proposition anyway.
 
Inspired by this Reddit post.

So at the time of the German surrender most of Norway was still under German occupation. What if the Nazi leadership had decided to evacuate to Norway and set up a rump German Reich there?
Of course, it probably wouldn’t have lasted very long, seeing as the Soviets were moving in from the north…
My understanding is that the Germans had made efforts to bring munitions from Norway to Germany in the later stages of the war so it might have been a challenge for remaining forces in Norway to offer long term resistance to allied efforts to defeat them ?
 
Unlikely that nazi leadership would even think escaping. They didn't do that in OTL and even thinking that was traitorous.

But if the leadership does that it hardly change anything. And Wehrmacht probably is not willingful to do anything. Perhaps Quisling would push nazi leadership under a bus but it seems unlikely since he was really deep on nazi influence.
 
I thought RAF typhoons mistakenly sank Cape Arcona to prevent exactly such a thing , sadly no Nazi leaders were killed in this operation
 
Imagine if this happened and war broke out between the Western Allies and Russia before an invasion of Norway took place. An neutral Nazi state watching both side fight could make a very interesting timeline.
 
Unlikely that nazi leadership would even think escaping. They didn't do that in OTL and even thinking that was traitorous.

But if the leadership does that it hardly change anything. And Wehrmacht probably is not willingful to do anything. Perhaps Quisling would push nazi leadership under a bus but it seems unlikely since he was really deep on nazi influence.
Quisling had long ceased to be a factor at this point, terboven was the man in charge of german forces and he made his wishes clear to donitz that he wanted to fight.
 
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Imagine if this happened and war broke out between the Western Allies and Russia before an invasion of Norway took place. An neutral Nazi state watching both side fight could make a very interesting timeline.
Even in such a scenario, why on earth would the German government-in-exile be considered neutral? Conflict between the West and the Soviets would not end the conflict between either and Germany, and each would be well motivated to take control of Norway before the other could.

The German remnant forces would not be anywhere close to being able to stop them, and nor could they offer anything worthwhile to either side to dissuade them, as either reinstalling the legitimate Norwegian government or setting up their own would be more useful.
 
The best bet for a Nazi holdout in Norway would likely be one led by Josef Terboven (Reichskommissar of occupied Norway), who by all accounts seemed to be a power-hungry tyrant who was much more of a hardliner than any of the leaders of the Flensburg government. Even Goebbels was annoyed with Terboven's brutal treatment of the Norwegian population. And he was fully committed to continuing the fight by any means necessary, even if the Nazi regime in Germany itself fell and/or surrendered. Near the end of the war his pet project was Festung Norwegen, the plan to use Norway's heavy fortifications as a last perimeter of defense for the Nazi regime if it was defeated in mainland Europe. When summoned to Flensburg on May 3 of 1945 and ordered to cooperate with ending the war, he told them he wanted to continue the fight. Karl Dönitz responded by dismissing him from his position, and when Germany surrendered Terboven committed suicide by setting off 50 kg of dynamite in his bunker.

Terboven technically only answered to Hitler (while he was still alive), and while the chain of command was more complicated than that (he didn't personally command the 400,000 German troops in Norway other than his personal force of 6,000 men; they were commanded by generaloberst Nikolaus von Falkenhorst, who he had very strained relations with), he didn't like to see it that way and tried to ignore any directives not issued by Hitler himself. He thought he had what he called "limitless power of command" and so butted heads with and was unpopular with a lot of Germans in Norway, and of course was despised by the Norwegians who had to live under his brutal regime. So, a hardliner megalomaniac who resented answering to anyone. It wouldn't surprise me if he assumed his Norwegian fortress would outlive the Flensburg government, and if he relished the idea of being personally in charge of the last holdout of the Nazi regime, with no one left to defer to.

