Hmm, now that would be an interesting TL. Sweden joins the allies late in the war to help liberate Norway and Denmark. It'd certainly help eliminate some of the stigma they'd acquired during the war.
WI Sweden Invaded as Part of Operation Weserübung?
- Thread starter Binky the Clown
- Start date
Hmm, now that would be an interesting TL. Sweden joins the allies late in the war to help liberate Norway and Denmark. It'd certainly help eliminate some of the stigma they'd acquired during the war.
Rubicon
Banned
There were plans and orders had been giving to deploy for a liberation of Norway to the Swedish armed forces, when the German troops in Norway surrendered. Had the war dragged on for another month, or the Germans in Norway refused to surrender the Swedish army would have invaded.
Perhaps counter to conventional wisdom this is what I think would happen:
An invasion would succeed due to very poor condition of Swedish defense preparations. After Swedish forces were beaten in the field Swedish government would surrender and afterwards a some kind of puppet regime would be installed. This puppet regime would gain some domestic support and it's very believable that Swedish forces composed of volunteers would take part in Operation Barbarossa. Whether these forces would be sizeable or not depends upon German skills upon handling the occupation.
Occupation of Sweden would be probably a net gain for Germany. Sizeable Swedish industry would be added to German military industrial capacity. Lines of communication to Norway would be totally secure.
Germany viewed the "nordic" states to be "Aryan-Germanic" sttes. Thus possible allies (delusional probably)
Denmark guards the entrance to the Baltic and would be a dangerous staging point if UK somehow gets an army to Denmark - better take it first.
Norway - was seen as "weak" (especially after Altmark incident) and vital for bringing Swedish ore to Germany - AND offeres access to the Atlantic.
If the Brits take Norway or even if they only close Narvik - german war production is in severe problems.
So thwere are many reasons to control Norway.
What do you gain from Sweden - better what to gain from sweden that you can't get from a neutral sweden - nothing - thus attacking sweden makes no sense... especially as surrounded by German controlled/allied territory.
Denmark guards the entrance to the Baltic and would be a dangerous staging point if UK somehow gets an army to Denmark - better take it first.
Norway - was seen as "weak" (especially after Altmark incident) and vital for bringing Swedish ore to Germany - AND offeres access to the Atlantic.
If the Brits take Norway or even if they only close Narvik - german war production is in severe problems.
So thwere are many reasons to control Norway.
What do you gain from Sweden - better what to gain from sweden that you can't get from a neutral sweden - nothing - thus attacking sweden makes no sense... especially as surrounded by German controlled/allied territory.
Sweden sold things to Germany and allowed German troops to move across their country because they had no choice. If they had refused to sell ores to Germany at a price the Germans could afford to pay, there's no question that they would have been invaded. And had that happened, Sweden would have been on its own - the West wouldn't have been able to help them at all.
Except that the post that began with:
Ended with:
But as Ivanotter has explained that backtracking was intended, the
matter is now mostly irrelevant.
Then again, right-leaning is hardly the right word even if most
social democratic voters were monarchists or indifferent rather than
republicans as the party program wanted.
You might as well call the Bernadottes left-leaning.
I think conventional wisdom IS that an invasion would succeed.
It's where on the Denmark-Norway scale we end up afterwards that's
the question.
(The actual invasion would presumably be somewhere inbetween.)
Definitely, but I'd question the usual notion that an occupied Sweden would be a drain on German assets. Sweden was more than self sufficient in food and had a well developed industry which in case of an occupation would have churned out a fair amount of military goods for German use.
There would be also another side effects. First, Finland could be reduced to vassaldom instead of being an ally of Germany. Second, Norwegian and Danish resistance movements would be even more minor, maybe even authority of Norwegian government-in-exile questioned as there would be no neutral and democratic Sweden standing as an example of a route different from German occupation.
Oh yes. I could see at least couple of Swedish Waffen-SS Divisions. Schweden and Gustav Wasa, say. And a Swedo-Finnish joint unit by the name of Georg von Döbeln.
Denmark and Norway had SS regiments.
