page_title: Denmark in World War II
section_title: Invasion
hierarchical_section_title: Denmark in World War II / Invasion
caption_attribution_description: Statsminister Th. Stauning taler til medlemmer af Rigsdagens to ting. Sted: Christiansborg, København Dato: 9. april 1940 Se flere billeder her: erez.natmus.dk/FHMbilleder/Site/index.jsp Rights: natmus.dk/en/besoeg-museerne/frihedsmuseet/archives/photo... More about The Museum of Danish Resistance (Frihedsmuseet): natmus.dk/en/besoeg-museerne/frihedsmuseet/
context_page_description: At the outset of World War II in September 1939, Denmark declared itself neutral. For most of the war, the country was a protectorate and then an occupied territory of Germany. The decision to occupy Denmark was taken in Berlin on 17 December 1939. On 9 April 1940, Germany occupied Denmark in Operation Weserübung and the king and government functioned as normal in a de facto protectorate over the country 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 the Danish government stepped down in a protest against German demands to institute the death penalty for sabotage.
  Just over 3,000 Danes died as a direct result of the occupation. Overall this represents a very low mortality rate when compared to other occupied countries and most belligerent countries.
context_section_description: 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 British 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 ("the Northern tip of Jutland") 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 a British invasion.
  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, soldiers in several parts of the country offered resistance; most notably the Royal Guard in Copenhagen and units in South Jutland. At the same time as the border crossing, German planes dropped the notorious OPROP! leaflets over Copenhagen calling for Danes to accept the German occupation peacefully, and claiming that Germany had occupied Denmark in order to protect it against Great Britain and France. Colonel Lunding from the 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 a drawn-out resistance could be mounted.
  Sixteen Danish soldiers died in the invasion, but after two hours the Danish government surrendered, believing that resistance was useless and hoping to work out an advantageous agreement with Germany. The flat territory of Jutland was a perfect area for the German army to operate in, and 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 still 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 used obsolete equipment; partially a result of a pre-war policy of trying to avoid antagonizing Germany by 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.
caption: Danish Prime Minister Thorvald Stauning addresses the Rigsdagen in Christiansborg Palace on the day of the invasion
exif: {}