Mechelen Incident
Encyclopedia
Low Countries
The Low Countries are the historical lands around the low-lying delta of the Rhine, Scheldt, and Meuse rivers, including the modern countries of Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and parts of northern France and western Germany....
, crash-landed in neutral Belgium
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
near Vucht, in the modern-day municipality of Maasmechelen
Maasmechelen
Maasmechelen is a municipality located on the Meuse river in the Belgian province of Limburg. The Maasmechelen municipality comprises the former communes of Mechelen-aan-de-Maas, Vucht, Leut, Meeswijk, Uikhoven, Eisden, Opgrimbie, Boorsem, and Kotem...
. This revealed the plans to the French and British command and caused an immediate crisis situation, that however soon abated. It has been argued that the incident led to a major change in the German attack plan, but this hypothesis has also been disputed.
The Crash
The affair began with a mistake made by the German aviator Major Erich Hoenmanns, the fifty-two year old base commander of Loddenheide airfield, near MünsterMünster
Münster is an independent city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is located in the northern part of the state and is considered to be the cultural centre of the Westphalia region. It is also capital of the local government region Münsterland...
. On the morning of 10 January, he had been flying a Messerschmitt Bf 108
Messerschmitt Bf 108
-Popular culture:Bf 108s and postwar Nord 1000s, played the role of Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighters in war movies, including The Longest Day, 633 Squadron, Von Ryan's Express and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.-See also:-References:Notes...
Taifun, a plane used for reconnaissance
Reconnaissance
Reconnaissance is the military term for exploring beyond the area occupied by friendly forces to gain information about enemy forces or features of the environment....
, liaison
Liaison aircraft
A liaison aircraft is a small, usually unarmed aircraft primarily used by military forces for artillery observation or transporting commanders and messages. The concept developed before World War II and included also battlefield reconnaissance, air ambulance, column control, light cargo delivery...
, and other miscellaneous roles, from Loddenheide to Cologne
Cologne
Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...
when he lost his way; extensive low fogbanks obscured his view of the landscape. In response he changed course to the west, hoping to regain his bearings by reaching the River Rhine. However, having already crossed over the frozen and indistinguishable Rhine at the moment he changed direction, he left German territory flying all the way to the River Meuse, the border in this area between Belgium
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
and The Netherlands, and ended up circling Vucht.
It was then that he appears to have inadvertently cut off the fuel supply to the plane's engine by moving a lever inside the cockpit. The engine spluttered, then stopped, and Hoenmanns was forced to land in a nearby field at about 11:30 AM. The aircraft was severely damaged. Both wings were broken off when they hit two trees as he sped between them; the heavy engine tore off the nose section. The plane was a write-off, but Hoenmanns survived unscathed.
Had Hoenmanns been alone in the plane, nothing of great significance would likely have happened, apart from his internment for landing without permission in a neutral country
Neutral country
A neutral power in a particular war is a sovereign state which declares itself to be neutral towards the belligerents. A non-belligerent state does not need to be neutral. The rights and duties of a neutral power are defined in Sections 5 and 13 of the Hague Convention of 1907...
. However, he had a passenger, one Major
Major
Major is a rank of commissioned officer, with corresponding ranks existing in almost every military in the world.When used unhyphenated, in conjunction with no other indicator of rank, the term refers to the rank just senior to that of an Army captain and just below the rank of lieutenant colonel. ...
Helmuth Reinberger, who was responsible for organising the 7. Flieger-Division's supply, the formation that was to land paratroopers behind the Belgian lines at Namur
Namur (city)
Namur is a city and municipality in Wallonia, in southern Belgium. It is both the capital of the province of Namur and of Wallonia....
on the day of the coming attack. Reinberger was going to Cologne for a staff meeting. The previous evening, Hoenmanns had over a drink in the mess offered to fly him there. Usually, Reinberger would have had to make the tedious trip by train, but Hoenmanns needed some extra flying hours anyway and wanted to take his laundry to his wife in Cologne. Hoenmanns was unaware that Reinberger would be carrying documents related to the German plan for the attack on The Netherlands and Belgium, which on the day of the flight was decreed by Hitler to take place a week later on 17 January.
