Operation Artur
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In World War II, Operation Artur ("Arthur") was the German plan to support I.R.A. activities in Northern Ireland and Ireland in 1941.
Artur was also planned in conjunction with a Luftwaffe aerial bombing campaign over England. Following the placing of Seelöwe on hold with Grün, Artur was an attempt to maintain links between the I.R.A. and Germany for future actions against England.
In July, 1940, German agents Henry Obed, Herbert Tributh and Otto Dietergaertner were landed by small boat in Skibbereen, county Cork, Ireland. All three had been trained by Lehr Regiment Brandenburg, a unit specialising in sabotage behind enemy lines. Their purpose was to make contact with the I.R.A. and to then travel to England to destroy Buckingham Palace using explosive nitro-cellulose. Although all three were eventually arrested by the Irish police before reaching England, it exposed to British Intelligence (MI5) a wider network of sabotage activities of joint I.R.A. and German actions from neutral Ireland.
In August 1940, a campaign to target British interests in Northern Ireland and Ireland had been conceived by Sean Russell, chief-of-staff of the I.R.A. and presented to German foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop and Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, head of the Abwehr. Russell requested explosives, guns, and transmitting equipment for a campaign to initiate in November, 1940. Russell, who had been out of Ireland before the war to avoid arrest, would return in a U-boat, U65, and land at Smerwick Harbour, County Kerry, Ireland from Wilhelmshaven, Germany on August 8, 1940 under the codename Taube ("Dove"). Russell died on August 14, 1940 before reaching Ireland and the plan was left to the I.R.A.'s Frank Ryan, who decided not to return to Ireland but instead co-ordinate the bombing campaign from Germany and to plan for Taube II.
In September, 1940, I.R.A. spokesman Francis Stuart began propaganda broadcasts from Berlin calling for the Irish liberation of Northern Ireland from the British. Artur however received a major setback when the Irish Emergency Powers Act was enforced resulting in the arrest of more than 600 members of the I.R.A. and the capture of Major Hermann Goertz, who had previously been parachuted in May 1940 to assist the I.R.A. for Grün. Unable to mount an effective ground bombing campaign, the I.R.A.'s focus had turned to intelligence gathering. During 1941, information on shipyard and aircraft activity had been recorded by I.R.A. operatives and sent to SS Officer Henning Thompson, based in Dublin, and passed on to Abwehr. During a 4 week bombing campaign by the Luftwaffe starting in April 1941, targets in Belfast and Derry were hit resulting in damage to shipbuilding yards, airfields, industries and the deaths of over 800 people.
After Germany suffered a severe reversal at Stalingrad in 1942, any future invasion of the British Isles was never seriously considered. Frank Ryan played no major part in the war from then on and died in Dresden in 1944.