Hitler's Preemptive War

The Battle for Norway, 1940

By: Henrik Lunde

Narrated by: Tom Parks

This book describes the often overlooked World War II campaign for Norway - a complex series of battles in which Hitler out-gambled Churchill in order to secure a vital resource lifeline for the Third Reich.

After Hitler conquered Poland and was still fine-tuning his plans against France, the British began to exert control of the coastline of neutral Norway, an action that threatened to cut off Germany’s iron-ore conduit to Sweden and outflank from the start its hegemony on the Continent. The Germans responded with a dizzying series of assaults, using every tool of modern warfare developed in the previous generation. Airlifted infantry, mountain troops and paratroopers were dispatched to the north, seizing Norwegian strongpoints while forestalling larger but more cumbersome Allied units.

The German navy also set sail, taking a brutal beating at the hands of Britannia, while ensuring with its sacrifice that key harbors could be held open for resupply. As dive-bombers soared overhead, small but elite German units traversed forbidding terrain to ambush Allied units trying to forge inland. At Narvik, some 6,000 German troops battled 20,000 French and British, until the Allies were finally forced to withdraw by the great disaster in France, which had then gotten underway.

Henrik Lunde, a native Norwegian and former U.S. Special Operations colonel, has written the most objective account to date of a campaign in which 20th-century military innovation found its first fertile playing field.

©2009 Henrik O. Lunde (P)2013 Audible, Inc.

Excellent history of am interesting campaign

What made the experience of listening to Hitler's Preemptive War the most enjoyable?

Deep research on the subject

What did you like best about this story?

Balanced approach and context

What didn’t you like about Tom Parks’s performance?

Ok, but audible should help reader with German and Norwegian names.

Any additional comments?

One of series of interesting books on Northern campaigns by this author

Very concise

Author studied the books previously written about the battle of Northern Norway. Explains the importance of logistics of battle. The English failed not only thier first attempt at modern battle strategy, but failed their soldiers, the French, the Poles and especially the Norwegian people.

Fine history; narration not so good

Would you listen to Hitler's Preemptive War again? Why?

I probably wouldn't listen to "Hitler's Preemptive War" again . . . but, I would read a hard-copy edition.

What didn’t you like about Tom Parks’s performance?

Tom Parks would be a good narrator for a young adult novel, but lacked the "gravitas" for this material. His pronunciation of words (even English) was odd, idiosyncratic. His word emphasis was off-putting.

Any additional comments?

Very fine example of military history on the more-or-less "micro" level. Excellent research went into this book!

Very detailed

Enjoyed the book. Enunciation was in correct in several instances. Well organized book. I would recommend it.

Interesting tale of a narrow part of WW2

I found this to be a fairly interesting recounting of history that is generally not well known, although to some it may be a too narrow bit of history. Some of the reflections or opinions expressed in the book might favour the Norwegian point of view, but it appears generally to stay fair to all sides.

Given the frequency of Norwegian and German names in the book, especially in the early parts, it would have been nice if they had found a narrator more familiar with one of, if not both of, the languages; but this became less of a problem after the introductory chapters. Apart from that, I felt that the narrator did a good job.