PC: Can the Germans take Iceland in 1940, and can they hold it?

Check this out: What if: German invasion of Iceland (Operation Ikarus)

Does any Luftwaffe planes have the reach of getting to Iceland.

The RAF will be able to take them down if they fly from Germany to Iceland, i think.

No, and no.

What were the plans of the Germans to invade Iceland during World War II?

Adolf Hitler was exhilarating when he learned that the British had occupied Iceland on May 10, 1940, and subsequently ordered their commanders in the German fleet to prepare an invasion. Shortly afterwards, they introduced him to the Icarus military program (ie Fall Ikarus), which was based on the fact that an invasion fleet would sneak past the Royal Navy in the North Atlantic to land invaders on the west coast of Iceland.

However, officers of both fleet (including Kriegsmarine) and aviation (ie Luftwaffe) Germans strongly opposed any invasion ideas. The reason was, among other things, that, although the likelihood of an invasion being successful, it would be impossible to transfer supplies to the military in Iceland because of the dominance of the British naval fleet, as well as no airports on the island, and therefore the Air Force could not provide the invasion team with any protection. The arguments of the generals, as well as possibly the Germans intending to invade the United Kingdom, but that would have required a whole team force fleet and their aircraft, have apparently caused Hitler to drop all speculation about Iceland's occupation.

Invasion requirement

Hitler and the fleet council of the German fleet considered control of Iceland extremely important for the future of the German state and unrestricted access to the Atlantic. Soon after the war began, Hitler seems to have expressed an interest in occupying Iceland. Colonel Walther Warlimont and Commander of the German Government (ie Ober Kommando der Wehrmacht, abbreviated OKW) reported this during the interrogation after the war. Furthermore, he said it had taken the greatest care, on the one hand, that the island was vulnerable, and that Hitler seems to have wished for it before the Allies, and on the other hand that he envisioned that from Iceland, the aircraft's aircraft could provide submarines with the German naval protection. Karl Jesko von Puttkamer, who was then a naval officer in the Supreme Council, also recalls that Hitler had expressed an interest in occupying Iceland in the spring of 1940.

As mentioned earlier, Hitler was angry when he received news of Britain's occupation on May 10. Here it is argued that the possible invasion of the Germans would be more difficult with the presence of foreign forces in Iceland, but also that, after the Germans were shown to be confronted with imposing Norway and thus gaining unrestricted access to the Atlantic, the British had now managed to put a stone in their path. thus, occupying Iceland and preventing them from entering the Atlantic.

At the end of May 1940, the passenger ships Europa and Bremen were changed so that they could carry out team movements to German troubled troops in Narvik, but in time they did not need to use the ships. At this time, Hitler still pleaded with dreams of domination of Iceland despite the British being in Iceland. Since work on the changes had begun, he seized the opportunity and ordered in early June that preparations for the invasion of the country should begin.

It was a great surprise to the German naval fleet when it was announced on June 12 that four ships would be invaded, and when they were announced the day after their intention to invade Iceland, they were alarmed. The naval officer Hans-Jürgen Reinicke was instructed to draft an invasion, and four days later he delivered a very negative report on the operation of Ikarus . The Naval Council also initiated work on changing six ships intended for team transport.

The next few days, a great deal of meeting was expected on the possible invasion. Representatives of the Navy met Warlimont's Commander of the German Government on June 17, and representatives of naval forces and airmen met especially on a day later to discuss the Icarus . It was stated that the air force under the direction of Hermann Göring strongly opposed such invasion ideas because there were no landing tracks for battle and bombers. Erich Raeder's superlative and naval naval officer finally met Hitler on June 20 and introduced him to the preparations for the invasion ideas of the fleet and the troubles that the naval council saw on the implementation of the invasion.

On the same day Hitler and Raeder found out that the naval officers of von Puttkamer and Wolf Junge were tasked with completing the invasion program after Reinick's pre-work, but they never seem to have put much effort into it. Scholars have generally concluded that, after meeting Hitler's and Raeders, the captain realized that attempting invasion was a frenzy. Raeder was totally opposed to Hitler's invasion ideas and seems to have tried to persuade him to abandon his intentions. In addition, there are some indications that the unknown advisers of the Captain believed him to be unable to deposit airports in Iceland. Historian Thor Whitehead has argued that Hitler's supremacy over the making of airports in Iceland may have been due to the fact that they used old and obsolete information since 1930.