Hoenmanns only discovered that Reinberger was carrying secret documents when after landing, they asked a farmhand where they were, to be told that they had unknowingly crossed Dutch territory and landed just inside Belgium. On hearing this Reinberger panicked and rushed back to the plane to secure his yellow pigskin briefcase, crying that he had secret documents that he must destroy immediately. To let him do this Hoenmanns, as a diversion, moved away from the plane. Reinberger first tried to set fire to the documents with his cigarette lighter but it malfunctioned; he then ran to the farmhand who gave him a single match. With this Reinberger hid behind a thicket and piled the papers on the ground to burn them. But soon two Belgian border guards arrived on bicycles, Sergeant Frans Habets and private Gerard Rubens. Seeing smoke coming from the bushes, Rubens rushed over to save the documents from being completely destroyed. Reinberger fled at first but allowed himself to be taken prisoner after two warning shots had been fired.
The two Germans were taken to the Belgian border guardhouse near Mechelen-aan-de-Maas (Mechelen-sur-Meuse). There they were interrogated by Captain Arthur Rodrique, who placed the charred documents on a table. As a diversion once more, Hoenmanns asked the Belgian soldiers to let him use the toilet; Reinberger then tried to stuff the papers into a burning stove nearby. He succeeded but yelled with pain when lifting the extremely hot lid of the stove. Startled, Rodrique turned and snatched the papers from the fire, badly burning his hand in the process. The documents were now locked away in a separate room. The failure to burn them made Reinberger realise that Hitler's henchmen would surely kill him if they got hold of him, for letting the attack plan fall into the hands of the enemy. He decided to commit suicide and tried to grab Rodrique's revolver. When the infuriated captain knocked him down, Reinberger burst into tears, shouting 'I wanted your revolver to kill myself'. Hoenmanns supported Reinberger saying: 'You can't blame him. He's a regular officer. He's finished now.'
Two hours later officers from the Belgian intelligence service arrived, bringing the papers to the attention of their superiors in the late afternoon.
Initial German Reaction
Late in the evening of 10 January news of the incident reached BerlinBerlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
via press reports about a crashed German plane. In the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht
Oberkommando der Wehrmacht
The Oberkommando der Wehrmacht was part of the command structure of the armed forces of Nazi Germany during World War II.- Genesis :...
, the German armed forces high command, it caused a general consternation, as it was soon deduced that Reinberger must have had papers revealing parts of the attack plan with him. On 11 January an enraged Hitler fired both the commander of 2. Luftflotte, General Hellmuth Felmy
Hellmuth Felmy
Hellmuth Felmy was a Nazi war criminal, German military officer during World War I, the interwar period, and World War II.-Biography:On 28 May 1885, Helmuth Felmy was born in Berlin in what was then the German Empire...
, and Felmy's chief of staff Colonel Josef Kammhuber
Josef Kammhuber
Josef Kammhuber was a Career Officer in the German Air Force, and is best known as the first General of the Night Fighters in the Luftwaffe during World War II...
. It was nevertheless decided to proceed with the attack as originally planned, while the Luftwaffe attaché in The Hague
The Hague
The Hague is the capital city of the province of South Holland in the Netherlands. With a population of 500,000 inhabitants , it is the third largest city of the Netherlands, after Amsterdam and Rotterdam...
Lieutenant-General Ralph Wenninger, and the military attaché in Brussels
Brussels
Brussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the capital of Belgium and the de facto capital of the European Union...
, Colonel Friedrich-Carl Rabe von Pappenheim
Friedrich-Carl Rabe von Pappenheim
Friedrich-Carl Rabe von Pappenheim was a highly decorated Generalleutnant in the Wehrmacht during World War II. He was also a recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross. The Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross was awarded to recognise extreme battlefield bravery or successful military...
