HOW TRAITORS, SPIES BETRAYED NORWAY TO THE NAZIS
Stowe, Leland
How Traitors, Spies Betrayed Norway to the Nazis Here's LelancI Stowe's Astounding Story of Invasion By Hitler's Lesions (The Progressive /.his been given permission to print tlx- following...
...From the rear of the second truck two machine guns poked their noses mcMiiriRfulVy .straight down the boulevard...
...6. On Sunday night, the British sowed mine-fields below Narvik...
...Meanwhile, I had a great battle to get the telegraph office to accept a dispatch without a special government press card...
...We did not know why and I still don't know why...
...Norway's elite had been invited to see an "unusually interesting film...
...1 believe, the .outside world has had to guess how it was done...
...15.—For the first time the story behind Germany's paralyzing 12-hour conquest of Norway last Tuesday can be told...
...Oslo's beautiful main boulevard was jammed with people all flocking to see the Germans come In...
...Accordingly, before daybreak on Apr...
...We could discern no sign of resentment upon any face about us...
...There still were no German troops guarding the door...
...The tall, broad-shouldered officer...
...We thought they had orders from the government...
...Finally at...
...in six plants during the big 1936 strike as a part of the Mohawk Valley strikebreaking formula were officially dissolved in a stipulation signed by the company, the Joint Protective Board of the District Council of Office Equipment Workers (AFL) and the NLRB...
...What do you mean, the Germans...
...The echo of their hobnailed heels was amazingly eloquent...
...Quisling Returns Quisling returned to Oslo on Saturday, Apr...
...The public hall was deserted when we entered after passing German guards...
...On Monday, Berlin's press flamed against this provocation...
...all standing watching the German planes, waiting and speculating, but doing nothing and going nowhere...
...Vidleun Quisling, the leader of the pro-Nazi Norwegian party called the Camling...
...il will reach America and the outside World quickly...
...On Wednesday evening, we discovered that the Quisling government had been formed In Room 430 of the Continental hotel...
...The Norse mine-layer Olaf Tryggva-son had unexpectedly put in for repairs the previous evening...
...It immediately discharged torpedoes and sank the cruiser and the submarine...
...They were intended to terrorize the populace into surrender and the authorities into inaction while the first troops were landed by air at Fornebo outside the eitv...
...Prentis Is president of the National Association of Manufacturers, and is now touring the country in a speaking campaign against the Wagner act and similar labor legislation...
...No other emotion was betrayed in the countless faces we scanned anxiously...
...By that time, however, many young Norwegians had disappeared from the capital with packs on their backs...
...j General in Mne The German column marched steadily nearer through a lane of' 20.000 or 30,000 Osloans, fully halt of which were men of military age...
...We looked uncomprch c n d i n g 1 y Later I was told that...
...Norwegian policemen never can-.' oii.v kind of arms...
...by methods even more astonishingly efficient than those which it used against Austria and Czechoslovakia, the inconceivable was accomplished...
...When I hurried into the telegraph building I had hopes...
...J. H. McCandless, a student columnist, described Prentis as "the champion of a discarded phil-osopy of business and government," and added: "The main purpose of a college ed-ucaien is to train students to understand and to shoulder responsibilities as members of society...
...The street was filled with men of fighting age...
...It is known that Narvik was betrayed to the Germans by its commanding officer...
...I noticed in particular the beaming face of a chic, blond German woman whose husband had been very active In our hotel since we arrived on the previous Thursday...
...The mounted men were Norwegian policemen actually escorting the Germans Into the capital...
...I went there about a matter which was said to require the new premier's personal decision...
...To understand the conspiracy's scope one must go back somewhere near the climax of the plot...
...Only in this manner could the Germans penetrate to Oslo and deliver an almost irreparable blow to Norway's parliamentary government...
...Then she told me in German that I must see Fraulein Hauge tomorrow morning and no messages would be accepted...
...Meanwhile, an even greater coup had been scored by the plotters...
...He stood up proudly like a member of a conquering Roman legion who realized that he had the rieht to do so...
...10:30 came an equally fantastic lull in which German planes only circled occasionally and absolutely nothing seemed to hanrwn Streets Thronged Tens of thousands of persons clustered in the streets, and on the sidewalks, and looked and waited, utterly baffled...
...Key Places Seized But within two hours, real life was making itself felt in Oslo...
...But the most important of all to the Nazi plot was the immediate domination of Oslo Fjord with its mighty fortresses, together with the seizure of the great Norwegian naval base at Horten...
...One out of nine carried a light machine gun;' all toted compact aluminum kits and bulky shoulder packs...
