At 4:15 on the morning of 9 April 1940

[Ltbear]

Originally Posted by kimosabi

They had to do it. Denmark, like Norway, never had enough personell in 1940 to deal with the Germans. Initially, Operation Barbarossa alone amassed over 4 million German soldiers. Just to put some perspective on it. Doesn't matter how competent you are if you try to resist something like the German army in 1940 when all you have is 1/100 of their force. It would have been suicide.

I think it was a good call. Heck, even the British and French didn't have personell enough to deal with the German Army in 1940, Germans almost pushed the British back in the sea in France. Dunkirk was the last bastion. Germans cut them some slack at Dunkirk, a three day halt order was given.

Dolphin, the British were pretty much the only participating European country which was never invaded during WW2. Greece fell to Germany in 24 days once the Germans came to aid Mussodawg.

Again. The problem is how the Danish goverment worked from 1935 to 1940 is werry interesting. The party in power did all what they could to de militaraise Denmark. In 5 years the cut the strength down from 30.000 to 8800. The Danish airforce was mothballed, and quit a few planes was in wooden cases at the holmen sea base. Between 3 to 9th of april most Danish warships was ordered to port. All the big coastal batteries (and they where big) was either on vacation or only kept at peacetime man power.

Our problem is that not all documents are given free, and alot of quistions are unanswered.

Yes at the current state of 1940 the Danish army had little chanse of doing major damedge to the German warmachine. If we had the 30.000 man strong army the situation would be way different.

But history tell us what happend.

9th of april the Germans invaded Denmark. In 1943 the general population began an uprising, that alowed the Germans to take full control over the country. 4th of may 1945 late evening the Germans surrendered, we celebrate this may the 5th.

Only reson Denmark was invitet to Nato after the war was because of the Danish resistence and the ammount of sabotour jobs they did. They did 1900 missons from 1940 to 1945.

If it had not been for them Denmark would have been countet as an axis power and would also had to pay compensation like Germany.

lol abit more history lmao....

When we get to may 5th i create a new post about what happend around that date. Not all of it are flowers and monty, many dark secrets was trying to be kept away

[kimosabi]

I'm not denying that some forces within the governments had agendas. Norway is a clear example on that with the NS(Nasjonal Samling) party and Widqun Quisling spearheading the nationalist movement in Norway at the time. Hell, our whole government fled the country some time before the invasion started. Our King Haakon just made it out of Elverum before the Germans started bombing it, he and his cabinet was actually the last "government crew" to leave the country. All the politicians was already long gone and exiled in Britain.

Now there are many theories that NS actually was close to bargain the Germans into not invading, and that only 1/10 of every man was mobilized in april 1940. Our military force was, like Denmark, being decreased/cutback since WW1 and German paratroopers was escorted(!) by riding Police into Oslo. Norway was full of traitors at the time and I remember my grandfather saying that "You couldn't trust anyone. You never knew if even your neighbour was a Gestapo informant or not."

Talk about being labeled as axis, look at all the Norwegians, Danes and Swedes fighting on German side during operation Barbarossa. 5th SS Panzer Division Wiking got its name for a reason, Wiking had a whole regiment(SS Nordland) which was made up of Norwegians, Danes and Swedes plus a few ethnic German veterans. They took part in Barbarossa when invading through Ukraine in 1941.



Wiking insignia on the mudguard.

[Ltbear]

ya most ww2 gamers know Wiking, i even joined that squard in ww2 online (battleground europe) way bck....."infantry lag killed that game for me"

Deffently. Norway and Denmark have some remarkeble things that are almost identical in many ways.....

LTbear

[salmo]

Very interesting history and pics! Thank you.

[Squid_DK]

Originally Posted by Meusli

Cheers Ltbear, like others have said it's a good read. Could you explain this bit more?



Is there an implication they did this on purpose or was it just incompetence?

One thing not mentioned was the state of the Royal Danish navy and the attempt by the government to martyrise parts of the Navy during the german invasion, Denmark had employed minefields in its waters to control the shipping traffic and to protect danish ports and interests.
On the morning of April 9th a german naval force (Including the WW I era BB Sleswig Holstein) was heading towards Copenhagen, blocking the germans was a small force of the danish Navy, the danish units has asked for orders regarding the german surface units but they never got a response (Although later studies have shown that the politicians were well aware that the danish force was seriously outgunned. Fortunately for the danish Navy the german commander had the courtesy to give the danish commodore in charge time to retreat and save his forces (Most of which were later scuttled by the danish Navy).

Staffan

[Raggz]

Hitler threatened to flatten Oslo with bombers. Norwegian government didn't want to end up with a city like Warsaw and capitulated. I believe Denmark had the same fear. Secondly none of the Nordic country's had the resources to really put up a fight with the Germans. Norway fought for 3 weeks before caving in but did some significant damage during that period of time. Mostly Naval damage. Several city's got heavily bombed during the 3 weeks.


Anyways, if interested there are 2 great WWII movies about the resistance in Denmark and Norway called "Flammen og Citronen" and "Max Manus". Both good movies and worth the time

[Ltbear]

Originally Posted by Raggz

Hitler threatened to flatten Oslo with bombers. Norwegian government didn't want to end up with a city like Warsaw and capitulated. I believe Denmark had the same fear. Secondly none of the Nordic country's had the resources to really put up a fight with the Germans. Norway fought for 3 weeks before caving in but did some significant damage during that period of time. Mostly Naval damage. Several city's got heavily bombed during the 3 weeks.


Anyways, if interested there are 2 great WWII movies about the resistance in Denmark and Norway called "Flammen og Citronen" and "Max Manus". Both good movies and worth the time

Read the books instead of watching the above movies, the books are way way better....

[Hellbender]

Originally Posted by HFC_Dolphin

Well, Greeks were there too, defeating Italians and forcing Germans to delay operation Barbarossa in order to conquer Greece.
Well fought war

Since years now, historians showed that the Operations against Greece and Yugoslavia didn´t delay the invasion of Russia, since 1st the weather condidtions were to "wet" and Rasputitsa (the wet spring whether periode) wasn´t over in 1941 and 2nd the basic logistic requirements weren´t finished to start the invasion earlier than June.

"According to Robert Kirchubel, "the main causes for deferring Barbarossa's start from 15 May 15-22 June were incomplete logistical arrangements, and an unusually wet winter that kept rivers at full flood until late spring"

Kirchubel (2005), p. 16

[Raggz]

Originally Posted by Ltbear

Read the books instead of watching the above movies, the books are way way better....

I've read the books and they are always better than the movies. But not everyone are into reading books. That's where movies come in

[giovanni the ace]

Very interesting! Thanks for posting.

G.C.