, would investigate whether the plan had been fatally compromised or not. On the 12th, the day of the attachés' first meeting with Reinberger and Hoenmanns, General
General
A general officer is an officer of high military rank, usually in the army, and in some nations, the air force. The term is widely used by many nations of the world, and when a country uses a different term, there is an equivalent title given....
Alfred Jodl
Alfred Jodl
Alfred Josef Ferdinand Jodl was a German military commander, attaining the position of Chief of the Operations Staff of the Armed Forces High Command during World War II, acting as deputy to Wilhelm Keitel...
, the Wehrmacht's (armed forces) Chief of Operations, gave Hitler a worrying assessment of what the Belgians might have learned from it. A note in Jodl's diary on 12 January summed up what he had said to Hitler: 'If the enemy is in possession of all the files, situation catastrophic!. However, the Germans were initially falsely reassured by Belgian deception measures.
Deception
The Belgians decided to try tricking Reinberger into believing that the papers had been destroyed and give him the opportunity to pass this information on to the German authorities. There were two parts to the deception, in the first the Belgian investigators asked Reinberger what was in the plans and told him that he would be treated as a spy if he did not tell them. Later Reinberger testified saying: 'From the way this question was asked, I realised he [the interrogator] could not have understood anything from the fragments of the documents he had seen'. The second part of the plan was to let Reinberger and Hoenmanns meet the German Air and Army Attachés, Wenninger and Rabe von Pappenheim, while their conversations were secretly recorded. During this meeting Reinberger informed Wenninger that he had managed to burn the papers enough to make them unreadable. This act of deception was fairly successful, at least in the short term. After the meeting at the police station, Vicco von Bülow-Schwante, Germany's ambassador to Belgium, telegraphed his superiors: 'Major Reinberger has confirmed that he burnt the documents except for some pieces which are the size of the palm of his hand. Reinberger confirms that most of the documents which could not be destroyed appear to be unimportant.' This appears to have convinced General Jodl. His diary for 13 January included the entry: 'Report on conversation of Luftwaffe Attaché with the two airmen who made forced landing. Result: despatch case burnt for certain.'Belgian reaction
During 10 January the Belgians still doubted the authenticity of the documents, that had been quickly translated by the Deuxième Section (military intelligence) of the general staff in BrusselsBrussels
Brussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the capital of Belgium and the de facto capital of the European Union...
. Most had indeed been badly damaged by Reinberger's consecutive attempts to burn them, but the general outlines of an attack against Belgium and The Netherlands were clear from the remaining passages, although the date of the attack was not mentioned and most of the text was concerned with specific instructions to 7. Flieger-Division only. As their content conformed to earlier warnings from the Italian Count Galeazzo Ciano
Galeazzo Ciano
Gian Galeazzo Ciano, 2nd Count of Cortellazzo and Buccari was an Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Benito Mussolini's son-in-law. In early 1944 Count Ciano was shot by firing squad at the behest of his father-in-law, Mussolini under pressure from Nazi Germany.-Early life:Ciano was born in...
about a German attack to take place around 15 January, on 11 January it was concluded by General Raoul van Overstraeten that the information was basically correct. That afternoon King Leopold III of Belgium
Leopold III of Belgium
Leopold III reigned as King of the Belgians from 1934 until 1951, when he abdicated in favour of the Heir Apparent,...
decided to inform his own Minister of Defence, General Henri Denis and the French supreme commander, Maurice Gamelin
Maurice Gamelin
Maurice Gustave Gamelin was a French general. Gamelin is best remembered for his unsuccessful command of the French military in 1940 during the Battle of France and his steadfast defense of republican values....
. At 17:15 the French liaison officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Hautcoeur, was given a two-page abstract of the contents, albeit without any explanation of how the information had been obtained. Lord Gort, the commander of the British Expeditionary Force
British Expeditionary Force (World War II)
The British Expeditionary Force was the British force in Europe from 1939–1940 during the Second World War. Commanded by General Lord Gort, the BEF constituted one-tenth of the defending Allied force....
