182: The Invasion of the Netherlands

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On May 10th, 1940 there would be multiple countries invaded by the German military, the one that the podcast will cover first is The Netherlands.

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Transcript

Hello everyone and welcome to History of the Second World War Episode 182 - The Fall of France - The Invasion of The Netherlands. One of the challenges when covering major campaigns on a podcast is how to organize the events. I have always thought that jumping around too much geographically can be very confusing, but that means that we will have to bounce around through the first 5 days of the German invasion over the following handful of episodes. This is because, on the morning of May 10th German operations would begin against The Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, and France. We are going to discuss them in that order, focusing primarily on the days between May 10th and May 15th for each geographic area in turn. The reason that I think this timeframe makes the most sense is due to the fact that by the 15th the events in The Netherlands and Belgium were largely decided, although the fighting was not yet complete. In France the German forces would cross the Meuse on the 13th and by the 15th it was clear that the attacks in the south were a major point of effort for the German army, which shifted the complexion of the entire campaign as the French tried to find a way to stop the German advance. But there will be plenty of time to talk about the French later, today we start with the Dutch. At a high level the Dutch government believed that neutrality was the best policy, a view that was shared with the Belgian governments of the 1930s. The basic theory was that by maintaining neutrality they did not give either side an excuse to attack them, because they were not working with the enemy, while at the same time it would reduce the likelihood of attack because neither side would want to be seen as the aggressor. Given the aggressiveness of Germany in 1940 it is easy to criticize this strategy, and it would fail completely in the face of German actions. But that doesn’t mean that if the nations had fully supported the French and British war effort, and had signed some kind of alliance, that the result would have been different in anyway. In Germany war plans of the late 1930s just assumed that Dutch neutrality would be breached during the opening German attacks to provide a wider front of advance into Belgium and then into France. The exact territory that would be taken, and the exact path of the offensive into Dutch territory would shift over time as the specifics of the German plans were determined, but it was always going to happen.

For their part the Dutch intelligence services knew that the Germans were going to attack them, and they had some very solid intelligence about the German plans. This intelligence was provided by sources in Germany and contained very detailed information about Germany’s preparations and their plans. The primary sources on this intelligence is spotty because so much of it would be destroyed during the German invasion, but one of the sources that we do have is the writings of the American Army Attache in The Hague during 1939 and 1940. This attache would be able to view the Dutch intelligence summaries during this time and would report on their contents, reports that would remain intact. The picture that is painted is an intelligence service that had a good handle on everything that the Germans were doing near the border, with precise details of the number and composition of troops that were present and the infrastructure work that was being done behind the lines. Airfields near the border were also noted for new and increasing military activity, there were also German efforts to expand those airfields which seemed to be a clear sign that they would be used for the attack. Along with this information of activities close to the border, Dutch intelligence would also have access to a source within Germany which would inform them before an attack was scheduled to begin. This was immensely valuable, and the source was providing solid information, but that was in some ways a problem. During late 1939 and the spring of 1940 there were multiple instances where a date was set for the invasion in Germany, only for it later to delayed. This would occur roughly 29 times, although for the most part none of these dates saw the attack come close to happening, it was more the German high command throwing a date on the calendar and then postponing again well in advance. But each of these dates were reported to Dutch intelligence, and each of them would result in some amount of escalated alert levels. Unfortunately for the Dutch forces on May 10th, by the time that the actual German attack began the alerts had become routine, and there was concern at Dutch high command that the constant warning dates were just false information.

While they hoped to escape being pulled into the war, as they had during the First World War, preparations were made for the defense of The Netherlands from a German attack. At the highest level the Dutch plan was to delay the Germans as long as possible. This meant that along the frontier troops would be positioned, but they would be forced to retreat back into defensive positions set back from the border. Many of the defensive positions, and then the fallback positions, were anchored on waterways, with the various Dutch rivers providing areas where it was hoped the outnumbered Dutch defenders could delay a German advance. Plans were also put in place for some manmade flood zones which would be used to restrict German movement, and reduce the length of defensive lines. As units fell back there were two primary goals. The first was to defend the main population centers along the coast for as long as possible, these were Amsterdam, The Hague, and Rotterdam. The second was to maintain a communication route with Belgium, and therefore to the Western Allies, in the hopes that this route could be used for British or French reinforcements to arrive. The positions around these larger cities was known as Fortress Holland and had been a major point of effort for the Dutch military in the years before the war. Even though this was probably the best plan that could be put in place any Dutch defensive plan was hampered by three realities. The first was that the best Dutch troops, their best trained and best equipped, were in the Dutch East Indies, and that remained at home were reservists of varied quality. At the start of the war what troops that were available were mobilized, which resulted in about 280,000 men being brought into the military and prepared for action, their equipment was a bit antiquated though and modern weapons like anti-tank and anti-aircraft guns were rare. The second problem was that, within the boundaries of neutrality, there were limits on how much the Dutch military could coordinate with with the other nations of western Europe. Under the general agreements around neutrality the Dutch could not hold official military discussions with other belligerent nations, they could not coordinate their efforts, or make military plans that could be put into action. This resulted in a situation where the Dutch were heavily dependent on French and British aid for any long term defense against Germany, but they could not discuss that aid before the war. The French were considering a push all the way to Breda in the southwest of the country, but no provisions were made to work with this plan or coordinate a defensive strategy that would have made that a successful effort by French forces. The third reality was that it was very likely that any defensive campaign would end in defeat, and there was very little that the Dutch government or military could do about it. You could call this defeatism, or realism, or whatever else, but the outlook was bleak. In 1948 the Dutch Defense Minister in 1940 would say that in 1940 the general assumption that he was basing his decisions on was that the Dutch defense could hold out for maybe 5 days. After those days, maybe stretched out to a few weeks, if Allied assistance had not arrived in reasonable numbers then the Dutch would probably be forced to capitulate.

