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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 almost immediately 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.[1] 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 3,000 Danes died as a direct result of the occupation.[2] 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[3] while 1,072 merchant sailors died in Allied service.[4] Overall, this represents a very low mortality rate compared to other occupied countries and most belligerent countries. Some Danes chose to collaborate during the occupation by joining the National Socialist Workers' Party of Denmark, Schalburg Corps, HIPO Corps and Peter Group (often with considerable overlap between the participants of the different groups). 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.[5] In Denmark, the occupation period is known as Besættelsen (Danish for "the Occupation" alternatively "the Possession").[6]


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.[7]

Newspaper articles and news reports "which might jeopardize " were outlawed, in violation of the Danish constitutional prohibition against censorship.[18]

German-Danish relations

On 22 June 1941 while Germany commenced its 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 them were transferred to Stutthof concentration camp, where 22 of them died.

attack on the Soviet Union

Following Germany's assault on the Soviet Union, Denmark joined the , together with the fellow Nordic state of Finland. As a result, many communists were found among the first members of the Danish resistance movement.

Anti-Comintern Pact

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.[19] 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.[18] 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.[17]

Industrial production

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.[21] On 23 April 1940,[22] members of the Danish military intelligence established contacts with their British counterparts through the British diplomatic mission in Stockholm, and began dispatching intelligence reports to them by Autumn 1940. This traffic became regular and continued until the Germans dissolved the Danish army in 1943.[22] Following the liberation of Denmark, Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery described the intelligence gathered in Denmark as "second to none".[23]

[20]

A ban on people assembling in public,

outlawing strikes, the introduction of a curfew,

censorship conducted with German assistance,

special (German military) courts should be introduced, and

death penalty in cases of sabotage.

As the war dragged on, the Danish population became increasingly hostile to the Germans. Soldiers stationed in Denmark had found most of the population cold and distant from the beginning of the occupation, but their willingness to cooperate had made the relationship workable. The government had attempted to discourage sabotage and violent resistance to the occupation, but by the autumn of 1942 the numbers of violent acts of resistance were increasing steadily to the point that Germany declared Denmark "enemy territory" for the first time.[18] After the battles of Stalingrad and El-Alamein the incidents of resistance, violent and symbolic, increased rapidly.


In March 1943 the Germans allowed a general election to be held. The voter turnout was 89.5%, the highest in any Danish parliamentary election, and 94% cast their ballots for one of the democratic parties behind the cooperation policy while 2.2% voted for the anti-cooperation Dansk Samling.[30] 2.1% voted for the National Socialist Workers' Party of Denmark, almost corresponding to the 1.8% the party had received in the 1939 elections. The election, discontent, and a growing feeling of optimism that Germany would be defeated led to widespread strikes and civil disturbances in the summer of 1943. The Danish government refused to deal with the situation to the satisfaction of the Germans, who gave an ultimatum to the government, including the following demands, on 28 August 1943:


In addition, the city of Odense was ordered to pay a fine of 1 million kroner for the death of a German soldier killed in that city and hostages were to be held as security.[31]


The Danish government refused, so on 29 August 1943 the Germans officially dissolved the Danish government and instituted martial law. The Danish cabinet handed in its resignation, but since King Christian never officially accepted it, the government remained functioning de jure until the end of the war. In reality—largely due to the initiative of the permanent secretary of foreign affairs Nils Svenningsen[32]—all day-to-day business was handed over to Permanent Secretaries, who each effectively ran his own ministry. The Germans administered the rest of the country, and the Danish Parliament did not convene for the remainder of the occupation. As the ministry of foreign affairs responsible for all negotiations with the Germans, Nils Svenningsen had a leading position in the government.[33]