, was also warned and Leopold personally telephoned the Dutch Princess Juliana
Juliana of the Netherlands
Juliana was the Queen regnant of the Kingdom of the Netherlands between 1948 and 1980. She was the only child of Queen Wilhelmina and Prince Henry...
and the Grand Duchess of Luxembourg
Luxembourg
Luxembourg , officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg , is a landlocked country in western Europe, bordered by Belgium, France, and Germany. It has two principal regions: the Oesling in the North as part of the Ardennes massif, and the Gutland in the south...
Charlotte
Charlotte, Grand Duchess of Luxembourg
Charlotte, Grand Duchess of Luxembourg was the reigning Grand Duchess of Luxembourg from 1919 to 1964.-Early life and life as Grand Duchess:...
telling the former: "Be careful, the weather is dangerous" and the latter: "Beware of the flu", both predetermined code phrases indicating the Belgians considered a German attack to be imminent.
French reaction
On the morning of 12 January, Gamelin held a meeting with the highest French operational army commanders and the Chief of Military Intelligence Colonel Louis Rivet. Rivet was sceptical of the warning but Gamelin considered that, even if it were a false alarm, this would be an excellent opportunity to pressure the Belgians into allowing a French advance into their country. Gamelin intended to execute a decisive offensive against Germany in 1941 through the Low Countries; their neutrality would however, be an obstacle to these plans. If this invasion scare would make the Belgians take the side of France and Britain, this awkward problem would be partially solved and strategically vital ground from which to launch the attack effortlessly gained. On the other hand, if Germany really went ahead with the invasion, it was very desirable that the French forces could entrench themselves in central Belgium before the enemy arrived. Both to intensify the crisis and to be ready for any occasion that presented itself, Gamelin thus ordered 1st Army Group and the adjoining Third Army to march towards the Belgian frontier.The warning by Sas
That their deception plan seemed to prove that the documents were genuine, that day further increased Belgian anxiety; the next day they became convinced the situation was critical. In the evening of 13 January, a message from Colonel Georges Goethals, Belgium's Military Attaché in Berlin, included these words: "Were there tactical orders or parts of them on the Malines plane? A sincere informer, whose credibility may be contested, claimes that this plane was carrying plans from Berlin to Cologne in relation to the attack on the West. Because these plans have fallen into Belgian hands, the attack will happen tomorrow to pre-empt countermeasures. I make explicit reservations about this message, that I do not consider reliable, but which it is my duty to report". The "sincere informer" was the Dutch Military Attaché in Berlin Gijsbertus SasBert Sas
Bert Sas was the Netherlands military attaché in Berlin at the time of the German invasion of the Netherlands in May 1940....
who spoke with Goethals at about 17:00; his information always had to be carefully considered because he was in contact with a German intelligence officer who was an opponent of the Nazi regime, known today to have been Colonel Hans Oster
Hans Oster
Hans Oster was a German Army general, deputy head of the Abwehr under Wilhelm Canaris, and an opponent of Adolf Hitler and Nazism. He was a leading figure of the German resistance from 1938 to 1943.-Early career:...
.
General Van Overstraeten, the King of Belgium's military adviser, who was informed of the message at about 20:00, was astonished that the informant appeared to know about the capture of the plans. It had not been mentioned in any press report of the crash. It was possible that it was part of a grand German deception plan, but equally possible that it was genuine. Acting on the assumption that it could be taken seriously, Van Overstraeten altered the warning that the Belgian Chief of the General Staff Lieutenant-General Édouard van den Bergen had drafted and which was about to be sent to all Belgian Army
Belgian Army
The Land Component is organised using the concept of capacities, whereby units are gathered together according to their function and material. Within this framework, there are five capacities: the command capacity, the combat capacity, the support capacity, the services capacity and the training...
commanders on 13 January; whereas it had stated that an attack on the next morning was 'probable', it now said an attack was 'quasi-certain'. Van den Bergen, who had in secret promised Gamelin to bring Belgium in on the allied side, then decided to broadcast (on a popular current affairs radio programme) that night at about 22:30, an immediate recall to their units of all the 80,000 Belgian soldiers on leave. "Phase D", as it was known, would ensure that their forces would be at full strength at the moment of the German attack.
