whether I would agree to strike out this Quisling condition. I said I would, and he was to telephone to Berlin to say that I was agreed in that, because it was my ambition to prevent any combat if I could. Q. Who had insisted upon the Quisling rider in the first place. A. All that originated from the Fuehrer. That must have bee contained in the directive. However, I never saw this general d rective because I left before it was issued, but Keitel will know that. The answer that came back from Berlin was very simple. Brauer was dismissed and sent somewhere else. Thus his a tivities in Oslo as a German envoy came to an abrupt halt, and we understood that they were not content with him. Then a Reich Commissioner was appointed, and he was the former Gauleiter of Essen, Terboven. He was transported in an awful hurry to Berlin by plane, and then from Berlin he was put on another plane and sent to Oslo. Thus was initiated the activity of Terboven, who naturally supported Quisling with everything at his disposal. That is how the chapter of Terboven-Quisling came into being. Q. Well, what happened next? Now we have you out at the airfield at Oslo. A. I went into quarters at Oslo. Then started the elimination of resistance, which was showing up in many places of the cour try because the order for mobilization had been made public there. The mobilization was never effected entirely. In other words, we arrived in the middle of mobilization. But then, north of Oslo, we suddenly encountered the British. The British had landed at Aandalsnes and Namsos. Some of the harbors remaired open because we did not have enough warships to land in all of them. The English recognized this immediately and landed there. Then followed the fight against the British at the road between Aandalsnes and Namsos, around Lillehammer, Otta, Dombaasnes, and Namsos. The Fuehrer again repeated his request for me to hurry, be cause he did not want to start the operation against France ur less the Norwegian operation was completed. He wanted to have the security of the coast, and he wanted to be covered, up there I have to make a further addition here so the significance of this won't be forgotten. We started our operation on the 9th of April. At the beginning of April, on either the 5th or 6th of April, the English laid mines along the Norwegian coast. This caused extreme nervousness in Berlin because the Fuehrer and the OKW both thought to observa in this the first preparations for an English landing, and they were given to the apprehension that both of these landings would coincide. After we were able to cause the English to go back to their boats at Aandalsnes, we moved our command post. We now had communications with Trondheim, and we moved our command post there, and I lived there together with the representative of the Air Forces, Stumpff, and also with Admiral Boehm, the representative of the Navy. Now comes the last phase of our fight in Norway, namely, the fight for Narvik. In Narvik things really had come to a head because only very few troops could be transported on those ten destroyers. Through the neglect of the Navy, the English had been able to penetrate the harbor of Narvik on the 10th of April, and they shot up every last one of those ten destroyers. The leader of those destroyers and the commandant of the flotilla there, Captain Bonte, was killed in that engagement. Thus it was made very difficult to give any support to General Dietl, who was in charge at Narvik. It had been prepared that a fleet of transports should come to bring him further troops and supplies, but naturally they could not come there. The Norwegian mobilization had been effected fully at Narvik, and there was located the Sixth Norwegian Division. Also, the Supreme Commander of the Norwegian Army was there, General Ruge; and somewhere around there-I am sorry that I cannot give you the name of the place now, but somewhere around there -was also His Majesty the King. I believe it was Tromsoe or Harstat. Then, in addition to that, the English landed there. In addition to that, we also faced French mountain troops and Polish troops. The French troops were under General Bethouart. I have forgotten the name of the Polish Commander, but at any rate General Dietl faced great superiority. Then, General Dietl was pressed further up on to the mountain, and it couldn't happen any differently there. There are some terrific mountains there, and they were pressed back against the Swedish border. They lay there with their backs to it in a half circle. It was extremely difficult to furnish any support to General Dietl. The only way we could do it was via the air forces. However, this could only be done on some days, because there was much fog and poor visibility up there. However, at the beginning of June I seemed to detect a crisis. in the situation at Narvik. I had a support action under way at that time, and I was using mountain troops which tried to bring support to General Dietl in the way Alpine troops usually do; that is, by establishing small stations here and there for supply. This was more an expedition than anything else. That is, small groups of the men made their way up there in order to bring him suplies and new men, and it was something in the nature of the climb of the mountain Nanga Parbat. Then I had a telegraphic communication with the OKW and made the suggestion to Keitel that possibly the Navy could ma an attack from the sea, say, on Harstat, in order to bring some help to Dietl from the outside. Most of the warships at that time were still in Trondheim; they were not under my command. A thing that was floating was under Admiral Raeder's jurisdictie Then came the day of Dunkirk, and as a consequence of Dur kirk, England recalled the forces that had been at Narvik. Th was to the complete surprise of General Ruge. General Ruge har made a visit to the English headquarters in the morning, a they had discussed things. Then, when he came back at 12 o'cloc noon, he was told that the English were moving