The Danish one was free corps D enmark:
""On June 29, 1941, days after the German invasion of the Soviet Union, the DNSAP's newspaper Fædrelandet proclaimed the creation of the corps. Its formation was subsequently sanctioned by the democratic elected Danish government which authorized officers of the Danish Army to join the unit.[1] The corps was disbanded in 1943.
During the course of the war, approximately 6,000 Danes joined the corps, including 77 officers of the Royal Danish Army"
It was not a lot, though.
Some were generally our fighting communism, some were just un-employed youth looking for adventure, etc,etc:
"""
A 1998 study showed that the average recruit to Free Corps Denmark was a Nazi and/or a member of the German minority in Denmark and that recruitment was very broad socially.[3] Bo Lidegaard notes: "The relationship between the population and the corps was freezing cold, and legionnaires on leave time and again came into fights with civilians meeting the corps' volunteers with massive contempt." Lidegaard gives the following figures for 1941: 6,000 Danish citizens had signed up and were approved for German army duty and 1,500 of these belonged to the German minority in Denmark.[4]
It should be noted, though, that half of the over 12,000 Danes that initially volunteered for active service were regarded as being not suitable for active service.
After the didbandment, the sruviving one's were either kept in regular SS divisions or became simple terrorists in Denmark itself.
On Norway:
"
The Legion was disbanded in March 1943. Relations between the Norwegians and the Germans had not been good — a problem common to most of the Legions fighting on the Eastern Front. Legionnaires returned to Norway with little good to say about the Germans, which caused the SS some difficulty when it tried to recruit Norwegians later in the war. Most survivors of the Legion who wanted to continue fighting were transferred to the 23 SS-Panzergrenadier Regiment Norge, one of the regiments of the newly formed 11th SS Volunteer Panzergrenadier Division Nordland.
They amounted to some 1,000
So, I can't see Sweden doing much better
Ivan
The Danish one was free corps D enmark:
""On June 29, 1941, days after the German invasion of the Soviet Union, the DNSAP's newspaper Fædrelandet proclaimed the creation of the corps. Its formation was subsequently sanctioned by the democratic elected Danish government which authorized officers of the Danish Army to join the unit.[1] The corps was disbanded in 1943.
During the course of the war, approximately 6,000 Danes joined the corps, including 77 officers of the Royal Danish Army"
It was not a lot, though.
Some were generally our fighting communism, some were just un-employed youth looking for adventure, etc,etc:
"""
A 1998 study showed that the average recruit to Free Corps Denmark was a Nazi and/or a member of the German minority in Denmark and that recruitment was very broad socially.[3] Bo Lidegaard notes: "The relationship between the population and the corps was freezing cold, and legionnaires on leave time and again came into fights with civilians meeting the corps' volunteers with massive contempt." Lidegaard gives the following figures for 1941: 6,000 Danish citizens had signed up and were approved for German army duty and 1,500 of these belonged to the German minority in Denmark.[4]
It should be noted, though, that half of the over 12,000 Danes that initially volunteered for active service were regarded as being not suitable for active service.
After the didbandment, the sruviving one's were either kept in regular SS divisions or became simple terrorists in Denmark itself.
On Norway:
"
The Legion was disbanded in March 1943. Relations between the Norwegians and the Germans had not been good — a problem common to most of the Legions fighting on the Eastern Front. Legionnaires returned to Norway with little good to say about the Germans, which caused the SS some difficulty when it tried to recruit Norwegians later in the war. Most survivors of the Legion who wanted to continue fighting were transferred to the 23 SS-Panzergrenadier Regiment Norge, one of the regiments of the newly formed 11th SS Volunteer Panzergrenadier Division Nordland.
They amounted to some 1,000
So, I can't see Sweden doing much better
Ivan
Sweden had almost 9000 volunteers in Finland during the Winter War, and some 1600 of those stayed for the Continuation War.
Branding the invasion as some sort of pan-Nordic crusade on bolshevism, I'd say one full Swedish division and another one consisting of Swedish, Norwegian, Danish and Finnish units would be quite realistic in the changed circumstances of all of Scandinavia being German-occupied and Finland an ally or a puppet. Even three to four divisions from the Nordic area would not be a stretch IMO if Finland is puppetized.
