Some hours later, Fregattenkapitän von Pufendorf’s destroyers joined and at 01:30 on 7 April the five ships commenced navigating the narrow channel towards the sea. Shortly after passing the river mouth, Eckholdt reported overheating in the port propeller shaft and had to slow down. She was left behind with Riedel and ordered to initiate transfer of her troops to the backup destroyer unless the problem could be repaired in time for her to rejoin the fleet during the morning. Hipper and the remaining destroyers continued westward across the Bight towards the Schillig-Reede off Wilhelmshaven to join Group I. From this time onwards, until at anchor in Trondheim, the crew of Hipper would be at their stations – for reasons of battle readiness, but also to make room below deck. Secrecy had been absolute, and very few people onboard knew what was happening and where the ships were heading.31
Gebirgsjägers of the 138th Mountain Regiment onboard Hipper. (Author’s collection)
German destroyer Z21 Wilhelm Heidkamp. 1,811 BRT and overall length 123 metres, and a normal complement of 325 men. Her maximum speed was over forty knots. Armament consisted of five single 12.7-cm guns, four 37-mm guns and four 20-mm guns. In addition, she carried 8 torpedoes and up to sixty mines. (Author’s collection)
The ships of Group I for Narvik assembled in Wesermünde during the first week of April.32 The group consisted of the ten destroyers: Wilhelm Heidkamp, Erich Koellner, Wolfgang Zenker, Georg Thiele, Bernd von Arnim, Hermann Künne, Erich Giese, Anton Schmitt, Hans Lüdemann and Dieter von Roeder with C-in-C Destroyers Kapitän zur See Kommodore Friedrich Bonte onboard Heidkamp.33 He would be subordinated to Vizeadmiral Lütjens at first and when detached would report to Admiral Saalwächter at Group West in Wilhelmshaven.34 The commander of the landing troops, Generalmajor Eduard Dietl, also on Heidkamp, reported to General von Falkenhorst at Group XXI and would, in theory, not have any say during the transfer.
Bonte called a meeting at 09:00 on the morning of 5 April for his destroyer captains and their senior officers. For most of them, it would be the first time they received official information of Weserübung. The Kommodore referred to the orders he had received from Admiral Raeder, where it was said that the landing operations would take place under British naval supremacy and depended on secrecy, swiftness and determination to succeed. He added that when issuing the orders, Raeder had underlined to him that the German Supreme Command had known for some time that the Allies were planning an intervention in Norway. This was totally unacceptable and had to be pre-empted. The outcome of the operation was vital for the future of Germany as well as for the honour of the navy. The rest of the meeting was spent discussing operational details, including intelligence of the Norwegian forces and expected opposition. From Wesermünde to Narvik is more than 1,200 sea miles – 2,000 kilometres. Maintaining a constant speed of over twenty knots to reach the target at the designated time would put a severe strain on ships and men. Korvettenkapitän Hans Erdmenger, captain of the flagship Heidkamp must have been particularly uncomfortable. Not only did he have the Kommodore on his bridge, but also the general of the landing troops. His every move would be observed.
By midday on the 6th, Wesermünde harbour was closed off. Embarkation of the troops was to commence in the early evening and the captains were advised of their berthing places on the Columbuskai docks. All sailors were restricted to their ships and no communication with the outside was allowed. Dietl and his mountain rangers of the 3rd Gebirgsdivision had left their temporary barracks outside Berlin the evening before with only a few hours’ notice. In total secrecy they had been loaded onto trains that would take them northwards across the Lüneburger Heide during the night. The 138th Regiment went to Cuxhaven to embark on the ships of Group II, whereas Dietl stayed with the 139th Regiment, which went to Wesermünde. Arriving between 13:00 and 17:00, the three trains were shunted into the harbour area, where the soldiers were let into large warehouses to be out of sight. Later they were joined by small units of naval gunners, propaganda staff and intelligence personnel, arriving in covered trucks. Police troops kept all eyes away from the docks. It was obvious that something big was on and rumours flourished. A raid on English or French Channel ports seemed likely, as did attacks on Iceland and the Shetlands. The officers knew nothing and shrugged their shoulders when asked; ‘I hob kei Ahnung!’– ‘I have no idea!’ Few if any guessed Norway. Nobody mentioned Narvik.
Loading of the equipment started immediately. Ammunition was stowed in the magazines of the destroyers, as much as they could take, and the rest wherever there was room below decks. Large items, motorcycles, guns and crates were lashed on deck; the consequence of which would be deeply felt in the weeks to come. Around 20:30, as darkness fell, the troops started embarking with their personal equipment, two hundred men to each ship. To the surprise of the sailors, the soldiers had Edelweiss symbols on their caps and cuffs. The Gebirgsjägers were Austrians from the provinces of Vorarlberg, Kärnten, Steiermark and Tyrol – a rare sight onboard a ship of the Kriegsmarine. Including their general, few of the soldiers had seen the sea before, far less been onboard a ship, and they felt utterly lost. It would be a trip the survivors would remember for the rest of their lives.35 The men were onboard within two hours and Bonte gave the order to cast off. By 23:00 the destroyers were moving down the channel from Wesermünde towards the Bight.36
Kapitän zur See August ‘Curry’ Thiele had in early March received orders to prepare the heavy cruiser Lützow for a raid into the South Atlantic. Thus, in late March, Lützow lay fully stored and fuelled in Wilhelmshaven waiting for a suitable combination of moon and weather to depart when Hitler decided she should take part in Weserübung. Before going into the Atlantic the cruiser should lead Group V to Oslo. Raeder wanted Lützow in the Atlantic and did not like this at all. Hence, when the cruiser Blücher was released from the yard in late March he assigned her to Group V instead, making Lützow’s sortie independent of the Norwegian operation. Hitler intervened again, and on a request from OKW, decided Lützow should accompany Group II to Trondheim. There, she should land some four hundred Gebirgsjägers at Stjørdal before slipping into the Atlantic in the expected confusion, covered by the battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau.
Thiele took Lützow from Cuxhaven to Wilhelmshaven on 5 April to embark the Jägers and their equipment. The Fleet Commander Vizeadmiral Lütjens was not enthusiastic. Lützow’s cruising speed was twenty-one knots and her emergency speed would barely exceed twenty-four knots. If challenged by British forces, Lütjens would have to decide between leaving her behind or standing by. Kapitän Thiele was not much happier. Bringing the Weserübung troops to Trondheim would be a diversion and he was worried about having to join a large force of ships on a daylight passage of the Bergen–Shetland Narrows. In his opinion, it was bound to attract British attention and could easily compromise his breakout to the Atlantic. Should they manage to evade the Home Fleet, Thiele was still worried Lützow might not be able to keep up with the rest of the group entering the fjord and would receive the full attention of the alerted Norwegian coastal forts. Neither officer had any option, however, other than comply with orders.
At 15:00 on the 6th, only a few hours before departure, Group West was informed that cracks had been discovered in the base of Lützow’s auxiliary motor no. 1. The cracks could be temporarily welded but she would be unable to exceed twenty-three knots. An Atlantic breakout was out of the question without dockyard repairs, as was a passage through the Bergen–Shetland Narrows, and at 17:00 on 6 April, Raeder reassigned Lützow to Group V, where she would be less exposed. To catch up with the new assignment, Thiele had to depart immediately and in the small hours of the 7th, after a hurried embarkation of four hundred Gebirgsjägers of II/GjR 138 and some fifty Luftwaffe men, Lützow cast off, heading for Kiel through the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal. There was no room for the troops onboard the other ships, and to compensate for
