Dietl in the fjords — Narvik defence
, 50, a Bavarian Generalleutnant, has commanded the (mountain troops) since 1938. An early Nazi militant, he is one of Hitler's trusted generals. On the morning of 9 April 1940, he lands at Narvik with 2,000 mountain troops carried by Bonte's destroyers.
But the loss of the 10 German destroyers in the battles of Narvik (10-13 April) isolates Dietl: no maritime resupply is possible. He is reinforced by 2,200 surviving sailors from the sunken destroyers — re-equipped as improvised infantry, rifles, machine guns, no suitable uniforms. Dietl's total: 4,200 men. Opposite: 24,000 Allies. Allied composition: (French chasseurs alpins), , , under General .
From 14 April to 28 May 1940, Dietl mounts an alpine defence across the mountain chain between Bjerkvik and Beisfjord. Tactics: high ground, deep snow (3 m), ambushes on the passes. Resupply by Junkers Ju 52 parachute drops from Stavanger, 2,000 km away — at the limit of the aircraft's range.
Dietl can envisage three exits: retreat into Sweden, capitulation, or maximum resistance.
How should Dietl handle an increasingly precarious defence?
Dietl chooses C. For 60 days, his division survives a siege theoretically impossible. Losses: about 500 German dead. On 28 May 1940, Narvik is taken by the Allies (Béthouart and Bohusz-Szyszko). Dietl withdraws towards Sweden, already encircled. But Fall Gelb transforms the strategic situation: the French collapse forces the Allies to evacuate Norway. From 4 to 8 June 1940, Allied withdrawal, and Narvik is handed back to Dietl without a fight. Hitler decorates him with the first Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves of the war and promotes him General der Gebirgstruppe. Dietl commands in Finland in 1941-1944 (failure at Murmansk). He dies on 23 June 1944 in an air crash in Austria — an accident which several documentary sources suggest may have been engineered (Dietl had just expressed doubts about the conduct of the war). He remains a mythologised figure in the Bundeswehr; a barracks bore his name until 1995.
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