On the German side, they were trying to speed along the Dutch defeat as much as possible, because the quicker that the Dutch forces were removed from the equation the quicker that the German forces used for the attack could transition to other areas. The German General von Bock would refer to The Netherlands as the ‘Dutch water park’ and that would be a good way to describe the campaign that would follow, which was almost entirely structured and driven by water obstacles in the form of river and lakes. To try and speed things along, and particularly because of the nature of the terrain of the Netherlands, crisscrossed with various waterways, a major component of the German attack would be the 7th Fliegerkorps which was made up of parachute and air transported infantry. These troops would be dropped in various areas around the country to capture a few key bridges and airfields, once this was complete large number of air transported forces would be brought in to expand the areas under German control while they waited for the German ground forces to arrive. There would also be a major airborne operation which would target The Hague with one of its goals being to directly attack the Dutch government, and if things went perfectly, to capture the Queen. These airborne operations were risky, and the forces used were not equipped or prepared for a long defense and were completely dependent on the rapid arrival of support. This was very similar, at least in concept, to the German attack into Denmark that had been part of the invasion of Norway that had happened a month earlier. The ground troops would be made up of two different groups, in the south would be the 9th Panzer division and some motorized infantry which would be given the task of quickly attacking through the south of the country, aiming for Tilburg and Breda to prevent any assistance arriving from the West. Along the northern area of the border infantry troops would push forward as well, but generally at a slower pace. Due to the importance of the airborne operation, Luftwaffe attacks would be seen as critical in the hours before the air transport began. In the early hours of May 10th the Luftwaffe would focus on Dutch airfields with the goal of attaining complete aerial superiority. They would largely be successful in these efforts, although this could be attributed just as much to a lack of Dutch airpower than to the actions of the Luftwaffe.

Up to May 10th 1940 the German airborne troops had a solid record of success in Denmark and Norway, but in their bold attacks in The Netherlands they would experience some serious problems. Near The Hague the goal of the paratroopers that were dropped in the early hours of the attack was to capture a series of 3 airfields which would be used to land Ju-52s that were loaded with German infantry. A battalion of airborne troops would be dropped on the airfields and their initial goal was accomplished and the airfields would be captured, which was exactly according to plan. However, when the very first Ju-52 arrived with its load of infantry it would become stuck on the soft grass runway. This completely blocked that airfield, and the transports that were following had to diver onto a nearby beach, where several of them crashed and others were shot down by Dutch fighters due to their delayed landing. Other transports would arrive, but over the hours that followed, instead of solidifying their control of the airfields to keep them clear for further reinforcements, they would begin to lose control of them under the pressure of Dutch counter attacks. By the end of the day the airfields were back in Dutch hands, which was a serious problem for the German forces that had already been landed because they were heavily dependent on continued support from German transport planes to sustain the defense. Other air operations had experienced similar problems, but also some successes. In Rotterdam seaplanes had been used to land some initial infantry right in the middle of the city which allowed them to take the critical Wilhelms Bridge. This was the final bridge on a chain of bridges that had been captured by small units of German airborne troops which led from the German border all the way to Rotterdam. The Wilhelms bridge would almost prove to be a Bridge Too Far though, and throughout the morning the German defenders would experience heavy counter attacks and were barely holding onto their positions. Due to the failures around The Hague the defense of the northern end of the Wilhelms Bridge became the focus of the German airborne operations in the area. The commander of the troops in The Hague, with the general failure of his operations, was ordered to abandon his tasks entirely and to instead try and move as many troops as possible down to Rotterdam to assist. Overall, the airborne operations were costly for the German airborne troops, but they were still a success in the ways that mattered. Around half of the Ju-52 aircraft that were used were either lost outright or damaged to the point of no longer being useable. But they were able to hold onto enough of the bridges to accelerate the German attack, and that is what really mattered. The Dutch defense had been counting on the difficulty of the crossings to delay the German attack, with intact bridges in German hands the rivers would be far less of a problem.

