Impact
The Norwegians were angered that their neutrality had been infringed, but they did not want to be dragged into a European war. Nonetheless, the Altmark incident sowed doubts about the Norwegian neutrality among the Allies, as well as in Germany. Both sides had contingency plans for military action against Norway, primarily to control the traffic of Swedish iron ore, on which the German armaments industry depended in the early stages of the war. The Altmark incident convinced Adolf Hitler that the Allies would not respect Norwegian neutrality, and on 19 February, he decided to intensify the planning for Operation Weserübung, the occupation of Denmark and Norway, which eventually took place on 9 April 1940.
The Altmark incident gave the British a short-lived but sorely needed morale boost during the Phoney War. The incident also had a lasting propaganda effect in German-occupied Norway during the war, when the Norwegian collaborationist government tried to neutralize their nickname "Quislings" by using the location of the skirmish, Jøssingfjord, to coin the derogatory term "jøssing", referring to pro-Allies and anti-Nazis. Their efforts backfired, as "jøssing" was immediately adopted as a positive term by the general public, and the word was finally banned from official use by 1943.
The phrase "The Navy's Here" became well-known, being used as the title of a book about the incident published shortly after; the publisher referred to "the simple statement which stirred the imagination of the world". A popular song was written by Ross Parker and Hugh Charles which saluted the incident by comparing it with those of Drake, Nelson, Beatty, and Fisher.
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