Action Icarus

Many of the problems faced by the Icarus organizers. The royal British fleet had multiplied the dominance of that German on the high seas, the German fleet had been heavily interrupted in the invasion of Norway, the invasion and sailing of the fleet had to happen without security and to avoid Britain's oversight ships would have to attack Iceland in the autumn or winter to take advantage of the shade and the bad autumn weather for shelter. If the invasion team succeeded in landing, it would not be better to keep the British fleet under constant control, and it would probably depend on individual ships to sneak past Britain's oversight ships under cover of weather and darkness. It was possible to divert the invaders by air but the distance was such that the aircraft should not be returned, and supplies could also not be transported by airplane, although landings could be established.

The ideas that were created assumed that the preparation of the invasion would be masked as best as possible, and then the enormous speed of the passenger ships Europa and Bremen would be utilized. So had to start from three different ports and at different times so that Britain did not suspect what was happening. Sailing had a large curvature north of Iceland and came together at the landing point, which all points to being in the southwest.

The invasion fleet Íkarusar

KMS Gneisenau, Trondheim, Norway.

KMS Scharnhorst, Trondheim, Norway.

Passenger ship Bremen, Helgoland, Germany

Passenger ship Europe passenger, Helgoland, Germany

Passenger ship Potsdam, Trondheim, Norway

Passenger ship Gneisenau, Trondheim, Norway

Merchant ship Neidenfels, north of Norway such as Andalsnes and Molde

Merchant ship Moltkefels, north of Norway such as Andalsnes and Molde

1) Although Gneisenau and Scharnhorst's sister ships were both included in the Icarus program, the fact was that Scharnhorst was not available since the ship had suffered a tug of war on June 8 in a conflict with the British fleet and was suspended for months.

It is always a risk to send a cargo ship over the ocean where the enemy warships and submarines are likely to be in process. It is necessary to provide them with some protection and then, for example, to form a group of torpedoes with the cargo ships to protect them from submarines, and larger warships to protect other warships. Following the setbacks in Norway, the German fleet could not see any lighter escapes with the invasion fleet and only Gneisenau was available against the naval forces of the British fleet.

It is likely that the invaders of Germany had been appointed to a trained Austrian mountain soldier who had been fighting in northern Norway. If they had landed, they would have been an easy task to work on the defenses of the poor and poorly trained British forces in the southwest corner. Then there would have been a British docket where the British fleet had closed down all the shots. It is possible that British forces elsewhere in the country have continued to suffer from poor domestic transport and supplies from the British fleet. German invaders, however, would have had to survive the country, in other words, robbing themselves of a living.

Although the British fleet controlled the ocean around Iceland, Britain was busy in other fronts, partly because they feared invasion at home. Therefore, it would probably have taken some time until they had been able to apply against the Germans in this country, as well as the equipment of the naval invasion system was extremely poor at this time. Probably, jungle would have wavered while waiting for assistance from the UK as well as the devastation, especially in the southwestern corner and on the infrastructure.

Second Invasion Ideas

Hitler's attention soon focused on preparing for invasion in Great Britain and later in the Soviet Union, as well as realizing that the German fleet was too weak to participate in Iceland's occupation. It is a sign of Hitler's and the Supreme Court's declining interest that in August, proposals were formulated which assumed that the passenger ships that were used in the Icarus would be deployed in other areas, and it may be assumed that the Icarus plans were finally imposed. aside. In preparation for invasion of the British Isles, which was the pseudonym of Sealion(ie Seelöwe), it was assumed that the chipper Hipper made an attack toward Iceland to attract British warships, in addition to the passenger ships being involved in an invading act of deception on the east coast of England under the pseudonym Haustferð (ie Herbstreise).

Hitler again called ideas to invade Iceland in 1942. Had he been angry when he heard that allies had arrived at airports in the country after his advisors had told him that this was not feasible and was at the forefront of establishing air terminals country. He wanted to bring special troops with large submarines to the country, but he did not seem to have any support for his idea and dropped the case.

Other attack notions were not worded because fleet officers and airmen felt the potential benefits of invasion were not consistent with the effort and risk involved.

Sorry forgot to say it was translated from Icelandic.