1940 End for the Altmark II

British Newsreel. February 26, 1940.The Norwegians were angered that their neutrality had been infringed, but they did not want to be dragged into a European war. Nonetheless the Altmark incident sowed doubts about the Norwegian neutrality among the Allies, as well as in Germany. Both sides had contingency plans for military action against Norway, primarily to control the traffic of iron ore, on which the German armament industry depended in the early stages of the war. The Altmark incident convinced Adolf Hitler that the allies would not respect Norwegian neutrality, and on 19 February he decided to intensify the planning for Operation Weserübung, the occupation of Denmark and Norway, which eventually took place on 9 April 1940.
The Altmark incident gave the British a short-lived but sorely needed morale boost during the "Phoney War". The incident also had a more lasting propaganda effect in German-occupied Norway during the war, when the Norwegian collaborationist government tried to neutralize their nickname Quislings by using the location of the skirmish (Jøssingfjord) to coin the derogatory term jøssing, referring to pro-Allies and anti-Nazis. Their efforts backfired, as jøssing was immediately adopted as a positive term by the general public, and the word was finally banned from official use by 1943

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Altmark
• Incident
• British
• Royal
• Navy
• HMS
• Cossack
• Destroyer
• Norway
• Germany
• Graf
• Spee
• Jossingfjord

[gilster68]

My Grandad served on HMS Cossack, have read all about the Altmark and battle of Narvik, good to see how it was reported at the time.

[ChrisBar57]

Spoke a few days ago with an 82yr old sailor who served onboard HMS Cossack, I will ask him if he was serving at the time of this newsreel it would be nice to put a face to something that happened so long ago. If he did then I would like to post his comments.

[ToonandBBfan]

Actually a ship of war CAN enter a neutral country BUT they have to release any prisoners they have on board.

The Germans clearly didnt do this and the Norwegians were supposed to have searched the ship (they didnt - they simply took the word of the Germans that there were no prisoners onboard).

Well done HMS Cossack

[ingareinar007]

The Brits had all the rights to board the Altmark. The Norwegian Marine were totally blind and naive. No ships of nations of war could enter Norwegian war-harbours..

[mightycowhero]

prison ship? dang.

[Charlemagne8888]

5*****