Denmark in World War II
At the outset of World War II in September 1939, Denmark declared itself neutral, but that neutrality did not prevent Nazi Germany from occupying the country soon after the outbreak of war; the occupation lasted until Germany's defeat. The decision to occupy Denmark was taken in Berlin on 17 December 1939. On 9 April 1940, Germany occupied Denmark in Operation Weserübung. The Danish government and king functioned in a relatively normal manner until 29 August 1943, when Germany placed Denmark under direct military occupation, which lasted until the Allied victory on 5 May 1945. Contrary to the situation in other countries under German occupation, most Danish institutions continued to function relatively normally until 1945. Both the Danish government and king remained in the country in an uneasy relationship between a democratic and a totalitarian system until 1943 when the Danish government stepped down in protest against German demands that included instituting the death penalty for sabotage.
Just over 3,105 Danes died as a direct result of the occupation. A further 2,000 volunteers of Free Corps Denmark and Waffen-SS, most of whom originated from the German minority of southern Denmark, died fighting on the Eastern Front, while 1,072 merchant sailors died in Allied service. Overall, this represents a very low mortality rate compared to other occupied countries and most belligerent countries. In addition to the volunteers of Free Corps Denmark and Waffen-SS, some Danes chose to collaborate during the occupation by joining the National Socialist Workers' Party of Denmark, Schalburg Corps, HIPO Corps and Peter Group. The National Socialist Workers' Party of Denmark participated in the 1943 Danish Folketing election, but despite significant support from Germany it only received 2.1% of the votes. In Denmark, the occupation period is known as Besættelsen.
A resistance movement developed over the course of the war, and the vast majority of Danish Jews were rescued and sent to neutral Sweden in 1943 when German authorities ordered their internment as part of the Holocaust.
Invasion
The occupation of Denmark was initially not an important objective for the German government. The decision to occupy its small northern neighbour was taken to facilitate a planned invasion of the strategically more important Norway, and as a precaution against the expected Allied response. German military planners believed that a base in the northern part of Jutland, specifically the airfield of Aalborg, would be essential to operations in Norway, and they began planning the occupation of parts of Denmark. However, as late as February 1940 no firm decision to occupy Denmark had been made. The issue was finally settled when Adolf Hitler personally crossed out the words die Nordspitze Jütlands and replaced them with Dä, a German abbreviation for Denmark.Although the Danish territory of South Jutland was home to a significant German minority, and the province had been regained from Germany as a result of a plebiscite resulting from the Versailles Treaty, Germany was in no apparent hurry to reclaim it. In a much more vague and longer-term way, some Nazis hoped to incorporate Denmark into a greater "Nordic Union" at some stage, but these plans never materialized. Officially, Germany claimed to be protecting Denmark from Anglo-French attacks.
At 4:15 on the morning of 9 April 1940, German forces crossed the border into neutral Denmark. In a coordinated operation, German ships began disembarking troops at the docks in Copenhagen. Although outnumbered and poorly equipped, Danish soldiers in several parts of the country put up resistance, most notably the Royal Guard in Copenhagen and units in South Jutland. As the invasion began, German planes dropped the notorious OPROP! leaflets over Copenhagen calling on Danes to accept the German occupation peacefully, and claiming that Germany had occupied Denmark in order to protect it against Anglo-French attacks. Colonel Lunding from the Royal Danish Army's intelligence office later confirmed that Danish intelligence knew the attack would be coming on either 8 or 9 April and had warned the government accordingly. The Danish ambassador to Germany, Herluf Zahle, issued a similar warning which was also ignored.
As a result of the rapid turn of events, the Danish government did not have enough time to officially declare war on Germany. Denmark was in an untenable position in any event, however. Its territory and population were too small to hold out against Germany for any sustained period. Its flat land would have resulted in it being easily overrun by German panzers; Jutland, for instance, was immediately adjacent to Schleswig-Holstein to the south and was thus wide open to a panzer attack from there. Unlike Norway, Denmark had no mountain ranges from which drawn-out resistance could be conducted.
File:Statsminister Th. Stauning .jpg|thumb|right|Danish Prime Minister Thorvald Stauning addresses the Rigsdagen in Christiansborg Palace on the day of the invasion.
Sixteen Danish soldiers died in the invasion, but after less than six hours the Danish government surrendered, believing that resistance was futile and hoping to work out an advantageous agreement with Germany. Not only was the flat Jutland territory a perfect area for the German army to operate in, the surprise attack on Copenhagen had made any attempt to defend Zealand impossible. The Germans had also been quick to establish control over the bridge across the Little Belt, thus gaining access to the island of Funen. Believing that further resistance would only result in the futile loss of more Danish lives, the Danish cabinet ultimately decided to bow to the German pressure "under protest". The German forces were technologically sophisticated and numerous; the Danish forces comparatively tiny and using obsolete equipment; partially a result of a pre-war policy of trying to avoid antagonizing Germany by not supplying the army with modern equipment. Even stiff resistance from the Danes would not have lasted long. Questions have been raised around the apparent fact that the German forces did not seem to expect any resistance, invading with unarmored ships and vehicles.
