GENERAL FRANZ BOHME’S SIGNED ACCOUNT OF HIS ENTIRE SERVICE IN NORWAY SUBMITTED WHILE A P.O.W. TO THE NORWEGIAN HIGH COMMAND
FRANZ BOHME (1885-1947) was the Wehrmacht Commander of Norway and Commander-in-Chief of the 20th Mountain Army. Earlier in his World War II service he led divisions in the invasions of Poland and France and was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross. As Commanding General and Commander of Serbia Bohme ordered the reprisal executions of 2 000 civilians in Kragujevac after a partisan assault on 22 soldiers. He assumed his position in Norway on 8 January 1945. Offered here is Bohme’s own account of his military service in Norway handwritten and signed twice by him while he was being held a prisoner of war. The document nine 8 x 10 inch pages was written on January 21 1946 in response to a request by the Norwegian High Command. The highly detailed account reads in small part: “…I took over command of 20th (Mt.) Army and at the same time of the armed forces in Norway on 23rd January 1945. At that time the movement of 20th (Mt.) Army out of Lapland into Norway had been substantially completed…Contact with the Finnish forces…was only sporadic…no signs of a Finnish advance…occasional clashes with small Norwegian reconnaissance units…Swedish frontier…was made secure…I examined the defensive positions…in general terms and in relation to the forces available for manning them…Mobile defense of the coastline was made a guiding principle…with an acceptance of the risk involved in weakening the defenses actually on the coastline…Routes for the movement of troops and for the transport of vital supplies dockyards and industrial installations were better protected… additional units were gradually moved down from the Narvik area…the transport of troops to Germany in spite of various acts of sabotage…went ahead on schedule…Mishaps through sabotage on the railways and air attacks on transport ships…too small to be worth mentioning…strength of the Norwegian underground military organization could not be estimated. They always forced isolated guard units into action and took them away from what were the already weak defensive forces on the coastline…sabotage units never engaged in open battle. They waged a 'little war'…sea transport was affected by some acts of sabotage…The defensive system in Norway was completely intact up to the time of the surrender…An invasion force really strongly backed could doubtless have been expected to gain a foothold owing to the weakness of the German forces in relation to the size of the defensive areas…the battle on land would then have placed very serious difficulties of terrain in the way of the Allies…I always viewed the possibility of a confrontation with confidence. My troops were trained for operations at the places where landings might be expected…it became more and more apparent that there was a need to prepare defenses on the Norwegian-Swedish frontier…against Allied forces which might carry out some operation from Sweden…occurrences in the last weeks of the war…had no direct influence on my military task - which was to retain possession of Norway…I finally welcomed the order…to surrender Norway without fighting…any such battle would have cost useless bloodshed on both sides and would have led to the devastation of the occupied region of…Political personalities had no influence on…the formation of our…Franz Böhme General of Mountain Troops” The letter bears a “No. 11 PRISONER OF WAR CAMP” stamp at top and the notation in English: “This is the personal property of General Bohme POW Nr. B 560393”. Generally very good condition. In 1947 Bohme was brought before the Hostages Trial in Nuremberg. When his extradition to Yugoslavia seemed imminent he leaped to his death from his prison window.