But German Admiral Raeder's first recommendation to Hitler about invading Norway came in the fall of 1939 -- iirc, even before Stalin invaded Finland on November 30.
This lead to the first meetings of Hitler, Raeder and Norwegian Vidkun Quisling starting December 11.
"During a second meeting with Quisling on 18 December, Hitler reiterated his desire to keep Norway neutral but indicated that should Allied forces extend the war to Scandinavia, he would counter appropriately. "
And just who would decide if the allies had extended the war?
Why Hitler, of course.
For months Sweden and Norway declined the allies' offers of military aid for them and Finland, so Hitler had no pretext. But he didn't need much -- didn't need an actual allied plan, or preparations for invasion. All he needed was a pretext, and that came on February 16, with the Altmark Incident.
On that date the British destroyer Cossack entered a Norwegian fjord and freed about 300 British POW's held captive on the German tanker Altmark.
"Hitler ordered that the development of invasion plans be sped up. He did so to obtain assurance against Churchill's already existing plans to draw the Norwegians into the war and take control over the important harbour of Narvik."By 21 February, General Nikolaus von Falkenhorst was placed in charge of planning the invasion and command of the land-based forces."
Churchill's plans?
All militaries have "plans" for every contingency. So the issue is not, "did Churchill have plans?"
Rather the question is: was there any evidence outside Hitler's fertile imagination that the Chamberlain government intended to invade Norway and Sweden against those countries' objections?
Answer: None that I know of.
And yet Hitler ordered Operation Weserübung by February 21.
"Already in low-priority planning for considerable time, Operation Weserübung[6] found a new sense of urgency after the Altmark Incident."
The Soviet Finnish Winter War ended on March 13, 1940.
"With the end of the Winter War, the Allies determined that any occupation of Norway or Sweden would likely do more harm than good, possibly driving the neutral countries into alliance with Germany. "
So, as of March 13, the Germans have been working on Norway invasion plans at low level for two months and at a high level of one month.
By contrast the Chamberlain government is still just twiddling its thumbs.
Then at last, the agitations from France and from Churchill moved the Chamberlain government to hastily draw up plans to land forces in Norway, starting April 8.
But the Germans with three months head start in preparations, began their invasion on April 3, landing forces in Norway by April 8.
My point here is: the Germans were always well ahead of the bumbling British Chamberlain government, and that's why their invasion was successful.
So the claim that Hitler was driven to invade Norway by British preparations is not supported by evidence I've seen.
Finally, consider the vital importance of Norway, not only for Germany's war materials, but also as a base for submarines and bombers to attack allied supply ships in the Atlantic. This fact was not lost on Admirals Doenitz and Raeder.
Bottom line: Hitler did not need Britain to supply him a "reason" for invading Norway. He already had all the reasons in the world. What he only needed was any old pretext, which the Altmark Incident on February 16 gave him.
A blood thirsty murderer does not need a "reason" to kill, only a likely victim, which Norway was, imho.
I disagree in that I do think Britain did need to supply Hitler with a reason. The war planning is nothing unusual. Remember the United States had War Plan Red at this time too which was designed around a war with Britain. I think that if Hitler had every reason to believe that Britain was going to honor Norwegian territorial waters that he would not have made the decision to go ahead with the invasion. It would have been more beneficial for them to leave them neutral and have unmolested ore shipments coming from the port at Narvik. Once the perception that this neutrality meant something was gone, then Hitler was moved to go ahead and occupy the country if for at the very least to keep the important port from falling into British hands which would have been worse than just having to risk running a gauntlet down the Norwegian coast with ore ships.
I hate to beat a dead horse about “old news” but I was out of Town over Easter.
My final thought is that yes, Raeder wanted to attack Norway. He did create contingency plans for the operation early on. He saw strategic possibilities for naval bases in Norway. However, as BroJoeK stated in an earlier post, every country has contingency plans regarding operations against other, even neutral, countries. The British had their own designs on Norway. Just because the Germans beat the Brits to the punch doesn’t mean they were going to occupy Norway and the Brits were not. I still think it’s an example of the Germans “hit back first” policy while the Brits, as always during this time, were just dicking around.
That Hitler would naturally follow Raeder’s suggestion is not a foregone conclusion. Hitler never did “get” naval strategy. And there were a number of “contingency plans” the Germans created, such as occupation of Switzerland, and passing through “neutral” Spain to get to Gibraltar, that Hitler DIDN’T execute when he could have.
And the timeline still supports the theory that the Kriegsmarine created its contingency plan early in the war, and that Hitler didn’t take an active interest in executing it until after the Altmark and the Winter War.