Occupation of the Rheinland

I think this was the only time that France could have stopped Hitler without bloodshed, and nothing was done. I've heard that the German Army wouldn't have been able to stop a sustained effort but is there somewhere I could find an order of battle for the Germans going into the Rheinland? Thanks.

 

That's a hindsight POV,and,as such irrelevant :the fact is that when the Rhineland was militarized,France had no available forces,which it could use to riposte:mobilisation would be necessary .
The other point is that the reoccupation of the Rhineland was noth threatening France:it was safe behind the Maginot Line.

 

France occupied Rhineland in 1923 they left because strangling the German economy was precsiely what brought popularity to the Nazis. In 1936 Germany was not a military thread for anybody yet. It re-occupied a region that the Treaty of Versailles had not annexed to another country, just de-militarized. Also last but not least 1936 is precisely the year of the Election of the Front Populaire with worker riots in France and paid holidays for all to calm down the explosive situation. In fact the governement had plenty to do with domestic unrest .

 

I seem to remember that Hitler himself was rather dubious about how the French and others would react to his "re-militarization" of the Rhineland, and ordered his troops to reverse course if they encountered any opposition when they entered. That might have been enough of a "humiliation" to his ego and reputation to have seriously altered his later aggressive moves in Europe.

One never knows what an "inaction" will have on future events.

 

As Skipper says...When France did send forces into Germany over reperations earlier, the world including UK and USA rounded on them in contempt not to put a finer word on it...Whatever the reason for this contempt and anger, and there were some...why should France then do same a few years down the line, when as Skipper states they were safe behind the Maginot Line thinking. Dont blame France for not behaving in a retrospective way that history seems to have blamed them for ever since.

 

OK. I guess I regurgitated that which I heard about France doing nothing. I hadn't known about their domestic trouble. Still, does anyone know what units were sent by the Germans into the Rheinland, or where I could look for a list?

 

You might be interested by the fact that Belgium also sent occupation forces to Germany in 1923.

 

We normally think of the Rheinland as the territory on the left or west bank of the Rhine, but the demilitarized zone established by the Treaty of Versailles also extended 50 kilometers to the east of the river. According to wikipedia, Germany marched 19 infantry battalions into this area. They reached the Rhine in a few hours, at which point just three of them crossed to the west bank, enough to make the point, but they had no intention of fighting if the French contested the reoccupation. They were covered by aircraft of the new Luftwaffe including IIRC He51 fighters, but I recall reading that they had not yet received machine guns!

 

It was clearly a bluff and it worked. The French were actually even closer until 1935 when they evacuated Saarland. This area had been occupied after WW1 and was economically attached to France and used the Franc currency . It is not a coincidence that Hitler precisely re-occupied Rhineland after Saarland was returned and after the French elections that brought a pacifist government to power. Let's us not forget that th UK also had domestic headlines ( abdication, new corronation etc..)that were much more of interest to the average person rather than picking up a new fight with Germany less than 18 years after the Great War.

 

If I am not wrong,the French elections were AFTER the reoccupation of the Rhineland .

 

I object to "French Bashing", something that seems to occur even on "The Simpsons"...(France and Frenchmen are called 'Cheese eating surrender monkies" by a grounds keeper Willie).

Skipper has pointed out in other posts that the six week campaign cost the Luftwaffe over 1,500 aircraft, something that could have swung the Battle of Britain decisively in the direction that Goering wanted it to go.

The French people were in an unenviable position in WW2. Post surrender, they proceeded to blame only themselves, with much soul searching going on with the general populace. Writer Marc Bloch spelt it out for all Frenchmen to see that the only way to continue the struggle was to change their approach to themselves. He even tore down his own countryman that tried to blame the admittedly half-hearted effort by the English, who were, at this stage congratulating themselves on the achievement of a successful evacuation and in turn blaming the RAF for not supporting their efforts, even though the RAF lost many aircraft to operation 'Dynamo'. Even the French speaking Winston Churchill managed to bash the French by writing about his visit to Maurice Gamelin's HQ in terms that made the French military look decidedly incompetent....(Churchill..."Where IS the mass de'manouvre?"...Gamelin..."Acune"..("There is none").

One must always remeber that the quick end to hostilities created a less than dynamic situation for the Third Reich. Hitler found himself walking in the footsteps of Bonaparte, staring across the Channel at Dover and wondering how he was ever going to conquer a defiant England and it's new leadership with a Reich Navy that had the stuffing knocked out of it in Norway. The quick campaigns and the role of the Luftwaffe in terrorizing whole nations lead them to believe that air superiority over England was not only obtainable, but desirable. After the bloody nose of the Battle of Britain, which had been lost by this very swing of tactical direction to terror bombing, the German Army had no-one left to fight.....but for the plans of Hitler to invade Russia.

So, the quick surrender brought about a stalemate....and engendered a chronic overconfidence by the German military, an attitude they took into Russia. This over-confidence could be said to have caused many things, but the one thing it did put into motion was a chronic arrogance that manifested itself in the stupid and wasteful occupation policy of Eastern Europe, throwing away a potentially decisive element in the campaign of co-operation with the non-Russian regions of the Soviet Empire.

The French surrender set in motion a chain of events that resulted, eventually, in an exhausted Heer standing on the banks of the Volga River, wondering exactly why they were there, and fighting for a symbolic victory, rather than exploiting the weaknsses of the Stalin Regime.

They played right into Stalin's hands.

Vive La Belle France!

 

I have found the following on Feldgrau:
Aachen:second batallion of the 39 Infantry Regiment
Trier:first batallion of the 38 IR
Saarbrucken :second batallion of the 38 IR,or of the 17 IR
It seems that elements of the LSSAH also were entering Saarbrucken .
You will reply that these are very low figures(some 3000 men),while other sources are giving 20000,or 30000 men,but,IMHO,these were the men who were sent later .

 

Hang on....I support the French in general...But now I'm to believe it was all a dastardly plan...Surrender was the actual strategy...Genius plan...We should have done the same, In fact if Russia had done likewise those pesky Germans would have been in a right fix.

 

That's more like it. I had thought the Leibstandarte was in it, since they were the "asphalt soldiers," but at least I have an idea of Heer units. I'll have a look at feldgrau.com. Thanks.

 

I did not mean to imply that the 1940 surrender was in any way a 'planned' strategem. Nevertheless, that is the way it happened.

 

Urgh grow up, do you realize you just earned the award of the most childish comment of the year?

 

Really? Someone implies that the French surrender hastened the fall of Germany? And I by the way support France against its maligners of giving up the fight easilly and you read my comment like that...Says a lot about you not me skipper.

 

Urgh and Skipper.

My only intention was to demonstrate that the speedy fall of France had consequences that were totally unforseen at the time.

I appreciate both of you guys as posters and fellow rogues.

No offence taken here.

 

None meant Volga. Cheers.