Foreword
O
n 27 October 1939, Hitler summoned General Student to the Reich Chancellery. Student, one of the principal creators of the German parachute arm, expressed to Hitler his disappointment that airborne troops had not played a decisive role in the invasion of Poland. The latter calmed him by describing his plans for the intended “Campaign in the West”. Amongst other things, Hitler spoke of his own ideas which he had outlined six days previously at a conference with senior Army generals: the capture of the Belgian fort Eben-Emael together with three bridges over the Albert Canal and at Maastricht by paratroops landed from gliders. If successful, the plan would guarantee the German Army, and especially its panzer formations, a swift incursion into Belgium. The preparations for this operation, made in the greatest secrecy, were begun at once, for the offensive against the West was scheduled for 12 November 1939. This date was subsequently postponed on repeated occasions, providing “Sturmabteilung Koch” with the time it needed to expand and prepare, requirements indispensable for the success of the plan. From the outset, the operation was seen to have an enormous strategic importance. After the socalled “Mechelen Affair” of January 1940, in which a German courier aircraft carrying the invasion plans was forced to make an emergency landing in the Belgian village of Mechelen north of Maastricht, the plan for the campaign was changed fundamentally to fall in with the ideas of General von Manstein. As a result, the SA Koch operation assumed far greater importance. It was no longer conceived as something of a gamble, but became firmly entrenched in the new plan, “Sichelschnitt” (“stroke of the scythe”) whose intention it was to lure the British and French troops nearest the fort region into the Belgian plain, and provide more realistic time schedules to replace the slogan “Speed at all costs”. The overwhelmingly conservative-thinking generals of the German Army were not well disposed to the Luftwaffe airborne operation. In mid-November they had been given the task of seizing the bridges at Maastricht intact. From therearge unit they had drawn up a kind of Plan B for the event that the airborne operation might fail, not unusual, but bearing all the hallmarks of their