Planning an invasion and assembling a fleet and appropriate forces in a month was clearly a practical impossibility but timing was an essential part of the game of bluff that Hitler was playing. The political rather than the military nature of the invasion plan at this time is suggested by the extraordinary timing that Hitler imposed. The operation was given the codeword Sealion.
The Germans, surprised by the speed of their military success in Europe, had no detailed plans for an invasion of Britain with the man made responsible for the venture, General Franz Halder, now having to start from scratch.īut this absence of a plan did not prevent Hitler from announcing on 16 July that an invasion force would be ready to sail by 15 August. and if necessary the island will be occupied.' It read, 'As England, in spite of the hopelessness of her military position, has so far shown herself unwilling to come to any compromise, I have decided to begin to prepare for, and if necessary to carry out, an invasion of England. So, on 16 July 1940 Adolf Hitler issued Directive Number 16. This was a puzzling state of affairs for the Germans who now had two options: to lay siege to Britain and to wear it down physically and psychologically through limited military action and through political and propaganda warfare, which would include the threat or bluff of invasion or to actually invade.īoth these options demanded that preparations for invasion be launched, whether a real or bluff invasion only time would tell.
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