...Irvin and myself decided to try somehow to get across the border...
...FORTRESS GUNS SILENT According to report, the Nazis said: "We've got your own men aboard...
...From our hotel balcony two Nazis gave the salute...
...Finally Accepted Finally, she accepted it reluctantly, together with $64 worth of Norwegian crowns which had to be paid in advance...
...Chatted With Troops Wherever we went we saw groups of young people cluttered around German soldiers, some stared at their rifles and machine guns and asked questions about them...
...The Norwegian people were stunned as the Belgian people must have been stunned in 1914 and most of them still have not the slightest conception of how this incomprehensible tragedy could have happened...
...PASS THIS .PAPER ON...
...The plant is the second in the Intl...
...They did it swiftly without any fear of interruption...
...One policeman U>!d me that the Germans would be there within 10 minutes...
...We still thought British ships and planes might come at any moment...
...Shortly before 3 o'clock two trucks filled with a dozen German soldiers rolled up the street...
...They sounded like motor cars honking in a traffic jam...
...This was also wliy Uiey flailed to fulfill the government's order to arrest Maj...
...They were seized with unparalleled speed by means of a gigantic conspiracy which must undoubtedly rank among the most audacious, most perfectly oiled political plots of the last century...
...4—three full days before the British mined the upper Norwegian coast between Bergen and Narvik...
...Such scenes were far from infrequent...
...It is my conviction for the sake of history and also for the sake of the ultimate restoration of security and freedom in all three Scandinavian countries that the story is- crying to be told now...
...For the success of the German plan, the capture of three key cities was essential, these being Oslo, Bergen and Narvik...
...Two score German sotdiert filled the open windows on the third floor of the building, all singing lustily, while one pumped Joyfully at his accordion...
...Nazi radical leaders sup-nnrted Der Fuehrer...
...After a few seconds' pause the two soldiers pounded their heels again...
...5 while the German fleet and transports already were steaming toward Norway, an event of enormous historical importance occurred in Oslo and until now has probably never been reported...
...No Panic Thousands of Osloans gazed curiously and fearfully but no panic occurred...
...The article brought down on the writer the wrath of President John A. Schaeffer, who summoned McCandless and the editor, Robert M. Landis, to is office and clapped down a rigid censorship...
...Stowe's eyewitness story, which has appeared in The Chicago Daily News, will undoubtedly go down in the annals of journalism as one of tlx great jcxits of reporting of the present European war.—EDITOR'S NOTE...
...It Will Win New Readers Big Business Speaker Brings Student Kick LANCASTER, Pa.—The extent to which big business is able to dominate some of the nation's educational institutions was strikingly illustrated by an incident at Franklin and Marshall college last week...
...Like children the the people sfared...
...The agreement was the sequel to a victory of the Farm Equipment Workers Organizing Committee in an NLRB election three months ago—an election which sounded taps for the firm's company union Under the pact, the FEWOC wins sole bargaining rights, seniority and grievance systems...
...Each step echoed loudly and menacingly against the ceiling...
...The Germans had closed all the wires as we'l as telephone lines to the outside world...
...Not one hand or voice was raised...
...I called Irvin and Stevens and we rushed outside into the strangest conceivable scene...
...They simply had paraded in and taken it over much as Frenchmen or Italians might parade into a colonial interior village somewhere in Africa...
...The strangest of all, Norwegian policeman calmly forming lines along the sidewalks and clearing the streets for the German's triumphal entry...
...At first I could not believe my ears as the sirens were so different from those in Helsingfors...
...At 7:45...
...For more than an nour tne distinguished Norwegian audience sat in icy silence, gripped by the horror of many of the scenes...
...It seemed utterly incredible that the narrows of Oslo fjord could have been forced by the Germans and its powerful forts silenced...
...Inside two German privates were standing...
...The chief of the machine gun crew looked down upon his admirers with an indescribable smile...
...This is how Norway's capital was captured without a bomb being dropped, without a shot being fired within several miles of the eitv I believe this to be the first story of any completeness to reach the outside world...
...All the members of the government were invited, many officers of the defense forces, leading bankers, shipping executives and industrialists...
...In the first hours of Tuesday, Apr...
...any minute now...
...They continued this exercise as long as we were in the hall...
...The invitation emphasized the importance of the soiree by reading, "white ties, uniforms an:l decoration...
...From there we were referred io the German legation where we were received courteously...
...In Oslo I learned that Maj...
...Psychological Exercise Nevertheless, we made another call at the telegraph building...