As have been pointed out there was no need to attack Sweden. As for Sweden being fascist, not really but extremely German friendly to the end. When the allies demanded Sweden to reduce its iron ore export Sweden started exporting ore with much higher ore content and lets not forget the infamous "J" that Sweden demanded that the Germans stamp in Jewish passports. And ofcourse the telegram wishing Hitler great success in the "anti-Bolshevik Crusade"
Found thisd as well:
The following is a break down of the Foreign Units of the Waffen-SS, by no means all inclusive.
Country/Ethnicity - Estimated # of volunteers- Name of Waffen-SS UnitsAlbanian 3,000 -21st SS Division
Belgian: Flemish 23,000 -5th SS Div., 27th SS Div.
Belgium: Walloon 15,000 -5th SS Div., 28th SS Div.
British Commonwealth (English) 50 -The British Freikorps
Bulgaria 1,000 in the Bulgarisches Reg.
Croatia (includes Bosnian Muslims) 30,000 7th SS Div., 13th SS Hanshar Div.23rd SS Div.
Denmark 10,000 in Freikorps Danemark, 11th SS Div.
India3,500 in the Volunteer Legion
Estonia 20,000 in the 20th SS Div.
Finland 1,000 in a Volunteer Battalion.
Hungarians 15,000 in the 25th SS Div., 26th SS Div. 33rd SS Div.
Latvia 39,000 in the 15th SS Div., 19th SS Div.
Netherlands 50,000 in the 23rd SS Div., 34th SS Div.
Norway 6,000 in the 5th SS Div., 6th SS Div.11th SS Div., .
France 8,000 33rd SS Div.
Italy 20,000
Poland/Ukraine 25,000 14th SS Div.
Russian (Belorussia) 12,000 29th SS Div., 30th SS Div.
Russian (Cossack) 40,000 XV SS Kosaken-Kavallerie-Korps
Russian (Turkic) 8,000 Ostürkische SS, Tatarishe SS
Rumania 3,000 Waffen-Grenadierregiment der SS (rumänisches 1)
Serbia 15,000 Volunteer Corps
Spain 1,000 Spanische-Freiwilligen-Kompanie der SS 101
Sweden, Switzerland & Luxemburg 3,000 5th SS Div., 11th SS Div
If we calcualte with a strength of 9,000 per SS division, we are talking a lot of people if 4 divisions from the Nordic countries shuold have been raised.
that would be some 30,000 soldiers!
The Danish army in 1940 was:
The Danish Defence Act of 1937 set up a peacetime establishment of two divisions, an independent anti-aircraft and engineer regiment, an army air force, the Bornholm garrison, a transport battalion and a general headquarters.
In peacetime the regiments and battalions were no more than a small administrative staff responsible for the training of the annual intake of 6,599 conscripts who were allocated as follows: 4,340 to the infantry, 465 to the Life Guards, 374 to the cavalry, 1,120 to the artillery, and 300 men to the engineers. On 8 April 1940 there were 6,600 conscripts with eleven month's training service with the colours, as well as a further 2,050 non-combatants.
I still cannot see that the Nordic countries would have upped it to 4 divisions of non-conscripts
Ivan
Belgian: Flemish 23,000 -5th SS Div., 27th SS Div.
Belgium: Walloon 15,000 -5th SS Div., 28th SS Div.
British Commonwealth (English) 50 -The British Freikorps
Bulgaria 1,000 in the Bulgarisches Reg.
Croatia (includes Bosnian Muslims) 30,000 7th SS Div., 13th SS Hanshar Div.23rd SS Div.
Denmark 10,000 in Freikorps Danemark, 11th SS Div.
India3,500 in the Volunteer Legion
Estonia 20,000 in the 20th SS Div.
Finland 1,000 in a Volunteer Battalion.
Hungarians 15,000 in the 25th SS Div., 26th SS Div. 33rd SS Div.
Latvia 39,000 in the 15th SS Div., 19th SS Div.
