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Consolidation. A band of 144 Norwegians ambushed and cut in two a motorized battalion of 400 Nazis last week near Elverum. A Finnish volunteer was credited by the Norse with the campaign's No. 1 individual example of ferocity: he held his fire while a Nazi approached to disarm him, then grappled and beheaded the Nazi with his long-bladed puukko. But while Nazi mop-up planes and parties ranged the land to stamp out such last flickers of resistance—bombing Röros churchgoers as an example to all—Nazi engineer units were already busy repairing telephone and telegraph wires, railroad tracks, bridges, tunnels.* Already work was in progress on new airfields and on naval depots, especially for submarines, along the fjord-dented coastline. For the Germans now view Norway as their Northwall, a continuation of their Westwall. Norway is a new carrier for their aircraft, a mighty mothership for their U-boats, only 300 miles from Great Britain's northern naval bases and shipyards (see map), instead of the 500 miles that separates these places from Sylt and Helgoland Bight. The Nazi counter-blockade can now reach even Britain's western ports with little effort.
The German problem of holding Norway might be seriously complicated if the Norse took to guerrilla warfare, for which their corrugated country is so suited. But it is doubtful whether many Norwegians will have much stomach for such work, now that the Allies have gone. For General von Falkenhorst a bigger problem than fighting Norwegians will be feeding Norwegians, who hitherto have imported half their food. He does not have to let them eat, but if he doesn't they may decide after all to turn guerrillas, or decamp to Sweden.
Norway, which had the world's third largest tanker fleet, undoubtedly provided Germany with greater stores of gasoline, of fuel and lubricating oils, than the campaign cost her. Norway, where cheap water power is everywhere, provides Germany with considerable new industrial plants and labor, especially for fabricating metals and machinery. Timber for wood pulp and cellulose will not now be wanting in Germany, and already the Allies feel the loss of their Scandinavian supply of these commodities. Only military aspect from which Norway may seem a liability to Germany is as a front whose supply lines can be harassed by the Allies. For the long pull, this might be serious. For a short pull of one or two years such as Germany, now near her power peak, is believed to plan, it is no great liability. Chief liability to the Germans' conquest of southern Norway is psychological.