In anticipation of Operation Safari, the Royal Danish Navy had instructed its captains to resist any German attempts to assume control over their vessels. The navy managed to scuttle 32 of its larger ships, while Germany succeeded in seizing 14 of the larger and 50 of the smaller vessels (patruljekuttere or "patrol cutters"). The Germans later succeeded in raising and refitting 15 of the sunken ships. During the scuttling of the Danish fleet, a number of vessels were ordered to attempt an escape to Swedish waters, and 13 vessels succeeded in this attempt, including four larger ships; two other larger vessels remained at safe harbour in Greenland.[34][35] The coastal defence ship HDMS Niels Juel attempted to break out of the Isefjord, but was attacked by Stukas and forced to run aground. By the autumn of 1944, the ships in Sweden officially formed a Danish naval flotilla in exile.[36] In 1943, Swedish authorities allowed 500 Danish soldiers in Sweden to train themselves as "police troops". By the autumn of 1944, Sweden increased this number to 4,800 and recognized the entire unit as a Danish brigade in exile.[37] Danish collaboration continued on the administrative level, with Danish bureaucracy functioning under German command.


In September 1943, a variety of resistance groups grouped together into the Danish Freedom Council, which coordinated resistance activities. A high-profile resister was former government minister John Christmas Møller, who had fled to England in 1942 and became a widely popular commentator because of his broadcasts to the nation on BBC radio.


After the fall of the government, Denmark was exposed to the full extent of occupational rule. In October the Germans decided to remove all Jews from Denmark, German diplomat Georg Ferdinand Duckwitz leaked Nazi plans, and swift action by Danish civilians transported the vast majority of Danish Jews to safety in neutral Sweden in fishing vessels and motorboats. The entire evacuation lasted two months and one man helped ferry more than 1,400 Jews to safety.[38] Unencumbered by government opposition, sabotage increased greatly in frequency and severity, though it was rarely of very serious concern to the Germans. Nonetheless, the Danish resistance movement had some successes, such as on D-Day when the train network in Denmark was disrupted for days, delaying the arrival of German reinforcements in Normandy. An underground government was established, and the illegal press flourished. Allied governments, which had been sceptical about the country's commitment to fight Germany, began recognizing Denmark as a full ally.[18]


The permanent secretary of the ministry of foreign affairs, Nils Svenningsen, in January 1944 suggested establishing a Danish camp, to avoid deportations to Germany.[39] Werner Best accepted this suggestion, but on condition that this camp was built close to the German border. Frøslev Prison Camp was set up in August 1944, solely to keep Danish Jews and other prisoners within Denmark's borders.[40]


The Gestapo had limited trust in the Danish police force, which had a total 10,000 members;[41] 1,960 of them were arrested and deported to Germany on 19 September 1944.

German refugees[edit]

In the final weeks of the war, between 9 February and 9 May, several hundred thousand German refugees fled across the Baltic Sea, fleeing the advancing Soviet Army. For the most part, the refugees were from East Prussia and Pomerania. Many of the refugees were women, children, or elderly. Many were malnourished, exhausted, or seriously ill. A third of the refugees were younger than 15 years old.


The German authorities gave the refugees a privileged status, seizing Danish schools, church houses, hotels, factories, and sports facilities for refugee housing. At the same time, thousands of Danes were deported to German prisons and concentration camps. German terror against Danish resistance fighters and civilians increased in these final months. The general sentiment among Danes saw the arrival of refugees as a new, violent German occupation.


At the time of the German capitulation there were about 250,000 German refugees in Denmark. Already at the end of April, the German military authorities seemed to have lost control of the situation; many refugees had no food, the sick were not treated, mortality was high, and unburied dead bodies were stored in warehouses and cellars—although this was the result of different priorities in negotiations on aid between German and Danish authorities. The Danish negotiators, led by secretary of state Nils Svenningsen, would only agree provided that approximately 4,000 Danish citizens, mainly policemen, who were being detained in German concentration camps, were liberated. German authorities, on the other hand, would only agree if those policemen would take an active part in defeating the Danish resistance.[51]


At the capitulation, the refugee administration was handed over to Danish authorities. Refugees were gradually moved from over 1,000 smaller locations to new-built camps or previous German military barracks, some of which held over 20,000 refugees. The largest of the camps, Oksbøl Refugee Camp, in Oksbøl on the west coast of Jutland, held 37,000 refugees. Camps were placed behind barbed wire and guarded by military personnel to avoid contact with the Danish population.


