The European War, 1939-1945 -

8Mar

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The European War, 1939-1945

Battle of Castle Itter

The Battle of Castle Itter was fought on 5 May 1945, in the Austrian village of Itter in the North Tyrol region of the country, during the last days of the European Theater of World War II. Troops of the 23rd Tank Battalion of the 12th Armored Division of the US XXI Corps led by Captain John C. "Jack" Lee, Jr., a number of Wehrmacht soldiers led by Major Josef "Sepp" Gangl, SS-Hauptsturmführer Kurt-Siegfried Schrader, and recently freed French prisoners of war defended Castle Itter against an attacking force from the 17th SS Panzergrenadier Division until relief from the American 142nd Infantry Regiment of the 36th Division of XXI Corps arrived. The French prisoners included former prime ministers, generals, tennis star Jean Borotra, and Charles de Gaulle's sister. It is one of two k...

The battle of Stalingrad: A decisive turning point in WW2

2Feb

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The European War, 1939-1945

The battle of Stalingrad: A decisive turning point in WW2

Eighty years ago, the surrender of Nazi Germany's Sixth Army marked the end of the Battle of Stalingrad. Today, Russia uses commemoration events for its campaign against Ukraine and reinterprets history. During World War II, Nazi Germany's Wehrmacht intended to conquer the industrial city of Stalingrad — named after then-Soviet leader Joseph Stalin — before advancing onward to capture its intended goal: the Caucasus oil fields. Given the city's name, both Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin afforded great symbolic meaning to the Battle of Stalingrad that transcended its strategic importance. Due to the very long supply routes, the German Sixth Army's offensive on Stalingrad was risky from the outset. Led by General Friedrich Paulus, the Wehrmacht attack began in mid-August 1942, roughly...

14Jan

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The European War, 1939-1945

Plan R 4

Plan R 4 was an unrealised British plan to invade Norway and Sweden in April 1940, during the Second World War. As a result of competing plans for Norway and a German invasion of Norway the same month, it was not carried out as designed. Similar plans had been drawn up during the proposed Anglo-French intervention in the Winter War. Background Germany did not have a sufficient domestic supply of iron ore, which is used in the production of steel. Before the war, large quantities of iron ore had been imported from mines in the French province of Lorraine. Since September 1939, that supply had no longer been available and so shipments from the other large supplier, Sweden, were essential for the production of tanks, guns, ships, railcars, trucks and other implements of war. In th...

13Jan

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The European War, 1939-1945

Operation Wilfred

Operation Wilfred was a British naval operation during the Second World War that involved the mining of the channel between Norway and its offshore islands to prevent the transport of Swedish iron ore through neutral Norwegian waters to be used to sustain the German war effort. The Allies assumed that Wilfred would provoke a German response in Norway and prepared a separate operation known as Plan R 4 to occupy Narvik and other important locations. On 8 April 1940, the operation was partly carried out, but was overtaken by events as a result of the following day's German invasion of Norway and Denmark (Operation Weserübung), which instead began the Norwegian Campaign. Background With the outbreak of war on 3 September 1939, Britain and France initiated a naval blockade to weaken Ger...

Norwegian Campaign (8 April – 10 June 1940)

13Jan

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The European War, 1939-1945

Norwegian Campaign (8 April – 10 June 1940)

The Norwegian campaign (8 April – 10 June 1940) deals with the attempt of the Allies to defend northern Norway coupled with Norwegian forces' resistance to the country's invasion by Nazi Germany in World War II. Planned as Operation Wilfred and Plan R 4, while the German attack was feared but had not yet happened, HMS Renown set out from Scapa Flow for the Vestfjorden with twelve destroyers on 4 April. British and German naval forces met at the first Battle of Narvik on 9 and 10 April, and the first British forces conducted the Åndalsnes landings on 13 April. The main strategic reason for Germany to invade Norway was to seize the port of Narvik and guarantee the delivery iron ore needed for German steel production. The campaign was fought until 10 June 1940 a...