Operation Green (Ireland)
They had little interest in tying up military resources in Britain or France, other than doing what was necessary to prevent the British and French from interfering with the invasion of the Soviet Union.
Green was conceived in early-to mid-1940 and the plan was drawn up in August 1940, under three weeks after Hitler issued his initial warning order for Operation Sea Lion on 16 July 1940.
The intention was to spread rumours that German forces were preparing a landing in Ireland to place a further stranglehold on Britain, reinforcing the current "siege".
[6] His concern was German naval strength and resupply of any landed troops:To a defending force, cut off and left to its own devices, the topography of the country [Ireland] does not afford us much protection... without supplies and reinforcements they would soon feel the increasing pressure of British expeditionary force brought over under the protection of British naval power; sooner or later our own troops would face a situation similar to Namsos or Dunkirk.
This view is reinforced by examining one of the warnings offered to participating German forces in the plan: The 'Green' operation confronts us with an entirely new task.
They would have to fight against expected British troop movements from the north of the island, and from Great Britain invading Ireland to protect its flank.
Hitler, who continued to hold out hope for a détente with Britain, refused to allow the Abwehr to conduct intelligence gathering operations on British soil from 1936 to 1938.
As Sea Lion was postponed and eventually shelved following the launching of Operation Barbarossa, the planning staff working on it issued two reprints, adding detail as they went.
A good example of the detail is a seventy five-page booklet titled "Militärgeographische Angaben über Irland" ("Military Geographical data on Ireland").
A second print of the plan in October 1941 added 332 photographs of the Irish countryside and coastline, mostly tourist photos, which were used to reference highly accurate Ordnance Survey maps.
There were also details on spring tides, geological formations and possible routes German troops could take off projected invasion beaches.
Another addendum included in the further reprinting of the plan in 1942 by the OKL (Luftwaffe High Command), titled "Küsten-Beschreibung des Irischen Freistaates (Irland)" ("Coastal description of the Irish Free State"), contained high-altitude aerial photographs of the areas in question, some taken from 30,000 feet, with houses and trees visible.
Ireland was also described as perfectly suited to military operations because of its "excellent network of roads", and details on population centres such as Derry and Belfast were accurate but lacked information on British troop concentrations based in these cities.
On the other hand, the Ardnacrusha power station on the lower River Shannon was entirely detailed in the plan, thanks to the help of the German firm Siemens, which had built it prior to the war.
The overall details for the plan appear to be sketchy from this point onwards, and mostly would have depended on the success or failure of Operation Sea Lion in Britain.
Among the Irish population, however, there was a degree of support for Nazi Germany due to a variety of reasons, including resentment of past British rule and the recent partition of the country.
Later editions contained no data from the IRA, instead only adding from publicly available information in reference books and details provided by German civilians who had worked in Ireland during the 1930s.