So if someone manages to tip him off that the Flensburg government is planning to dismiss him if he doesn't cooperate with ending the war, his reaction could easily be to refuse to come to them when called and declare that Reichskommissariat Norwegen doesn't recognize their authority (after all, at this point in the war it's not like they have any means to stop him). With 400,000 men, an extremely rugged and very heavily fortified coastline, and a narrow border in the north to defend against the Soviets after the liberation of Finnmark, one could see why he'd think the place was a tough nut to crack (and that's before we remember that he was a hardliner with a giant ego).

But, the Norway he commands will be held together by 400,000 extremely demoralized German troops probably worried for their families back home, and filled with a population of Norwegians that hate his regime and are only barely kept under control by his brutal methods of repression. So I would expect to see mass surrenders (either to civilian resistance or Allied troops), mutinies, and defections in many areas. Still though, Terboven was a ruthless leader who was fully prepared to burn down the country if he couldn't hold onto it. In OTL he instituted a scorched-Earth policy during the Soviet liberation of Finnmark, in which just about every town and village was burned to the ground as the Germans retreated, and the vast majority of the county's civilian population being forcibly evacuated south with them (the ones who stayed were only able to because they went into hiding in the wilderness). So in the war to take down Festung Norwegen, expect to see that repeated all over the country, except maybe in what few areas that enough troops defect at once to prevent it. It would be a pretty short war; I would expect it to be over before the fall or so (perhaps sometime around the defeat of Japan), but it would be absolutely brutal, and Norway as a country would be left devastated in its aftermath.

I think Sweden entering the war at this stage is highly likely. It's clear which way it's going, the Norwegian refugee soldiers they've been secretly training will be itching to join the fight, and the Western Allies will of course be leaning on them heavily, wanting a way around rather than through Norway's coastal fortifications, and wanting to end the war as soon as possible. That last point both because with the Nazi holdout's war crimes against the Norwegian population and scorched-Earth destruction of the country they'll want to liberate Norway while there's still a Norway to save, and because they wouldn't want the Soviets to have time to grab too much of the country themselves. In OTL there was some worry among the Western Allies that the Soviets wouldn't give Finnmark back, at least until they did. If they get as far as Narvik or so, maybe they'd be less willing to hand over such a strategically valuable Atlantic port. It's a situation that creates more opportunities for conflict between the Soviets and the Western Allies, and probably results in a somewhat more intense Cold War. Sweden breaking its neutrality and joining the war against the remaining Nazi regime would also have major implications for the postwar world; and probably leave them firmly on the side of the West. They could join NATO in 1949 instead of in 2024.

In a world where a remnant of the Nazi regime held out even after Germany itself fell, maybe those Nazi conspiracy theories get a little more screentime. I dunno.
 

Garrison

Donor
Inspired by this Reddit post.

So at the time of the German surrender most of Norway was still under German occupation. What if the Nazi leadership had decided to evacuate to Norway and set up a rump German Reich there?
Of course, it probably wouldn’t have lasted very long, seeing as the Soviets were moving in from the north…
How would they even get there from Berlin? And how many of them are going to be willing to run to Norway? The ones who want to escape Berlin want to vanish altogether and the rest are prepared to die in the Fuhrer bunker.
 
As others have mentioned, it is a very very unlikely scenario. But let's imagine that Hitler decides, sometime early in 1945, that the Reich has to make a temporary withdrawal northward in order to regroup. And that he does it early enough that he can still reach Oslo, along with some portion of his top leadership.

A few likely results:


Once the allies realize what happened, they shift some part of their bombing campaign to target the German forces in Norway, and to cut them off from Germany so they can't resupply or reinforce. Without their industrial base, the Germans in Norway have limited supplies of weapons, ammunition, tanks, planes, etc.

And then they plan an operation to land in Norway. German defenses are going to be much thinner than they were in France, so it won't take anything nearly as big as Overlord to get ashore.

The German forces left behind on the continent collapse faster than OTL once they realize they've been abandoned.

The forces in Norway may last a bit longer than OTL, just because the allies had to shift gears and change direction, but not much.
 
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