Mechelen incident

As Mechelen incident the emergency landing of a German aircraft near the Belgian town of Bicester is designated on 10 January 1940. This part of the German attack plans for the western campaign were first known to the Belgian General Staff and later further circles in the West.

Development and consequences

On January 10, Adolf Hitler had set a new date for the offensive ( " Case Yellow " ): You should start on January 17 and 15 minutes before sunrise.

The pilot Hönmanns came with his Messerschmitt Bf 108 from because of poor visibility from the course and came on Belgian territory, where he had to make an emergency landing. His companion, Major Reinsberger had led the operation plans contrary to orders with them.

He succeeded neither shortly after landing, before he was arrested by Belgian soldiers, yet. During the later interrogation to completely destroy the papers Initially denied the lighter and later, when he had already put the bag in an oven, a soldier rushed in and was able to save an important part of the documentation.

From the German Embassy in Brussels Reinsberger briefed the Air Staff nevertheless, he had the documents " to unusable shreds of palm size " torn.

The commander of the German Luftwaffe Hermann Göring was troubled and had to hire experiments with a similarly large amount of paper. The results, however, were so insecure that he - more clairvoyant attracted to rate came to the conclusion of the documents there was nothing left - at the suggestion of his wife back. Hitler remained unconvinced and suspected the plan was the "enemy" fallen into the hands. He therefore postponed the invasion command.

The Belgians, who could see the remnants of that offensive was planned in defiance of the Belgian and Dutch neutrality, gave their findings to the British and French, where they initially met with suspicion.

As a result, the Belgian policy changed over Germany, which in turn covered the attack strategy. Hitler finally took over the developed by Erich von Manstein sickle cutting plan to form a focus attack in the Ardennes.