Icarus company
Company Ikarus was the name of a planned landing company of the German Wehrmacht on the North Atlantic island of Iceland during World War II .
First considerations
At the end of February / beginning of March 1939 the Kriegsmarine carried out a war game - a "sandpit" undertaking - with the assumed enemy powers England and France . During the war game, the idea of "a surprising Wehrmacht operation over sea at the beginning of a war" was considered. As a conceivable target for a troop landing, "an island such as the strategically located Iceland" was considered in order to gain a sea base in the Atlantic.
In the “final discussion of the war game”, which took place with the participation of officers from the air force and the army , the chances of success for such an enterprise were rated as hopeless. Quote: “Any such operation, which can only leave home, requires so much preparation and such considerable effort that a surprise success can hardly be expected. But as soon as a period of tension or war has set in, this operation is also subject to the difficulties of finding its way out of the North Sea. Since such an enterprise will always involve a larger and therefore cumbersome and operationally hardly mobile transport of troops and materials, these difficulties are incomparably greater than the breakthrough of individual warships into the Atlantic regions, even if the British defense at the beginning of a war is not yet organized accordingly. "
On October 11, 1939, after the start of the war with England and France, the head of the German submarine fleet, Karl Dönitz , noted in his war diary regarding a supply ship for his submarines in the Atlantic: “The Ammerland steamer is being converted as a supply steamer . It is intended to station it camouflaged as a steamer with machine damage in a suitable bay in Iceland. ”On October 13, 1939, the Ammerland went into service as a submarine supply ship e.g. V. (for special use) Sandhörn for the“ Special Mission Iceland ”. Iceland belonged to the neutral Denmark and so it was hoped, in violation of the neutrality of Denmark, to be able to station the submarine supplier in Iceland. However, this undertaking was not carried out.
Icarus company
After the occupation of Denmark and Norway ( Operation Weser Exercise ) in April 1940, Germany's strategic position at sea compared to England and France in the North Sea had significantly improved and a study was carried out in the naval war command by May 16, 1940 under the code name "Operation Ikarus" an occupation of Iceland worked out. The study looked at how to win air and sea bases on the island and how to fight from there against the sea trade routes of England and France in order to blockade the two countries down.
On June 20, 1940, after France had been defeated in the western campaign , the Commander-in-Chief of the Navy , Erich Raeder , presented the results of the study to Adolf Hitler and the preparations made for a landing on Iceland. Raeder stated that the entire German fleet would have to be used for this, but that the island could not be held against the superior force of the Royal Navy , because in the Ikarus study "again" (which suggested previous investigations) the "impossibility of one regular security of supplies ”emphasizes.
Political developments
The British had already occupied Iceland on May 10, 1940, in violation of its neutrality, and stationed 25,000 men there . For Hitler, however, Operation Icarus was no longer important in the summer of 1940, because he hoped to come to a peace with England, either with a landing in England ( Operation Sea Lion ), which he ordered to be prepared on July 16, 1940, or through secret negotiations England, which he led via sub-carriers in September 1940, but which ended on September 19, 1940 in a secret but official statement by the British government with conditions unacceptable to Hitler (evacuation of the countries occupied by Germany).
Hitler did not order the operation of the Sea Lion, which was possible in September and October 1940, but was occupied with the attack on the Soviet Union from October 1940, for which he ordered "Instruction No. 21" for the Barbarossa case on December 18, 1940 , the preparation of an attack The Soviet Union. By defeating the Soviet Union in 1941, he hoped to finally make England ready for peace.
In July 1941, the USA took over the occupation of Iceland from the British in order to relieve the British Army - six months before the USA officially entered the Second World War. When the USA entered the war, German surface operations in the Atlantic became even more difficult due to the full commitment of the US armed forces on the side of the Allies .
Last try
On November 20, 1942, the war diary of the Naval War Command noted : "Führer orders examination of the question of the occupation of Iceland with the help of transport submarines, since the island is only occupied by US forces."
Hitler's request to the navy shows that the highest commander in command of the armed forces has completely lost its sense of reality . With at best a few hundred lightly armed men, he believes that he will be able to conquer the island from the US armed forces stationed there and hold it against the expected massive countermeasures by Great Britain and the USA.
On November 26, 1942, the Naval War Command replied to Hitler's inquiry: "Only sabotage troops of the Brandenburg Special Association are possible."
More than a few sabotage attacks on Iceland by the Brandenburgers was no longer possible. Due to the constantly deteriorating overall situation, further military considerations with regard to the Atlantic island were completely ruled out.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Carl-Axel Gemzell: Raeder, Hitler and Scandinavia. The struggle for a maritime operation plan. Publisher CWK Gleerup, Lund (Sweden) 1965. p. 140.
- ↑ Carl-Axel Gemzell: Raeder, Hitler and Scandinavia. The struggle for a maritime operation plan. Publisher CWK Gleerup, Lund (Sweden) 1965. p. 223.
- ↑ Carl-Axel Gemzell: Raeder, Hitler and Scandinavia. The struggle for a maritime operation plan. Publisher CWK Gleerup, Lund (Sweden) 1965. p. 148.
- ^ Günther W. Gellermann. Secret Paths to Peace with England. Bernard & Graefe Verlag, Bonn 1995. ISBN 3-7637-5947-6 . Pp. 27-39.
- ^ War diary of the Naval War Command 1939–1945 Volume 39/2, November 16 to 30, 1942. Mittler & Sohn, Herford 1993. ISBN 3-8132-0639-4 .