Netherlands 50,000 in the 23rd SS Div., 34th SS Div.
Norway 6,000 in the 5th SS Div., 6th SS Div.11th SS Div., .
France 8,000 33rd SS Div.
Italy 20,000
Poland/Ukraine 25,000 14th SS Div.
Russian (Belorussia) 12,000 29th SS Div., 30th SS Div.
Russian (Cossack) 40,000 XV SS Kosaken-Kavallerie-Korps
Russian (Turkic) 8,000 Ostürkische SS, Tatarishe SS
Rumania 3,000 Waffen-Grenadierregiment der SS (rumänisches 1)
Serbia 15,000 Volunteer Corps
Spain 1,000 Spanische-Freiwilligen-Kompanie der SS 101
Sweden, Switzerland & Luxemburg 3,000 5th SS Div., 11th SS Div
If we calcualte with a strength of 9,000 per SS division, we are talking a lot of people if 4 divisions from the Nordic countries shuold have been raised.
that would be some 30,000 soldiers!
The Danish army in 1940 was:
The Danish Defence Act of 1937 set up a peacetime establishment of two divisions, an independent anti-aircraft and engineer regiment, an army air force, the Bornholm garrison, a transport battalion and a general headquarters.
In peacetime the regiments and battalions were no more than a small administrative staff responsible for the training of the annual intake of 6,599 conscripts who were allocated as follows: 4,340 to the infantry, 465 to the Life Guards, 374 to the cavalry, 1,120 to the artillery, and 300 men to the engineers. On 8 April 1940 there were 6,600 conscripts with eleven month's training service with the colours, as well as a further 2,050 non-combatants.
I still cannot see that the Nordic countries would have upped it to 4 divisions of non-conscripts
Ivan
Anti-bolshevism crusade or not, I'm not sure the number of volunteers to
fight for the now-independent former eastern half of the kingdom which is
being invaded by one of the traditional enemies is a good guide for
estimating the number of volunteers to fight for an occupying power, even
against the same traditional enemy.
Look at a map of Scandinavia. Denmark was impossible to hold against a german invasion. Norway have no strategic depth. But Sweden is a damn big country and have a lot of strategic depth, not to mention interior lines. It would be far more difficult than Weserübung and consume far more time, troops and resources.
I can see three possibilities in Weserübung 2.0.
1) Landing in the south and west of Sweden at the same time as the invasion ot Norway and Denmark.
2) As in 1, but with landings also in the capital, Stockholm.
3) The invasion of Sweden takes place after the invasion of Norway, with both sea landings and invasion from Norway.
In all cases the complexity of Weserübung rises dramatically. The danger of something going very wrong would be far higher and it would be more difficult to hide (Norway had called for mobilization when the germans invaded - give Norway another day and the invasion would be far more difficult).
However, in case 1 the Swedes would fight with local military units. A lot of stuff were "lent" to Finland and not available, but the Swedish army was far better than the norwegian (longer conscription, longer education for NCOs etc). But if they lost the fight on the landing areas they would retreat northeast - an area that 1940 had few roads and very deep forests. It would lead to a long fight, simply due to logistics.
In case 2 the german fleet would do what the Swedish coast artillery and navy had spent centuries to prepare themselves for. The Stockholm archepelago is difficult to navigate and easy to fill with minefields. Unless the German navy was very lucky they would lose big.
In case 3 Sweden would be prepared and ready to, among other things, destroy the iron mines. The invasion would be limited due to the very bad roads over the border. It would be faster than case 1, but definetly impact on the invasion of France.
An occupied Sweden would probably be like Norway. But far bigger, demanding far more troops. Most swedes lived outside the big cities (until 1937 more than 50% of the population were farmers). There would probably be an Quisling and some resistance movements. However, there were few things Germany could get that they didn't already had access to.
If Norway demanded a garrison of around 400 000 men I guess that Sweden would demand 500 000.
An invasion of Sweden could alienate Finland and make them refuse to parcipiate in Operation Barbarossa. It could also scare countries such as Hungary or Romania to see Germany as a danger instead of an ally.