This dramatic gesture was made without reference to the King or Van Overstraeten and without knowing the decision that had been taken to keep Germany in the dark about whether Belgium was in possession of its attack plans. Then, again without reference to the King or Van Overstraeten, Van den Bergen ordered the barriers to be moved aside on the southern border with France so that French and British troops could march in swiftly when they were called in, in response to the German attack. If the Germans had indeed attacked on 14 January, Van den Bergen would probably have been congratulated for his energetic decision-making. As it was, he fell in disgrace for acting without the King's permission, as King Leopold was the Supreme Commander of all the Belgian armed forces. Van den Bergen was rebuked so harshly by Von Overstraeten that the Belgian Chief of Staff's reputation never recovered; at the end of January he resigned. One of Van Overstraeten's complaints about Van den Bergen's actions was that he had given the Germans reason to believe that the Dutch had their attack plans.
Dutch reaction
Although the Dutch Queen WilhelminaWilhelmina of the Netherlands
Wilhelmina was Queen regnant of the Kingdom of the Netherlands from 1890 to 1948. She ruled the Netherlands for fifty-eight years, longer than any other Dutch monarch. Her reign saw World War I and World War II, the economic crisis of 1933, and the decline of the Netherlands as a major colonial...
and her government were alarmed by the Belgian warning, Dutch supreme commander Izaak H. Reijnders
Izaak H. Reijnders
Izaak Herman Reijnders was the man in charge of the Dutch military high command just prior to the beginning of World War II when he was replaced with retired general Henri Winkelman after an argument with the minister of Defense Adriaan Dijxhoorn.He was a son of Izaäk Herman Reijnders and Antje...
was sceptical of the information. When the Belgian military attaché in The Hague, Lieutenant-Colonel Pierre Diepenrijckx, handed him a personal memorandum from Van Overstraeten on the 12th, he reacted: "Do you believe in these messages yourself? I don't believe in them at all". Again the Dutch were not informed of the precise source and the Belgians hid the fact that the Germans in these plans only intended a partial occupation of The Netherlands, not including the Dutch National Redoubt
National Redoubt
A national redoubt is a general term for an area to which the forces of a nation can be withdrawn if the main battle has been lost—or even beforehand if defeat is considered inevitable...
, the Vesting Holland.
Whether Reijnders was also warned the next day by Sas is still unknown; after the war he even denied having spoken to the Belgian attaché but on the morning of the 14th, in reaction to the Belgian alert, he ordered that no leave was to be granted to any soldier — unlike the Belgians the Dutch thus did not recall anyone — and to close the strategic bridges while fuses should be placed within their explosive charges. The civilian population in the afternoon became worried by the radio broadcast about the leave cancellation. They feared that the Germans would take advantage of the severe cold to cross the New Hollandic Water Line
Dutch Water Line
The Dutch Water Line was a series of water based defences conceived by Maurice of Nassau in the early 17th century, and realised by his half brother Frederick Henry...
, now that it was frozen. The next week, to reassure the people, much press coverage was given to the motorised circular saw
Circular saw
The circular saw is a machine using a toothed metal cutting disc or blade. The term is also loosely used for the blade itself. The blade is a tool for cutting wood or other materials and may be hand-held or table-mounted. It can also be used to make narrow slots...
s that were available to cut the ice sheets over inundations.
Climax and anti-climax
The Belgian Government's desire to keep their possession of the plans a secret was yet further undermined, this time by the King himself. On the morning of 14 January, he had sent a message to Winston ChurchillWinston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...
, then First Lord of the Admiralty, via Admiral
Admiral
Admiral is the rank, or part of the name of the ranks, of the highest naval officers. It is usually considered a full admiral and above vice admiral and below admiral of the fleet . It is usually abbreviated to "Adm" or "ADM"...