Other territories within the Kingdom of Denmark
Faroe Islands
After the occupation of Denmark, British forces from 12 April 1940 made a pre-emptive bloodless invasion of the Faroe Islands to prevent their occupation by German troops. Britain took over the areas where Denmark previously had given support, and the islands now became dependent on the United Kingdom, which began to participate in fishing production and supplied the islands with important goods.The British fortified positions in strategically important locations in the Faroe Islands. Sounds and fjords were mined, and at the island of Vágar, British engineers built a military aviation base. Up to 8,000 British servicemembers were stationed in the islands, which at that time had 30,000 inhabitants.
The Faroe Islands were repeatedly attacked by German aircraft, suffering minimal damage. That said, 25 Faroese ships were lost and 132 sailors died.
Iceland
From 1918 until 1944, Iceland was in a Personal Union with the Danish king being the head of state of both Denmark and Iceland. The United Kingdom occupied Iceland on 10 May 1940 to preempt German occupation, turning it over to the then-neutral United States in July 1941, before the latter's entry into the war in December 1941. Officially remaining neutral throughout World War II, Iceland became an independent republic on 17 June 1944.Greenland
On 9 April 1941, the Danish envoy to the United States, Henrik Kauffmann, signed a treaty with the United States, authorizing it to defend Greenland and construct military stations there. Kauffmann was supported in this decision by the Danish diplomats in the United States and the local authorities in Greenland. Signing this treaty "in the name of the King" was a clear violation of his diplomatic powers, but Kauffmann argued that he would not receive orders from an occupied Copenhagen.Protectorate government (1940–43)
Historically, Denmark had a large amount of interaction with Germany. In 1920 the country regained possession of the northern part of Schleswig after losing the provinces during the Second Schleswig War in 1864. The Danish people were divided about what the best policy toward Germany might be. Few were ardent Nazis; some explored the economic possibilities of providing the German occupiers with supplies and goods; others eventually formed resistance groups towards the latter part of the war. The majority of Danes were unwillingly compliant towards the Germans. Due to the relative ease of the occupation and copious amount of dairy products, Denmark earned the nickname the Cream Front.As a result of the cooperative attitude of the Danish authorities, German officials claimed that they would "respect Danish sovereignty and territorial integrity, as well as neutrality." The German authorities were inclined towards lenient terms with Denmark for several reasons: their only strong interest in Denmark, that of surplus agricultural products, could be supplied by price policy on food rather than by control and restriction ;
there was serious concern that the Danish economy was so dependent upon trade with Britain that the occupation would create an economic collapse, and Danish officials capitalized on that fear to get early concessions for a reasonable form of cooperation; they also hoped to score propaganda points by making Denmark, in Hitler's words, "a model protectorate"; on top of these more practical goals, Nazi race ideology held that Danes were "fellow Nordic Aryans," and could therefore to some extent be trusted to handle their domestic affairs.
These factors combined to allow Denmark a very favourable relationship with Nazi Germany. The government remained somewhat intact, and the parliament continued to function more or less as it had before. They were able to maintain much of their former control over domestic policy. The police and judicial system remained in Danish hands, and unlike most occupied countries, King Christian X remained in the country as Danish head of state. The German Reich was formally represented by a Reichsbevollmächtigter, i.e. a diplomat accredited to the sovereign, a post awarded to Cecil von Renthe-Fink, the German ambassador, and then in November 1942 to the lawyer and SS general Werner Best.
Danish public opinion generally backed the new government, particularly after the fall of France in June 1940. There was a general feeling that the unpleasant reality of German occupation must be confronted in the most realistic way possible, given the international situation. Politicians realized that they would have to try hard to maintain Denmark's privileged position by presenting a united front to the German authorities, so all of the mainstream democratic parties formed a new government together. Parliament and the government agreed to work closely together. Though the effect of this was close to the creation of a one-party state, it remained a representative government.
The Danish government was dominated by Social Democrats, including the pre-war prime minister Thorvald Stauning, who had been strongly opposed to the Nazi party. Stauning himself was deeply depressed by the prospects for Europe under Nazism. Nonetheless, his party pursued a strategy of cooperation, hoping to maintain democracy and Danish control in Denmark for as long as possible. There were many issues that they had to work out with Germany in the months after the occupation. In an effort to keep the Germans satisfied, they compromised Danish democracy and society in several fundamental ways:
- Newspaper articles and news reports "which might jeopardize German-Danish relations" were outlawed, in violation of the Danish constitutional prohibition against censorship.