Sweden were dependent on German coal for industry and heating. IOTL it was one of many reasons for the Swedish bend over attitude towards Germany. ITTL Germany would be forced to keep the coal deliveries if they wanted any Swedish industry to be working for them.
My guess is that an occupied Sweden would mean that WW2 ended 3-6 months earlier.
In short: there were a lot of good reasons that Weserübung didn't included Sweden. It was the time Hitler still listened to military experts ...
I can see three possibilities in Weserübung 2.0.
1) Landing in the south and west of Sweden at the same time as the invasion ot Norway and Denmark.
2) As in 1, but with landings also in the capital, Stockholm.
3) The invasion of Sweden takes place after the invasion of Norway, with both sea landings and invasion from Norway.
In all cases the complexity of Weserübung rises dramatically. The danger of something going very wrong would be far higher and it would be more difficult to hide (Norway had called for mobilization when the germans invaded - give Norway another day and the invasion would be far more difficult).
However, in case 1 the Swedes would fight with local military units. A lot of stuff were "lent" to Finland and not available, but the Swedish army was far better than the norwegian (longer conscription, longer education for NCOs etc). But if they lost the fight on the landing areas they would retreat northeast - an area that 1940 had few roads and very deep forests. It would lead to a long fight, simply due to logistics.
In case 2 the german fleet would do what the Swedish coast artillery and navy had spent centuries to prepare themselves for. The Stockholm archepelago is difficult to navigate and easy to fill with minefields. Unless the German navy was very lucky they would lose big.
In case 3 Sweden would be prepared and ready to, among other things, destroy the iron mines. The invasion would be limited due to the very bad roads over the border. It would be faster than case 1, but definetly impact on the invasion of France.
An occupied Sweden would probably be like Norway. But far bigger, demanding far more troops. Most swedes lived outside the big cities (until 1937 more than 50% of the population were farmers). There would probably be an Quisling and some resistance movements. However, there were few things Germany could get that they didn't already had access to.
If Norway demanded a garrison of around 400 000 men I guess that Sweden would demand 500 000.
An invasion of Sweden could alienate Finland and make them refuse to parcipiate in Operation Barbarossa. It could also scare countries such as Hungary or Romania to see Germany as a danger instead of an ally.
Sweden were dependent on German coal for industry and heating. IOTL it was one of many reasons for the Swedish bend over attitude towards Germany. ITTL Germany would be forced to keep the coal deliveries if they wanted any Swedish industry to be working for them.
My guess is that an occupied Sweden would mean that WW2 ended 3-6 months earlier.
In short: there were a lot of good reasons that Weserübung didn't included Sweden. It was the time Hitler still listened to military experts ...
I am not saying that it would have, and I was considering the possibility where Finland is even more dependant on/ controlled by Germany than it was and would be made to contribute a lot more soldiers than IOTL. The situation in the whole of Scandinavia would be a lot different without one nation being neutral, even if tenuously so as it was IOTL.
What I was thinking was 10 000 (or more) Finns, about the same number (or a bit less) of Swedes, and somewhat bigger than historical numbers from Denmark and Norway. That would make three divisions - four might be possible if one is bolstered by Baltic (especially Estonian) and various Finnic (like Ingrian) troops.
I admit it is unlikely to get these numbers even if the Germans do their very best with propaganda, persuasion and threats. But I don't think these numbers would be absolutely impossible. A captive Finland would have to play along if it came to that and Sweden did have its share of anti-Communists and Nazi symphatizers. There might also be a trade of sorts for Sweden providing troops to fight on the Finnish front only, under Finnish leadership while a number of Finns are sent to the Eastern Front in German uniform: that would be politically more feasible.
superkuf said:
What you forget here that even if the Finnish government feels "alienated", it has no other chance in 1941 than follow Germany's lead, one way or the other. It is too late, I believe, to flat out refuse to help in the attack on the USSR. If Sweden's neutrality and its possibility to help Finland is lost, Finland is even more dependant on Germany than it was IOTL for many necessary materials and aid. And we are really talking for example about Finns dying of famine in 1942-43 if the Finnish government can't convince the Germans to provide the necessary food exports.