Sir Roger Keyes asking for certain guarantees. This was sent through Keyes because he had established himself as the secret link between the British Government and the Belgian King. The aforementioned guarantees included assuring that the Allies
Allies
In everyday English usage, allies are people, groups, or nations that have joined together in an association for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not explicit agreement has been worked out between them...
would not open negotiations for a settlement of any conflict without Belgium's agreement. Keyes added a rider that he believed Leopold might be able to persuade his government to call the Allies immediately if the guarantees were forthcoming. This was of interest to the Allies because both Britain and France had been trying to persuade Belgium to let their troops in ever since the beginning of the war.
There is no transcript of Keyes conversation with Churchill but if Keyes really did say what he meant to say then it was changed the further down the line it went. By the time that it reached the French that afternoon, there was no reference to the fact that Keyes was only giving his personal opinion about the calling-in of the Allies. The French record of what was on offer stated that 'the King would ask his Government to ask the Allied armies to occupy defensive positions inside Belgium immediately', if the Belgians received satisfaction in related guarantees. Édouard Daladier
Édouard Daladier
Édouard Daladier was a French Radical politician and the Prime Minister of France at the start of the Second World War.-Career:Daladier was born in Carpentras, Vaucluse. Later, he would become known to many as "the bull of Vaucluse" because of his thick neck and large shoulders and determined...
, the French Président du Conseil in January 1940, quickly told the British Government that, as far as France was concerned, the guarantees could be given. So the French believed that the Belgians would receive a satisfactory response from the British Government in relation to the guarantees, and would then immediately invite the Allied Armies to march in.
At 15:50 Daladier informed Gamelin that the Belgians had in principle agreed to a French advance and asked whether he was ready to execute it. Gamelin was very pleased, responding that due to heavy snowfall in the area of the Belgian-German border the Germans would be themselves unable to advance quickly, that a German invasion was therefore unlikely and that this posed an ideal situation for a French entrenchment, adding "We must now seize the occasion". Gamelin ordered that the Allied troops under his control during the night of 14–15 January should make their approach march to the Franco-Belgian border so that they would be ready to enter at a moment's notice.
At 16:45 Gamelin was however telephoned by his deputy, the commander of the Western Front General Alphonse Georges. Alarmed by the order, Georges worried that the decision was irreversible and would set a series of events in motion that would make a German invasion inevitable at a moment when the French army and airforce had not yet completed their rearmament. Gamelin lost his temper and abused Georges, forcing him to agree with the order. During the night, the Belgians were told of the manoeuvre. It was only at 8 a.m. on 15 January that Gamelin saw the British response to the guarantees: they were offering a watered down version that was most unlikely to be acceptable to the Belgians. At the same time he received messages from the advancing forces that the Belgian border troops had stopped removing the border obstacles and had not been ordered to allow them entrance into their country. Three hours later Daladier, prompted by the desperate Gamelin who insisted that the premier would make the Belgian government "face up to its responsibilities", told Pol le Tellier, Belgium's Ambassador in Paris, that unless the French had an invitation to enter Belgium by 8 p.m. that evening, they would not only withdraw all British and French troops from the border but would also refuse to carry out similar manoeuvres during further alerts until after the Germans had invaded.
The Belgian cabinet that day proved unable to come to a positive decision about the invitation. The invasion had after all already been predicted for the 14th but failed to materialise. Heavy snowfall continued on the eastern border, making an immediate German attack unlikely. The King and Van Overstraeten, both staunch neutralists, hoped a diplomatic solution could be reached to end the war and had no intention of involving their country unless it were absolutely necessary. At about 12:00 Van Overstraeten ordered the Belgian border troops to rebuild the barriers and reminded them of the standing order to "repulse by force any foreign unit of whatever nationality which violated Belgian territory". At 18:00 Daladier told a disappointed Gamelin he "could not take the responsibility of authorising us to penetrate preventively into Belgium", i.e. violate Belgian neutrality.