The first day of the attack on the ground would see successes and failures on both sides. In the opening hours of the attack a railway bridge over the Meuse was captured intact, which immediately compromised all of the Dutch defenses in the area as the German forces moved over the bridge to continue forward. An attempt to capture a bridge over the Maas river would be far less successful though, even though the bridge which was located in Maastricht was attacked by German troops that were dressed in Dutch uniforms to try and sow some confusion among the defenders. This failure allowed the Dutch defenders time to blow all three of the bridges over the Maas in Maastricht, which would delay the German forces in the area by a day. In the center and norther end of the attack the advance was relatively rapid, up until the point where the German forces reached what was considered to be the eastern edge of the Fortress area. When they reached the defenses in this area, anchored on the river Lek and IJsselmeer, the defenders were able to stop the attack at least some a short period of time. On the second day of the attack the 9th Panzer division was able to finally reach Moerdijk, which was really important for the German airborne forces that had been trapped there after the failure of their earlier operations. By this point the airborne troops were desperately short of supplies, and so the appearance of German tanks on the southern side of the Moerdijk bridge could have have been a more welcome sign. On the 13th the 9th Panzer’s forward elements would cross the bridge and continue on their way north, putting pressure on the Dutch defenders that were trying desperately to stop the German advance before it reached Rotterdam. By this point the defenses along the eastern side of the Fortress Holland region were holding well, but there was growing pressure on the Grebbe Line near Utrecht. However, the advance to the south of Rotterdam was extremely concerning, especially due to the fact that the German forces were still in control of the Wilhelms bridge in southern Rotterdam. As the German forces approached from the south there were only around 50 surviving German troops defending the approaches to the bridge, but a last minute Dutch attack once again failed to make it to the bridge and so it could not be destroyed before the German armor arrived to strengthen the defense.

While German reinforcements arrived just in time for many of the pockets of German forces, for the Dutch larger assistance from Britain and France was looking very unlikely. The Dutch commander General Winkelman had hoped that the British would be able to quickly land forces on the coast which could join the Dutch defenders of Fortress Holland. But these forces simply did not exist, and the British government would regrettably tell the Dutch that they did not have the reserves in place to help them. The only real assistance that the British could provide was the presence of the Royal Navy to carry off the Dutch gold reserves along with a large quantity of diamonds. This realization was compounded by German successes along the Grebbe Line near Utrecht, where units of the SS had started a serious assault on the line on May 12th, with the fighting continuing into the next day. The fighting probably would have been over much more quickly, and less costly for the Germans, if more resources had been available particularly artillery resources which were in short supply on this area of the front. French troops would eventually arrive in Breda with two motorized infantry battalions and a regiment of armored cars. But by this point all the Dutch forces in the area were abandoning the defensive lines in the area to move north. The fact that the Dutch defenders were already moving away from the French, and all of the serious challenges that the French were having elsewhere meant that Gamelin would order the French forces to retreat back to the south towards Antwerp. All along the front the Dutch forces were in retreat, although they generally did a good job not collapsing completely given the circumstances.

The overall situation by the morning of May 13th caused a lengthy cabinet meeting to be dominated by discussions of what the Dutch government should do next. Winkelman would inform the political leaders of the cabinet that the situation was critical and that serious decisions needed to be made very soon. The major topic for debate that morning was whether or not the government should evacuate the country. Some were in favor of evacuating to maintain the continuity of the government while others believed that it was their duty to stay and continue to lead from within the country. Eventually the full cabinet would agree to board a British destroyer which would sale for London late on the evening of May 13th, although several of them only did so after being asked directly by the Dutch Premier. The goal of this evacuation was to create a government in exile, but as with other instances where similar decisions were made the politicians who evacuated would be heavily criticized by some Dutch citizens for abandoning the country to the Germans. This is one of those situations where I see both sides of the argument, I think that the future of The Netherlands as a political entity was probably safer with a government in exile, but it is understandable that the mass of Dutch citizens and soldiers that were left behind were not thrilled that their political leaders seemed to run away when the going got tough. One leader who would be left behind was Winkelman, who much like General Ruge in Norway was left behind with full powers to continue the defense until such a time as he felt that it no longer served a purpose. He would take over control from the government on the evening of the 13th. In the period between the evacuation of the government and the official surrender late on the 14th, in Rotterdam 60 German bombers would drop over 1,300 bombs on the center of the city, resulting in the death of 814 civilians. This was done while negotiations for the surrender of the city were ongoing, but the deadline given by the Germans had been passed. The Germans would then threaten similar attacks on Amsterdam and Utrecht of the full surrender of Dutch forces did not happen very soon, and therefore Winkelman decided to surrender on the morning of the 15th.

While the surrender of the Dutch military would be just one of the many actions that would occur during these days of May, much like many other areas of Western Europe it was during this period that the first days of occupation which was to last almost 5 years would begin. The Nazi occupation of Western Europe was different than what had happened in the East, and instead of immediately beginning a repressive and violent regime against the local citizens in The Netherlands the initial days of fighting were followed by almost 2 years of relative peace. During this period there were few overt acts of resistance, and it would only be later, as the German control of the territory tightened, that real resistance would begin. But occupation was never easy, and the full scope of the oppression of the Dutch people, and especially Dutch Jews is a larger conversation that demands a full episode to discuss. All of those actions were in the future though, because by the time that the Dutch surrendered, to the south the continuation of Belgian resistance to the German invasion was also looking more and more doubtful.