...It was reported, though I was unable to confirm this, that the cruiser Blucher also was sunk by the Narrow's fort, called Oskarsborg...
...von Falkenhorst, and two other officers marched directly behind the mounted police...
...They were told that hereafter anything written for the publication must be approved by the faculty before printed...
...About 1:30 in the morning of Apr...
...It was the urgent task of the tinv force of 1.500 men to seize key places in the nation's capital...
...9. The Germans could not enter without eon-trolling the vital Norse naval base at Horten...
...Between midnight and noon on that bewildering day, Norway's capital, all her principal seaports and her strategic coastal defenses fell into German hands like over-ripe plums...
...In this fashion Norway's capital was betrayed from within, the German occupation of Oslo assured before its government knew what had happened or the parliament had courageously refused to capitulate...
...The next day, Wednesday, was as unbelieveable as the events of Apr...
...But immediately I knew it was too late...
...I saw Quisling very briefly but he turned for advice to a sharp-faced German who introduced himself as Reichsamtleiter Schoedt...
...Afterward the Norwegian sailor who verifl?d these developments declared...
...After that, with the last train connections to Sweden severed...
...Mostly they stared straight ahead, but some could not restrain triumphant smiles toward the onlookers...
...This sight at la-st awakened many men from the daze which they had been in...
...Interesting Film" Despite the great formality imposed, it was no official dinner...
...Norway's capital and great seaports were not captured by armed force...
...It proved tc be the motion picture "Baptism of Fire," depicting in the most graphic details Germany's aerial destructon Of Poland...
...We all asked where were the British but also where were the Germans...
...NEW YORK CITY—Nine company unions established by Remmgton-Rand Inc...
...The campus newspaper, "The Student Weekly," vigorously protested the selection...
...Absolute control of only a handful of key men in administrative positions and the navy was necessary to turn the trick and everything had been faultlessly prepared...
...Before the German capture of Horten, the Oslo government already had ordered mobilization as a precaution...
...The fortress guns remained silent, the German warships passed into Oslo's inner harbor, and the occupation of Oslo was then inevitable...
...The same madness of incomprehensible events continued all day long...
...But her chief had already accepted my dispatch at one o'clock...
...All acted curiously like children suddenly given a chance to see a parade of strange creatures out of prehistoric times — something which had no connection with real life...
...We could see two mounted men swinging Into the boulevard in front of the palace, then six more ahead of a inarching column in field gray...
...They marched with guns on their shoulders, with beautiful pre-' cision...
...Norway's capital of nearly 300,000 inhabitants was being occupied by a German force of approximately 1,500 men...
...The message was supposedly signed by Koht himself and was accepted as coming direct from the government via the ministry of foreign affairs...
...I spent three hours in Oslo, together with the only other American newspapermen who were on the spot—Warren ir-vin of the National Broadcasting Co...
...Then it was the further fact that only one anti-air battery seemed to be firing against the German planes, and this became silent after firing only a few shell*, all of which were inexplicably wide of the mark...
...The three Norse war vessels were completely helpless, but the little minelayer, Olaf Tryggvason, blocked the entrance to the narrows...
...Now they went to work...
...Thousands of younjr men stood watching this occupation parade...
...This brings us to the methods by which Oslo Fjord and Oslo itself were captured from the sea early in the morning hours of Apr...
...The Norwegians left the German legation that night filled with gloomy, ominous thoughts...
...But there was nothing we could do...
...On Friday night, Apr...
...None of us dreamed that German warships were in the inner harbor and that Oslo already was doomed...
...Stevens and I decided the Norwegians were only air-alarming as a precaution...
...Then it was the immunity of the low flying Nazi planes to thousands of machine-gun bu)l<-ts which pat ered almost, incessantly until after 10 o'clock...
...Then, as I rushed up to the hotel desk a porter asked me, "Aren't you going out to see the Germans come in...
...This was the only show of force, and all that was needed...
...9 had been...
...It was a thin, unbelievably short column...
...and now the premier of the so-called National government set up after the German occupation, was in Berlin at the time the film was shown in Oslo, and while the expedition was being organized...
...Outside the telegraph building I encountered hardened German regulars who had a machine gun mounted for action...
...I also was informed with impressive assurances that the German army chiefs strongly opposed Adolf Hitler on the plan to invade Norway because they insisted that communication lines for the army ot occupation In Norway would be most dangerously limited and exposed...
...The narrows of Oslo Fjord were mined and controlled from Drobak...
...It was only through the personal intervention of Raymond Cox, first secertary who remained in charge of the American legation that our first dispatches were finally accepted—and the only ones which were allowed to pass for more than 24 hours...
