Many people have the impression that Nazi Germany during World War II was ambitious, seeing that other countries wanted to invade, so that they were eventually swallowed up by their own ambitions and destroyed. However, the real situation is not so simple, and the reason why Nazi Germany continued to expand at that time was indeed due to its own ambitions, and part of the reason was that it was dragged into some war that did not want to fight, but had to fight. The German invasion of Norway is the best example.
Norway is a country located in northern Europe, across the sea from Germany and Denmark. After the outbreak of World War II, Norway, like its neighbor Sweden, declared its neutrality position. However, "the trees want to be quiet and the wind is not stopping", although Norway itself does not want to muddy the waters, but the changes in external conditions have gradually dragged it into the quagmire of war.
At the beginning of World War II, Germany did not see Norway as a target for conquest. The German High Command devoted all its energies to the conquest of the European continent, with no intention of dividing the army and resources on a separate battlefield.
On September 19, 1939, Germany was launching a campaign to invade Poland. Churchill, then British Minister of the Navy, demanded that Britain take immediate steps to mine mines in Norwegian waters to prevent iron ore from northern Sweden from being transduced to Germany through norway's port of Narvik. From the perspective of British national security interests, Churchill's remarks are understandable, because the interception of Germany's access to iron ore resources is bound to have a serious impact on German industry. But from the Norwegian standpoint, Churchill's words would be extremely irresponsible. Because as long as Britain makes a military deployment in Norwegian waters, it will obviously undermine Norway's neutral position and may even set Norway on fire. Churchill's proposal was not adopted by the opposition of the British Foreign Office, but the ideas he put forward attracted the attention and concern of the German side.
In December 1939, the former Norwegian Defense Minister, who supported the Nazis, Geslin, came to Germany, hoping to use German power to overthrow the current Norwegian government. But the Germans said they would rather Norway and Sweden maintain a completely neutral stance because Germany had no intention of expanding the war. But if the enemy is ready to expand the war, Germany will take the necessary steps to protect itself from threats. It can also be seen from this that Nazi Germany had not yet included Norway in its conquest plan. The German Naval Staff also stated in its war log of 13 January 1940 that "maintaining Norway's neutrality is the most advantageous solution", although they were also concerned about the tacit cooperation between the British and Norwegian governments.
On January 20, 1940, Churchill called for neutral countries to choose to cooperate with Britain and France in their joint fight against Nazi Germany. As a result, the remarks caused another uproar, and those European countries that maintained neutral positions at the time denounced Churchill's appeal as irresponsible. The British Government had no choice but to state publicly that this was only the personal opinion of Mr. Churchill.
At that time, the Soviet Union was invading Finland, and after consultation between Britain and France, they decided to send two divisions of troops to aid Finland in the form of volunteers. In reality, however, aid to Finland was only a cover, and the real goal of the Volunteers was to take the route to the Norwegian port of Narvik and control sweden's route to Germany for iron ore.
On February 16, 1940, a German naval supply ship "Artemak" holding British prisoners of war was chased by British destroyers during the voyage, and "Altamark" was forced to sail into Norwegian waters for refuge, but the British destroyers also quickly followed, and forced the "Altamark" to stop, saving the British prisoners of war on board. It stands to reason that no country will allow another country's warships to sail into its own waters without permission. But Norway did not leave its relations apart in this matter. Two Norwegian gunboats were on the scene, but they did not dare to ask about it.
After the "Artmark incident", Germany believed that the Norwegian government was clearly biased in favor of Britain, and it was even likely that it had privately cooperated with Britain. The information gathered by German intelligence showed that the Allies were active in the nordic region, and various military deployments were already on the line.
For Germany, once the Allies were given control of Norway, german sea transport routes in the north would be completely cut off. In addition, the other side could also use its naval superiority to enter the Baltic Sea, attack northern Germany, where the defense was extremely weak, and from there, advance towards Berlin, cutting off the entire German blockade, with unimaginable consequences. Therefore, the German High Command officially decided to invade Norway and complete the military occupation of Norway before the Allies, in order to protect the security of the German mainland and lines of communication.
In this way, although Norway was bent on remaining neutral, it was caught in the middle of the game of interests of several major powers, and was eventually dragged into the quagmire of war.