In some of the camps, food rations were scarce and medical care was inadequate. In 1945 alone, more than 13,000 people died, among them some 7,000 children under the age of five.[52] The situation was worst in the months right before and after the capitulation when Danish hospitals and doctors were reluctant to treat German refugees. The reason for this was not only anti-German resentment, but also lack of resources, the time needed to rebuild administrative structures, and the fear of epidemic diseases which were highly prevalent among the refugees. Instead, Danish authorities established a camp-internal medical system with German medical personnel which took some time to work adequately. In the camps, there was school education for children up to the upper secondary level, work duty for adults, study circles, theatre, music, and self-issued German newspapers. After initial inadequacy, food rations became more sufficient.


On 24 July 1945, the British occupation force, contrary to Danish expectations, decided that the refugees must stay in Denmark until the situation in Germany had stabilized. The first refugees were returned to Germany in November 1946 and the last ones in February 1949. Very few stayed in Denmark for good.[53]

British Invasion of Iceland

Deportation of the Danish police

Flender, Harold. Rescue in Denmark. New York: Holocaust Library, 1963.

Dethlefsen, Henrik. "Denmark and the German Occupation: Cooperation, Negotiation, or Collaboration," Scandinavian Journal of History. 15:3 (1990), pp. 193–206.

Giltner, Phil (2001). "The Success of Collaboration: Denmark's Self-Assessment of its Economic Position after Five Years of Nazi Occupation". . 36 (3): 483–506. doi:10.1177/002200940103600305. S2CID 161386964.

Journal of Contemporary History

Gram-Skjoldager, Karen (2011). "The Law of the Jungle? Denmark's International Legal Status during the Second World War". International History Review. 33 (2): 235–256. :10.1080/07075332.2011.555417. S2CID 153651511.

doi

Lidegaard, Bo (2003). . Peter Lang. ISBN 978-0-8204-6819-8. Archived from the original on 26 October 2020. Retrieved 21 April 2020.

Defiant Diplomacy: Henrik Kauffmann, Denmark, and the United States in World War II and the Cold War, 1939–1958

Lund, Joachim (2004). "Denmark and the'European New Order', 1940–1942". Contemporary European History. 13 (3): 305–321. :10.1017/S0960777304001742. S2CID 153464823.

doi

Lund, Joachim (2010). "Building Hitler's Europe: Forced Labor in the Danish Construction Business during World War II". Business History Review. 84 (3): 479–499. :10.1017/S000768050000221X. S2CID 154588369.

doi

Lund, Joachim (2013). "The Wages of Collaboration: the German food crisis 1939–1945 and the supplies from Denmark". Scandinavian Journal of History. 38 (4): 480–501. :10.1080/03468755.2013.817778. S2CID 144011460.

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Voorhis, Jerry (1972). "Germany and Denmark: 1940–45". Scandinavian Studies. 44 (2).

Ziemke, Earl F. (2000) [1960]. . In Kent Roberts Greenfield (ed.). Command Decisions. United States Army Center of Military History. CMH Pub 70-7. Archived from the original on 30 December 2007. Retrieved 18 June 2010.

"The German Decision to Invade Norway and Denmark"

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Agreement between U.S. Secretary of State and Danish Minister on the status of Greenland April 10, 1941

(audio, RealPlayer)

The BBC's Danish broadcast, 4 May 1945, 20:30 announcing the surrender of the German army units in Denmark

Episode 2 is about Denmark during World War II.

Podcast with one of 2,000 Danish policemen in Buchenwald.

Besaettelsessamlingen, web museum about Denmark 1940–45

The short film is available for free viewing and download at the Internet Archive.

Denmark Fights for Freedom (1944)