In contrast, we were to learn a few weeks later that the Belgian King, Leopold III, although capitulating on 28 May 1940, had not left his soldiers or his people, to their own devices. He allowed himself to be interned in the Laeken Palace near Brussels, according to his status and the interests of his land, and according to the conditions laid down by the ‘victors’. This honourable and moral code of behaviour, was however turned against him after 1945, he being made responsible for Belgium’s defeat. Worse still he was accused of collaboration with the Germans. He was made a scapegoat, and forced to give his crown to his son Baudouin. One can only say, ‘unusual morals, unusual politics’.
A bridgehead was made by German soldiers during the night of 10 May. They had taken off from Zwischenahner Meer near Oldenburg, in twelve He 59 seaplanes, and flew into the heart of Rotterdam, where they landed. The heavily laden biplanes landed on the Nieuwe Maas, the river in the middle of Rotterdam, and in front of astounded inhabitants. It was what can only be called a ‘suicide mission’. A battle flared around the most important Maas bridges. Very soon, the mission was given support from paratrooper comrades, many landing on the green spaces between the tangle of houses and the Feyenoord football stadium. There they gathered together before the attack. Speed was the order of the day and without further ado, they commandeered a tram parked in front of the stadium. They ‘roared like the devil’ through the empty streets, fully loaded, to the shrill ring of the tram’s bell. They went to one of the disputed war zones at the Wilhelms Bridge. Not long before, paratroopers had sprung from the Junkers’ transporters to their targets, ready to begin their battle.
Very strong Dutch resistance hindered the advance of the Germans into the core of the town. In order to avoid unnecessary bloodshed, the deploying Wehrmacht General ordered the Dutch commander to surrender, threatening air-bombardment if he refused, but also relieving his own hard-fighting soldiers.
The ‘tragedy’ of Rotterdam ran its course through more than one misunderstanding. The ultimatum was not accompanied with the necessary name and rank from the German General. So, that order was refused by the Dutch commander, who did not know that it was done to veil the strength of the enemy troops, nor that it was the usual code of conduct.
The slow-moving terms of ‘capitulation’, plus the bureaucratic conditions from the Dutch commander, led to a catastrophe in the end. The deadline of the hand-over, was cancelled however, as the bombers were already underway. Through insufficient communications, the taskforce could not be stopped.
An ocean liner that had been burning for days in the port, had produced a blanket of smoke for the pilots above, obscuring their view. The red flares, lit by the Germans to prevent them jettisoning their bombs, were seen therefore only by a few. Their own soldiers down below were also not spared from the oncoming bombardment.
In order to attack their target, but spare the civilian population, the bombers flew at the very low height of 750 metres, despite strong anti-air-craft fire. It was especially tragic that in one part of the town, where not even one bomb had fallen, damaged gas-pipes caused fires which spread rapidly through the old and closely built houses in a storm of fire.
It was a chain of unlucky circumstances which had caused the deaths of 600 innocent people. The Dutch Government however declined to prosecute, on charges of war crimes against Germany, after an investigation in 1947. After 1945, it had not been easy to assess who had caused the most damage to the Rotterdam Haven that was one of the most important to Holland. Five bombardments had followed that of the Germans, from both British and American bombers, that were far heavier.
In order to avoid the enormous consequences of further defence measures, which really were without hope, General Winkelman ordered an immediate surrender. He asked for ‘Terms of Surrender’. They were sealed with his signature and that of General von Küchler, for the whole of Holland, on 15 May 1940, in Rysoord. In that ‘five-day’ war, 2,032 Dutch soldiers lost their lives, nearly 20% falling in the defence of the Grebbe-line.
In Rotterdam, the town which had experienced the shock of war in all its reality, the inhabitants danced in the streets with relief and happiness. It was only natural after such an inhuman experience. After a few weeks Hitler released the Dutch prisoners of war from a north German prison, allowing them to return to their homeland. There they were enthusiastically greeted as if they were the victors.
Paris has fallen! The headline of the Hamburger Fremdenblatt on 14 June 1940
The operations of the Wehrmacht then progressed, concentrating on Belgium and France. ‘Lady luck’ threw her dice to their advantage, allowing them to break through French lines, with an army of tanks, which in size, mass, manoeuvrability and power had never been seen before. On the fifth day of the invasion, they advanced into the rear of the Allies in haste, to the English Channel.
On 24 May, German divisions would squeeze together both the surrounded British and French armed forces at Dunkirk. There is no doubt that they could have either destroyed, or have taken, the whole of the British Expeditionary Force prisoner. Among them was the core of the professionally trained army. There were also 400,000 French officers and men, but something extraordinary happened, ‘the miracle of Dunkirk’.
It was for friend or foe, an unexpected and fateful turn of events, as Hitler himself, in a love/hate relationship and as an admirer of Britain’s Empire, who stopped the offensive, giving the British the chance to escape. An enormous fleet of ‘sea-goers’, large and small, rowing-boat and ferry, boat and ship, answered the call to evacuate the British Expeditionary Force from the beaches, to take them back to England and to safety. All that was wished for from Britain, was that they recognised Germany’s place on the Continent. The target of coming to peace with Britain, in all honour, had motivated Hitler to spare the British, had however clashed with the opinions of his generals.
The English military historian, Liddell Hart wrote after 1945, that the German Reich had absolutely no plans for war against Britain. Hitler always believed in the significance of the British Empire’s structure, representing world discipline. Germany had imagined itself as a very important partner for Britain. Together they could oppose the Kremlin’s global machinations. Britain could have been an important ally to them, in a critical moment in their history, with which they could be content.
After the expulsion of the British Armed Forces from the continental mainland and the Belgian capitulation at the end of May, the second phase of the Western Offensive, the ‘Battle for France’, began on 5 June. Once again it developed into a ‘Triumphal March’ which was without precedence.
In what appeared to be a seamless combination between tanks and dive bomber squadrons, they advanced in sickle-like, semi-circular movements, closing in on the enemy forces, until they were surrounded and beaten. The German concept of Blitzkrieg had been perfected in the western theatre of war. Co-ordination imperfections and other mishaps, which had happened in the Polish campaign, were improved to near perfect co-ordination between Army and Air Force. The demoralised French could do nothing to stop the powerful advance of the German Army. In less than two weeks, the German infantry marched by the ‘Arc de Triomphe’ in Paris, it having been declared an ‘open city’.
They had a daily march behind them of between 50—60 kilometres, in the dust and the heat of a strange land. (Napoleon’s troops in comparison, managed only half as much in a day). Only a few days later, Marshall Philippe Pétain, France’s national hero from the First World War, asked for Terms of Surrender, after the occupation of his land.