...Of course my own and all other dispatches for the next 24 hours were never sent...
...It developed over the selection by the faculty of H. W. Prentis, Jr., as commencement day orator...
...The tipoff came when the woman employee who always addressed me in perfect English spoke to me in German and tried to refuse my message on the grounds that I had no special telegraph card...
...From here on a slight hitch whicn was costly for the Germans occurred...
...But I had to remain in Oslo through four days of German occupation to learn how this miracle of lightning naval and military occupation was made possible...
...Osloans stood watching and listening on the sidewalks below...
...In any case, all other crews were ashore without arms at Horten and by daybreak the Germans landed marines and seized Horten...
...FORCE LANDED "Later the Germans got about 100 men ashore...
...They were hard-muscled, stony-faced men...
...Apparently even the men who had been called to the colors did not know-where to go or simply forgot about it...
...For two and a half hours German planes dove over the city, always only three or five in number...
...Many Mhers, however, still remained In the capital on Friday— seemingly a large pail of the men...
...First was mystification over the complete lack of defense of the city by its naval forces and coastal forts...
...A great many more went after the Germans landed 20,000 troops on Oslo's quais on Thursday afternoon...
...Only in two or three places was it marred by unexpected hitches, but Norway's sea gates were already wide open...
...As students in a liberal arts college, we should join in protest against such an academic keynote for a graduation ceremony...
...The Norwegians of Oslo seemed stunned beyond recovery...
...Harvester chain to sign with the FEWOC...
...By bribery and extraordinary infiltration on the part of Nazi agents and by treason on the part of a few highly-placed Norwegian civilian and defense officials, the German dictatorship built a Trojan horse inside of Norway...
...The officers on our ships ran up white flags...
...We watched them come, expecting bombs momentarily...
...Crttlser Beaches Horten At 4:30, still a half-hour before the German minister handed the ultimatum to Koht, a German cruiser believed to have been the Emden, accompanied by two submarines, reached Horten...
...We had four men killed, the Germans, two...
...At 1:30 o'clock that morning—three and a half hours before Berlin's ultimatum was handed to Foreign Minister Koht — the commander of three Norwegian warships at Horten received an urgent message...
...Several times, Von Falkenhorst and the other two, officers returned Nazi salutes from persons in the crowd who must have been German advance agents who had been busy in Oslo for weeks before this crowning moment...
...They marked 1 or 20 steps slowly and caleula.edly, pounding the heels of their boots down on the cement floor at every step...
...At 3 o'clock there wa.s a murmur through the crowd...
...It was the only possible way to give a detailed account of the most astonishing thing that has happened since the second world war began...
...Harvester Signs With Indiana CIO RICHMOND, Ind.—Product of three years' struggle, a CIO contract is in effect at the local plant of the Intl...
...German troops now stood guard in the parliament, the university, the city hall and other public buildings...
...While we wrote our cablegrams, they began an exercise in mass psychology...
...Then I could scarcely believe my ears...
...Frentis is a Lancaster county manufacturer and closely associated with the business end of the college...
...This was the most Incomprehensible thing among all the incomprehensible things of the fantastic 24 hours...
...Meanwhile, we had spent an eerie night in Oslo's Grand hotel with a succession of air alarms, the first of w:hich sounded at 12:35 in the morning, about the time mobilization was ordered...
...Its presence apparently was unknown to the leaders of the conspiracy in Oslo...
...Until now...
...There was some fighting...
...I talked to another Norwegian who was a member of the Horten naval base that night...
...9, Norway naval defenses were betrayed to the German fleet and the first German troops landed at Fornebo, Oslo's airport, a few hours after daybreak...
...When German warships approached the formidable Oskarsborg fortress at the narrows above Horten, so It was stated there afterward, they radioed the fort's commander not to shoot...
...It ordered Norwegian ships not to fight against the German warships ¦which were about to come up the Fjord and to put all their men ashore immediately—without their arms...
...How Bergen's harbor defenses were taken remains a mystery...
...while wc still had not the slightest idea of what had happened in Oslo fjord ar.d Horton, five Nazi bombers suddenly came roaring over the rooftops so low they almost touched them...
...line look as long as possible...
...To seize all of Oslo Fjord and force its narrows would have appeared impossible to any foreign government except the Nazi dictatorship...
...Many young girls gazed admiringly at the men in field gray uniforms...
...In Oslo I learned on most reliable authority that Germany's sea forces and troop ships sailed from German ports for their Norwegian adventure during the night of Apr...
...The Way through the narrows was open and Oslo defenseless from the sea...
