The Attack on the Altmark

Of all the episodes involving British forces in the 'phoney' period of the second world war, two in particular captured the imagination and lifted the spirits of the British public: the Battle of the River Plate in December 1939, and the subsequent rescue in February 1940 by HMS Cossack of 299 British prisoners aboard the German naval auxiliary Altmark. The Altmark episode is of interest to historians of naval engagements, but also to those with an interest in political propaganda. At a stage of the war short on real fighting, it provided both British and German propagandists with excellent material with which to excite the indignation and enthusiasm of their respective domestic audiences. Moreover, more than any other single episode, it was the British attack upon Altmark in Norwegian territorial waters which provoked Hitler's invasion of Norway in April 1940, which in turn precipitated the downfall of Chamberlain's government, and a spiral of terrifying disasters which brought the British close to defeat by the end of the summer. Norway had been the focus of attention in certain quarters in Britain and Germany since the outbreak of war. While Hitler remained preoccupied for the first five or six months of the conflict with plans for war in the west, Admiral Raeder repeatedly warned him of the threat posed to German access to the high seas by a British occupation of Norway. And it is certainly true that influential British figures frequently demanded aggressive action against Germany via Norway, Churchill not the least of them, despite memories of the First Lord's disastrous 1915 Gallipoli campaign. It is also true that Norway seemed fertile ground for a British offensive for a number of reasons. To begin with, the British were frustrated at the ability of German vessels to take shelter in Norwegian waters, which they could enter well inside the Arctic circle and then use as a 'communication trench' almost as far as the entrance to the Skagerrak. Equally important was the exaggerated British belief that Germany's ability to wage war was dependent upon Swedish iron ore from the ore-fields at Kiruna and Gallivare, transported via the Swedish port of Luleai on the Baltic. Moreover, Lulea was icebound from December to April, during which period the ore had to be shipped via Norwegian Narvik, along the stretch of Norwegian waters known as the Leads. Indeed, shortly after AngloGerman hostilities had begun, Churchill produced a plan for the illegal mining by the Royal Navy of the Leads at some point north of Bergen, a plan which he continued to press upon the Cabinet until it was rendered null and void by the German occupation of Scandinavia in the spring of 1940. Matters were urnal of Contemporary History Copyright ? 2003 SAGE Publications, London, Thousand Oaks, CA and Delhi, Vol 38(2), 187-200. 22094(20 304)38:2; 187-200;032129]

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