- On 22 June 1941, when Germany commenced its attack on the Soviet Union, the German authorities in Denmark demanded that Danish Communists should be arrested. The Danish government complied and using secret registers, the Danish police in the following days arrested 339 Communists. Of these 246, including the three Communist members of the Danish parliament, were imprisoned in the Horserød camp, in violation of the Danish constitution. On 22 August 1941, the Danish parliament passed the Communist Law, outlawing the Communist Party and Communist activities, in another violation of the Danish constitution. In 1943, about half of the Communists were transferred to Stutthof concentration camp, where 22 of them died.
- Following Germany's assault on the Soviet Union, Denmark joined the Anti-Comintern Pact, together with the fellow Nordic state of Finland. As a result, many Communists were found among the first members of the Danish resistance movement.
- Industrial production and trade was, partly due to geopolitical reality and economic necessity, redirected toward Germany. An overriding concern was a German fear of creating a burden if the Danish economy collapsed as it did after World War I. This sensitivity to Denmark's heavy reliance on foreign trade informed the German decision before the occupation to allow the Danes passage through their blockade. Denmark had traditionally been a major trading partner of both Britain and Germany. Many government officials saw expanded trade with Germany as vital to maintaining social order in Denmark. Increased unemployment and poverty were feared to lead to more of open revolt within the country, since Danes tended to blame all negative developments on the Germans. It was feared that any revolt would result in a crackdown by the German authorities.
- The Danish army was largely demobilized, although some units remained until August 1943. The army was allowed to maintain 2,200 men, as well as 1,100 auxiliary troops. Much of the fleet remained in port, but in Danish hands. In at least two towns, the army created secret weapons caches on 10 April 1940. On 23 April 1940, members of the Danish military intelligence established contacts with their British counterparts through the British diplomatic mission in Stockholm. They began dispatching intelligence reports to Britain by Autumn 1940. This traffic became regular and continued until the Germans dissolved the Danish army in 1943. Following the liberation of Denmark, Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery described the intelligence gathered in Denmark as "second to none".
Stauning remained prime minister until his death in 1942, as head of a coalition cabinet encompassing all major political parties. Vilhelm Buhl replaced him briefly, only to be replaced by foreign minister Erik Scavenius, who had been the main link to the Nazi authorities throughout the war. Scavenius was a diplomat, not an elected politician, and had an elitist approach to government. He was afraid that emotional public opinion would destabilize his attempts to build a compromise between Danish sovereignty and the realities of German occupation. Scavenius felt strongly that he was Denmark's most ardent defender. After the war there was much recrimination over his stance, particularly from members of the active resistance, who felt that he had hindered the cause of resistance and threatened Denmark's national honour. He felt that these people were vain, seeking to build their own reputations or political careers through emotionalism.
The Danish authorities were able to use their more cooperative stance to win important concessions for the country. They continually refused to enter a customs and currency union with Germany. Danes were concerned both about the negative economic effects of the German proposals, as well as the political ones. German officials did not want to risk their special relationship with Denmark by forcing an agreement on them, as they had done in other countries. The Danish government was also able to stall negotiations over the return of South Jutland to Germany, ban "closed-rank uniformed marches" that would have made nationalist German or Danish Nazi agitation more possible, keep National Socialists out of the government, and hold a relatively free election, with decidedly anti-Nazi results, in the middle of the war. Danish military officials also had access to sensitive German information, which they delivered to the Allies under government cover. The economic consequences of the occupation were also mitigated by German-Danish cooperation. Inflation rose sharply in the first year of the war, as the German Army spent a large amount of German military currency in Denmark, most importantly on military installations and troop deployments. Due to the Occupation, the National Bank of Denmark was compelled to exchange German currency for Danish notes, effectively granting the Germans a gigantic unsecured loan with only vague promises that the money would eventually be paid, something which never happened. The Danish government was later able to renegotiate the Germans' arbitrary exchange rate between the German military currency and the Danish krone to reduce this problem.
The success most often alluded to in regard to the Danish policy toward Germany is the protection of the Jewish minority in Denmark. Throughout its years in power, the government consistently refused to accept German demands regarding the Jews. The authorities would not enact special laws concerning Jews, and their civil rights remained equal with those of the rest of the population. German authorities became increasingly exasperated with this position but concluded that any attempt to remove or mistreat Jews would be "politically unacceptable." Even the Gestapo officer Werner Best, plenipotentiary in Denmark from November 1942, believed that any attempt to remove the Jews would be enormously disruptive to the relationship between the two governments and recommended against any action concerning the Jews of Denmark.
Christian X remained in Denmark throughout the war, a symbol of courage much appreciated by his subjects.