feb 1, 1939 - The German invasion of the Netherlands

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Germany's invasion of the Netherlands worked as planned.

In the early hours of the morning on February 1st 1939, the German Luftwaffe bomber wing, Kampfgeschwader 4 (KG 4) purposely violated Dutch neutrality by crossing through their airspace before flying into the North sea.

The Kingdom of the Netherlands believed this to be an accident due to the direction of the German aircraft travelling towards the British Isles but the Dutch were shortly unprepared for the German attacks because of their insufficient and outdated weapons and equipment.
Germany attacked the westernmost airfields by a compilation of German Luftwaffe sorties shortly after and the German bomber wing, Kampfgeschwader 4 has turned around over the North Sea to surprise attack the Dutch.

Significant numbers of the Dutch airforce were destroyed immediately in Amsterdam which forced the Dutch Government to spread their remaining aircraft out to avoid further destruction.

After the fierce bombardments from the Luftwaffe, the Wehrmacht sent their German land forces and Fallschirmjagers (Paratroopers) into the Netherlands. The Fallschirmjagers would fall just after 6:00 AM around the Hague, the mission was to seize various airfields in the area.
They attempted to launch an assault on the city, being the home of the Dutch Government and the royal family but failed from the stiff resistance by both of the Dutch Army and Artillery who nearly outnumbered the somewhat unprepared Fallschirmjagers.

Instead, the Fallschirmjagers turned to their secondary objectives which were to seize the various airfields across North-Holland, as well bridges and crossroads. This would effectively decapitate the entire war effort from the Netherlands on day one and protect any vital positions to allow the Germans to advance later in their campaign.

The German invasion of the Dutch then officially began. During the last few days prior to the invasion, various German commandos from the Brandenburg special forces battalion had been working with the Dutch far-leftist party, Nationaal-Socialistische Beweging to attempt to stop the destruction of various bridges along the line advance but this had been somewhat successful with some bridges saved while several others got destroyed, along with the Brandenburger battalion twice.
The main exception was the Gennep railway bridge which was the most notable success by the units; this followed immediately when German armoured trains began crossing into the country, this allowed troops and tanks to cross directly past the Dutch-German border.

The German Army flooded through the breach that was established by the capture of the bridge and along with that, a breach was formed perfectly between the Dutch the 207th, 227th, 254th and 256th Infantry Divisions on the border by the German 6th and 18th Armies.

The Dutch frontline had broken by the Wehrmacht.

Faced by a collapsing front, the six Dutch border Battalions in the southern province of Limburg officially collapsed under pressure from the advancing German Sixth Army which allowed the German forces to rush for the Dutch city of Maastricht.
By seizing the vital bridge in the city and opening the floodgates, the German Sixth Army was to flood into central Belgium to commence the rest of the invasion of Western Europe, catching the Allies by complete surprise.

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