740.0011 European War 1939/1999: Telegram

The Chargé in Germany (Kirk) to the Secretary of State

872. My 871, April 9, 11 a.m. I am informed that this morning at 10 o’clock a special messenger from Ribbentrop14 called at the Norwegian Legation to request the Minister to call at the Foreign Office at 11:30 a.m. At the same time the messenger handed the Norwegian Minister an 11-page note15 from the Foreign Office announcing that German troops had been landed at several points in Norway. The note asserted that these landings of troops denoted no aggressive designs against Norway but were occasioned by certain information that British and French Governments were on the eve of dispatching troops and extending the way [war] to Norway. The German troops would occupy only a limited number of strategic points as garrisons whose mission was to forestall and to protect Norway against allied aggression. The note asked that no resistance be made against these troops who were to be considered as “friends” of Norway. The note is said to indicate that German troops had occupied Denmark and that a similar note was being handed here and at Copenhagen to the Danish Government. It was understood from the note that military operations would not be extended to Sweden at this time. Up to this hour the Norwegian Legation is without instructions from its Government.

At 10:30 this morning the Danish Legation was without information other than the reports current yesterday as to the German transport movements proceeding north. The Legation was informed [Page 146] that Danish and Norwegian press correspondents had been placed in seclusion in the Hotel Kaiserhof in Berlin.

Kirk
  1. Joachim von Ribbentrop, Reich Minister for Foreign Affairs.
  2. See memorandum of April 9, 1940, Department of State, Documents on German Foreign Policy, 1918–1945, series D, vol. ix, p. 88.