How many islands does Germany have?

WW2: could / should Germany have invaded the Shetland Islands and the Faeroe Islands?

• If the Germans had managed to invade the Shetland Islands and the Faeroe Islands they could have stopped a large portion of the food and supplies that Britain got from merchant shipping. The amount of fish Britain got could have been reduced by 25% perhaps (a guesstimate!). Britain could have been starved into submission. Lets not forget that the Germans managed to invade Crete.

• Answer:

  You seem to be overlooking the fact that the British enjoyed naval superiority for the entire war. The Germans were able to use air power in the mediterranean during the first part of the war, but the Shetlands and Faroes were too far away, and by the time longer-range aircraft would have made the proposition feasible the allies had air superiority too. Had the Germans tried to invade a remote island group in these circumstances it's the Germans who would have encountered the supply chain problems trying to defend them: British supply lines would have been hardly affected at all, since the Germans wouldn't have been any better placed to harass them than they already were with their U-boat fleet. EDIT: Since you seem hooked on this idea let me address this a different way. You are correct, that it would have been perfectly feasible for the Germans to invade the Shetlands and Faroe islands, and perhaps they'd even have been able to hang on to them for a while. The question is what benefit it would have brought them. Personally I don't believe your 25% number, but even if it's true, you need to bear in mind that the fishing industry in the Faroes (and probably the Shetlands) increased greatly during WW2 precisely BECAUSE they were in British hands - had they not been, Britain would have used other safe fisheries instead, so the actual impact would have been significantly smaller than 25%. I also don't believe for a second that a 25% drop in available fish would have left Britain starving. It might perhaps have led to a less varied diet, but the calorific value of fish in the WW2 diet was not as significant as you seem to believe. The German Navy already had excellent naval bases in the North Atlantic, both in Norway and France - it's difficult to see how an additional naval base, had they been able to create one, would have done them any good. Additionally, the naval base itself would have been almost impossible to supply. Supply could only have been done by surface ships, and these would have been simply too easy for the British to find and sink.