The Germans call off the invasion
When Jodl learned on the 13th that the documents were probably unreadable, he called off plans to execute the attack three days early on 14 January — the same plans that would cause the crisis in Belgium — and postponed them to 15 or 16 January, to be decided as the circumstances demanded. In the evening came the surprising news that the Belgian and Dutch troops — who had already been mobilised since September 1939 — had been put on alert. This was attributed to the crash and the too obvious approach march of the German Sixth Army, the latter causing the element of surprise to be lost. On 15 January road conditions were so poor due to the snowfall and the weather prospects so bleak that Jodl advised Hitler to call the invasion off indefinitely. The Fuehrer hesitantly concurred on 16 January at 19:00.Results
In the short term no damage appeared to have been done but it has been argued that in the longer term the consequences of this incident were disastrous for Belgium and France. When the real invasion came, on 10 May 1940, the Germans had fundamentally changed their strategy and this change resulted in the swift Fall of FranceBattle of France
In the Second World War, the Battle of France was the German invasion of France and the Low Countries, beginning on 10 May 1940, which ended the Phoney War. The battle consisted of two main operations. In the first, Fall Gelb , German armoured units pushed through the Ardennes, to cut off and...
, whereas arguably even a partial German victory would have been far from certain if the original plan had been followed. Determining the exact nature of the causal connection between the incident and the change in strategy has however proven to be problematic.
In the more traditional account of events, the incident caused Hitler to ask for a drastic change of strategy. He told Jodl that "the whole operation would have to be built on a new basis in order to secure secrecy and surprise". The Belgians felt obliged to tell the Germans that they had the attack plan. When Joachim von Ribbentrop
Joachim von Ribbentrop
Ulrich Friedrich Wilhelm Joachim von Ribbentrop was Foreign Minister of Germany from 1938 until 1945. He was later hanged for war crimes after the Nuremberg Trials.-Early life:...
, Germany's Foreign Minister, retorted that it was out of date, he would then have been more truthful than he intended. In reaction to Hitler's demand the German High Command would have gone on a search for an alternative, finally finding it in the proposals of General Erich von Manstein
Erich von Manstein
Erich von Manstein was a field marshal in World War II. He became one of the most prominent commanders of Germany's World War II armed forces...
, the former Chief of Staff of the German Army Group A, who for some months had been championing a new concept: instead of being committed to the attack detailed in the captured documents, whose principal thrust was on Belgium's north-eastern frontier, the German Panzer Divisions were to be concentrated further south. Jodl recorded on 13 February that Hitler concurred, referring to the Mechelen Incident: 'We should then attack in the direction of Sedan
Sedan, France
Sedan is a commune in France, a sub-prefecture of the Ardennes department in northern France.-Geography:The historic centre is built on a peninsula formed by an arc of the Meuse River. It is around from the Belgian border.-History:...
,' Hitler told Jodl. 'The enemy is not expecting us to attack there. The documents held by the Luftwaffe officers who crash landed have convinced the enemy that we only intend to take over the Dutch and Belgian coasts.' Within days of this discussion Hitler had personally talked to Von Manstein and the Führer had given it the green light. The plan that had caused so much mayhem when it was captured by the Belgians in 1940 was replaced.
However, the importance of the incident has also been vehemently denied. Hitler was already hesitant about the original plan from its very beginning. The postponement was one of many and even on this occasion more to be attributed to the weather conditions than to the disclosure of the content of the documents. As the plan was rather traditional and predictable, no fundamental secrets were compromised and as such there was no direct need for a change. Hitler's demand for surprise referred not to an unpredictable new strategy but to a shortened approach and concentration phase, so that a tactical surprise could be gained before the enemy could react. To this end the armoured divisions were located further west and organisation was improved. There was no direct change in strategic thinking and when an improved concept was finished, within a continuous process of amendments, on 30 January, this Aufmarschanweisung N°3, Fall Gelb ("Deployment Directive, Case Yellow"), did not fundamentally differ from earlier versions. In this view only the fact that some of Von Manstein's friends managed to bring his proposals to Hitler's attention, really caused a fundamental turn. The main consequence of the incident would have been that it disclosed, not the German plan, but the way the Allies would deploy in case of an invasion, allowing the Germans to adapt their attack accordingly.