out. He said "That is impossible; that can't be done. I talked to them this morning." He said, "We will have to check up on that and. necessary, we will telephone to London." That they did, and Le don said, "No, they are moving out." On that day I received a request from Berlin. It said that a request had been received from Stockholm for the neutralizati of northern Norway. I can only imagine that this suggestion originated with General Ruge-that is, with the consent of the Norwegian King—and that then the proposal was put to Berli through Stockholm. With that, northern Norway was to be made a neutral area. Then terrific detonations took place in the harbor of Narvik and personally I thought this was due to the actions of Germa warships. In reality, it was the English who were moving out and who effected the last destructions. Then General Dietl advanced. He received reports from th front that the enemy had disappeared, and thus he gradual moved back down the mountain and into Narvik. The Germa warships were there, although they had not come into the harb of Narvik-they were further out, near the Lofoten Islandsand they fired upon the retreating English warships and transports. There was an engagement there. The events of Narvik, as such, were concluded on the 10th of June. Then an armistice was arranged with General Ruge, an also negotiations were entered into about the capitulation of this Sixth Norwegian Division, which I mentioned before. Thus al combat action was ended in Norway, and we proceeded to occupy the coast. The operation against Denmark was completed too. We only occupied the coast there, and the other Danish Islandsthat is, Faroerne, Zeeland, and so on-were not occupied. We only had one battalion in Copenhagen; only one battalion there. That is how the operation in Norway took place. XX. FRANZ HALDER* Excerpts from Testimony of Franz Halder, taken at Plots to Overthrow the Nazi Government, 1938-40 Q. When did you first participate in any plans against the Nazi Government? A. It is hard to say, that is chronologically, to fix a time. I can only tell the development of things. The opposition against Hitler existed in the older officers' corps at a very early moment. May I remind you that the chief of the Heeresleitung (high command of the army), Freiherr von Hammerstein, was a very sharp opponent of Hitler's. But he was removed during the very first days of Hitler's power. Whereas, up to Hammerstein's time, and when von Seeckt was chief of the Heeresleitung, the older officers' corps kept clear of political matters, Hammerstein expressed his especial opposition to Hitler in every possible way. Q. In the early period, I am interested only in general developments. After 1938 we will be more particular. A. I mention this because the attitude of Hammerstein is one of the reasons or motivations for the attitude of the officers' corps against Hitler. There were some other things in addition to thisthe persecution of political opponents after the taking over of power, the terrible events at the Roehm Putsch, Schleicher, Bredow, Kahr, etc. In addition to that, the persecution of the Jews; the struggle against the church. The officers' corps as a whole had been brought up according to rules of the church. This as a whole gives a latent opposition to Hitler and this is the basis *Franz Halder fought in World War I, joined the Reichswehr in 1919, entered the Reichswehr Ministry in 1921, and then returned to the Army. He was promoted to Colonel in 1931, Major General in 1934, Lieutenant General in 1936, Artillery General in 1938, and became Chief of the General Staff of the Army in December 1938 which position he held until October 1942. He was arrested after the 20 July 1944 attempt on Hitler's life, although not a participant in the plot. See document 3702-PS, vol. VI, p. 411; affidavit H, vol. VIII, p. 643. for the later attitude towards Hitler. This opposition flared up especially after the removal of General von Fritsch and more particularly afterwards, when the highly esteemed General Beck was removed. Q. What happened after General Beck's removal? A. When General Beck told me that he was leaving and that! was supposed to be his successor, I told him that the time for memoranda was over. General Beck had shortly before submitted a memorandum to Hitler which had annoyed Hitler extremely, 1 told him that I regretted his going away and that force could only be met by force. Q. What was the date of Beck's memorandum? A. As far as I remember, Beck's memorandum was submitted in June or July. Q. What was the substance of that memorandum? A. Beck's memorandum was the result of an extensive military study in which the situation in the winter of 1937 played an inportant role. A military study is a task which is solved. In the winter of 1937-1938, before a selected audience, the problem was solved, and in this the commander-in-chief of the army took part. Q. What was the date of this conference? A. This conference was in 1938, about March, but the so-called study was before. It might even have been April. Q. What was the nature of the problem that was studied? A. By that time the question had been raised and treated as to how Germany should behave in the event of an armed conflict in which Czechoslovakia and France took part, that is, where Germany would be attacked on both sides. Q. Was this the first of such studies? A. As far as I know, a study had been done in 1937. Q. What date in 1937? A. About the summer. Q. Who participated in the March 1938 conference? A. The men in charge of the whole project, senior general sta officers and commanders of the military defense commands. Wehrkreiskommandos. I did not take part myself in the study; only took part in the final conference. Q. What were the conclusions at which the participants in the conference arrived? A. The conclusion was that in a war of two fronts-France o the one side and Czechoslovakia on the other-it would be possible to have initial successes against the weaker opponent, i.e., Czech |