10 janv. 1939 - The Mechelen Incident

Description:

A German aviator Major Erich Hoenmanns, who was a fifty-two-year-old base commander of Loddenheide airfield (which is near Münster), was carrying important plans of Fall Gelb (Case Yellow), the German invasion of the Low Countries.
Disaster struck on January 10 when Hoenmanns' reconnaissance and liaison aircraft, a Messerschmitt Bf 108 Taifun had an incident when he had accidentally cut off his fuel supply by moving a lever inside his cockpit when travelling around Vucht which was on the Dutch-Belgian border.

The Messerschmitt's engine eventually went spluttered and stopped, Hoenmanns was forced to land in a nearby field at about 11:30 AM.

His aircraft was severely damaged.
Both of his wings were broken off when they hit two Canadian poplar trees as he sped between them while the heavy engine from the Messerschmitt tore off the nose section.

The aircraft was damaged beyond repair but lucky for Hoenmanns, he survived unscathed from the crash.

With Hoenmanns, there was Major Helmuth Reinberger, who too survived the crash. Reinberger was responsible for organising the 7. Flieger-Division's supply, the formation that was to land paratroopers behind the Belgian lines at Namur on the day of the coming attack.

Reinberger was going to the German city of Cologne for a staff meeting. The previous evening, over a drink in the mess, Hoenmanns had offered Reinberger to fly him there.
Usually, Reinberger would have had to make the trip by train, but Hoenmanns needed to have some extra flying hours and he wanted to take his laundry to his wife who was in Cologne.

But unaware to Hoenmanns, Reinberger was carrying secret documents of Fall Gelb, which on the day of the flight was decreed by Hitler to take place a week later on 7 January.

After the crash, Hoenmanns would become aware of the secret plans that Reinberger had in his possession when they asked a farmhand, Engelbert Lambrichts, where they were told that they had unknowingly crossed Dutch territory and landed just inside Belgium.

This made Reinberger panic after hearing this which made him rush back to the plane to secure his yellow pigskin briefcase while crying out that he had secret documents on him that needs to be destroyed.

Upon hearing this, Hoenmanns was made as a diversion and moved away from the plane.

Reinberger tried his best to burn the Fall Gelb plans on fire with his cigarette lighter but it malfunctioned; he then ran to the farmhand who gave him a single match.
With this Reinberger hid behind a thicket and piled the papers on the ground to burn them.

Two Belgian border guards on bicycles soon arrive in the area, they spotted the smoke coming from the bushes and rushed into the bush to rescue the documents from burning.

Reinberger fled at first but allowed himself to be taken prisoner after two warning shots had been fired from the Belgian border guards.

The two German majors were taken to the Belgian border guardhouse near Mechelen-aan-de-Maas.
The majors were interrogated by a Belgian captain, Arthur Rodrique, who placed the charred remains of the documents of Fall Gelb on a table.
As a diversion once more, Hoenmanns asked the Belgian soldiers to let him use the toilet.

Using the diversion wisely, Reinberger then tried to stuff the documents into a burning stove nearby.
He succeeded but yelled in pain when lifting the extremely hot lid of the stove.

Captain Rodrique got startled by the yell.
He quickly turned and snatched the documents out from the fire, which badly burned his hand in the process.
The documents were now locked away in a separate room.

The failure to burn them made Reinberger realise that he would surely be shot by Germany, for letting the attack plan fall into the hands of the enemy.

He decided to commit suicide and tried to grab Rodrique's revolver. When the infuriated captain knocked him down.

Reinberger burst into tears and shouted 'I wanted your revolver to kill myself'.

Hoenmanns then supported Reinberger saying: 'You can't blame him. He's a regular officer. He's finished now.'

Two hours later, officers from the Belgian intelligence service arrived, bringing the documents to the attention of their superiors in the late afternoon.

On 11 January in Berlin, Hitler (who is enraged by the news) fired both the commander of Luftflotte 2, General Hellmuth Felmy, and Felmy's chief of staff Colonel Josef Kammhuber while Belgian forces handed the Fall Gelb documents to the Allies whom King Edward VIII would then inform his German courtiers about - only for them to give away that the Allies had the plans.

The Wehrmacht, therefore, shifted the Schwerpunkt and modified Fall Gelb to attack directly into the Ardennes Forest in Southern Belgium and Luxembourg.

Germany planned to push the 6th and 2nd army divisions to strike Wallonia, Belgium while the 4th, 12th and the 16th army divisions, supported with armoured units, chose to break out of the Ardennes and punch a hole through the allied front like 20km wide allowing them to encircle allied forces in Northern France and Flanders easily as per the 'Manstein Plan'.

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