The adoption of the revised Fall Gelb by the Germans, while the Allies were still expecting Hitler to go ahead with the captured version meant that the Germans could set a trap. There would still be an attack made on central Belgium but this would merely be a diversion to pull as many troops as possible to the north while the main German attack fell on the Ardennes
Ardennes
The Ardennes is a region of extensive forests, rolling hills and ridges formed within the Givetian Ardennes mountain range, primarily in Belgium and Luxembourg, but stretching into France , and geologically into the Eifel...
, and would then cross the Meuse between Sedan and the area north of Dinant
Dinant
Dinant is a Walloon city and municipality located on the River Meuse in the Belgian province of Namur, Belgium. The Dinant municipality includes the old communes of Anseremme, Bouvignes-sur-Meuse, Dréhance, Falmagne, Falmignoul, Foy-Notre-Dame, Furfooz, Lisogne, Sorinnes, and Thynes.-Origins to...
, to penetrate as far as the Channel
English Channel
The English Channel , often referred to simply as the Channel, is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that separates southern England from northern France, and joins the North Sea to the Atlantic. It is about long and varies in width from at its widest to in the Strait of Dover...
coast. In doing so the armies in Belgium would be cut off from their supplies and forced to surrender. This ruse may have been clever, but it would only work if Gamelin stuck to his original strategy; which was asking rather a lot, given that until 14 January 1940 his intuition had been impeccable. Had he not guessed correctly the content of the German's original Aufmarsschanweisung Fall Gelb?
However, Gamelin failed to change his strategy on the presumption the Germans would change theirs, despite misgivings from Gort and the British Government. Perhaps the Allies still believed that the captured documents were a 'plant'. Perhaps the British were embarrassed by the size of their contribution, and therefore hesitated to overly criticize their ally's strategy.
Gamelin has been severely criticized for not changing his plan. His stance has been explained as an inability to believe that the very traditional German High Command would resort to innovative strategies, let alone to the even more novel "Blitzkrieg
Blitzkrieg
For other uses of the word, see: Blitzkrieg Blitzkrieg is an anglicized word describing all-motorised force concentration of tanks, infantry, artillery, combat engineers and air power, concentrating overwhelming force at high speed to break through enemy lines, and, once the lines are broken,...
" tactics needed to make them work; any large concentration of forces being supplied through the poor road network in the Ardennes would have had to act very quickly. Also in this respect the incident would thus not have important consequences.
Aftermath
Erich Hoenmanns and Helmuth Reinberger were in Germany condemned to death in absentiaIn absentia
In absentia is Latin for "in the absence". In legal use, it usually means a trial at which the defendant is not physically present. The phrase is not ordinarily a mere observation, but suggests recognition of violation to a defendant's right to be present in court proceedings in a criminal trial.In...
. Transporting secret documents by plane without explicit authorisation was strictly forbidden and a capital offence. The verdicts would never be executed. After a stay in an internment camp in Huy
Huy
Huy is a municipality of Belgium. It lies in the country's Walloon Region and Province of Liege. Huy lies along the river Meuse, at the mouth of the small river Hoyoux. It is in the sillon industriel, the former industrial backbone of Wallonia, home to about two-thirds of the Walloon population...
both men were evacuated in 1940, first to Britain and then to Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
. Hoenmanns's wife however, did not long survive an interrogation by the Gestapo
Gestapo
The Gestapo was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning on 20 April 1934, it was under the administration of the SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police...
; his two sons were allowed to serve in the army and were killed in action during the war. The men were later in the war part of a prisoner of war exchange; on returning to Germany they were partially pardoned.