...Three Germans in civilian clothes, and one Norwegian were in Room 430...
...Harvester Co...
...It was composed of only two incomplete battalions—sure less than 1,500 men in all...
...Then came the German regulars in columns of three, as if to make the...
...My first shock came early in the morning as I passed the Storting (parliament...
...How Traitors, Spies Betrayed Norway to the Nazis Here's LelancI Stowe's Astounding Story of Invasion By Hitler's Lesions (The Progressive /.his been given permission to print tlx- following dramatic story of the betrayal of neutral Norway and the invasion of that country by Nazi Germany as it was written by Leland Stouc, correspondent for the Chicago Daily News foreign service...
...They were Immediately surrounded by the German marines' landing party and placed aboard other German ships which came up...
...The statement is disputed by students, among whom resentment is still rife, and threats are heard to boycott the commencement exercises unless the invitation to Prentis Is cancelled...
...The Germans had occupied the capital without firing a shot within the city limits...
...I am closing it with the mi"-i hope thr...
...AH this and what, followed I told in a dispatch which was filed that afternoon—but the Germans had just taken over the telegraph building and I learned two days later that not a line of my dispatch ever was sent...
...Without questioning the origin of the order, the commander ordered ail his men ashore except itokers and messmen...
...He confirmed all the main details of the above events, including the fact that two German cruisers were sunk...
...It seemed as if curiosity was the strongest sentiment in thee throng of Osloans who watched the Germans come in...
...After a while another German assisted in giving further directions...
...9, scores of young Norwegians reported at the Horten railroad station...
...The conspiracy was about 90 per cent according to schedule...
...I also believe it to be the most important newspaper dispatch I have ever had occasion to write...
...Their operators lay prone with intent, hard faces, ready to fire...
...The soldiers laughed...
...I looked closely, but so far as I could see they were simply curious and somewhat entertained...
...Trucks Rolled Up We waited half rn hour on (he hotel balcony with an excellent, view all the way up the boulevard to its beginning at the foot o( the hill on which the royal palace stands...
...After waiting...
...Yes, they will be marching up Carljohan blvd...
...They had not ended when I left Oslo on Friday...
...At 9 in the morning Stevens and myself could find no responsible chief at his post in the telegraph building, only groups of perplexed employes standing in the corridors—those few who had reported for work...
...So I refused to get up until 7 o'clock...
...Meanwhile, student supporters of McCandless charged that copies of the paper had been seized and destroyed and issued handbill reprints of the column and an announcement that McCandlecs had been threatened with loss of his NYA job...
...It appeared that German military censorship had not been completely organized yet and nothing could be arranged about the transmission of dispatches until the next day...
...The last ot the German troops went by without a single jeer or hiss, without a single tear noticeable on any Norwegian face...
...Then, when the hour struck the German plotters spiked the guns of the Norwegian navy and reduced its formidable fortresses to impotence...
...Afterward the German minister explained that the film was not a war but a peace film, since it showed that nations which elected peace would save their people from suffering...
...But Norway's capital in every quarter was the scene of dszed disorganization, completely without leadership...
...The only indignant people we met or saw that day were foreigners...
...Marching Up Boulevard It was like this until 2:30 in the afternoon...
...The crowd laughed and joked with the soldiers, one man, apparently half-intoxicated, shouted Deutsch-land uber Allies several times...
...9 these mines all were rendered harmless by being electrically disconnected from the Drobak Central...
...This was the only Norwegian war vessel which did not receive the order and so remained in condition to fight...
...It required only six or seven minutes to march past...
...Quisling...
...It was only through treason that the Germans got in...
...College authorities insist that an understanding has been reached and that all is quiet again...
...The mystery of who ordered this to be done remained unsolved when I left Oslo, but this move enabled the Germans to penetrate the narrows before dawn...
...and Edmund Stevens of the Christian Science Monitor—and we ourselves could scarcely believe the evidence of our own eyes...
...By LELAND STOWE (Copyright, 1940, By The Chicago Daily News) STOCKHOLM, Apr...
...The soldiers lolled in them with their guns danglinir as if they had been assured that there would not be the slightest resistance...
...Then a Finnish diplomat informed me of the ultimatum and the gowrnment's decision...
...The German legation held a soiree to which it invited 200 persons represent, ing Norway's most influential personalities...
...As on the night after the occupation, the city's cafes were filled in almost normal fashion and a large number of young men were lolling in them as if no such thing as the regular Norwegian army, ready to offer resistance to an invader, was only 50 miles north of the capital...
Vol. 10 • April 1940 • No. 17
