Today, the 9th april, is the 77th anniversary of the german invasion, and occuption, of Denmark in ww2

Today, the 9th april, is the 77th anniversary of the german invasion, and occuption, of Denmark in ww2.
In remembrance, let us have a discussion of the short conflict, and the subsequent occupation.

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en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Heligoland_(1864)
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As somebody who recently learned of the praise hitler and the german soldiers received in ukraine following it's occupation, I'm interested to see what Veeky Forums has to say about what came of the danish conflict

9th April is of great significance for modern Danish politics, it forever broke the consensus of a being a neutral country and broke the appeasement policy that was the official foreign policy since 1867, and was one of the primary reasons Denmark ended up joining NATO. In the words of Hans Hedtoft Prime minister from 1947 to 1950 "Never again a 9th of april"

>my grandfather died by the occuption of Denmark
>he was part of the german forces
>his unit was occupying copenhagen
>when they arrived the unit confiscated a hotel and used it as base
>everything was peaceful
>in the evening they decided to have a meal
>they told the danish to make them some food
>they brought the soldiers wine, beer and smorrebrod with salmon
>they didn't know that the owner who was orderd to make the food was jewish so he tryed to assassinate the troop by serving them way to dry smorrebrod without radish
>my grandfather tryed to eat it and choked to death
>the guy who made the food was directly shoot because he was obviously a jew and the hotel was burned down
>the rest of the troop survived through the brave sacrifice of my grandpa
>true hero of war
>never forget

>danes don't prepare themselves and have shit defence
>germans invade and danes instantly surrender like pussy bitches
>germans being so forgiving that they allow pussy danes to selv-govern with a few rules
>when war changes danes switches to allies to be on the "right" side of history
>proceeds to summary execute people that worked with the germans
Did I miss anything?

yes they sent all their jews to sweden
and look at sweden now

Grandfather was 10 when the Germans invaded.He used to play a trick where he would tie an empty wallet on a string and leave it out for passing by Germans to grab. He'd yank it along and get a good laugh from them.

He did it to an Civilian SS man, and the civilian wasn't having it. He backhanded Grandpa and he himself got his his shit knocked around by a Heer Captain who'd taken a shining on my Grandfather.

A few years later, he was twelve and he was riding his bike and a RSHA police officer grabbed if off his bike and was going to jail him as a potential gun runner, but same Captain talked the RSHA guy down and took him home. Grandfather got lucky. The Captain was off to Russia a few weeks later and after that he simply vanished in that hell.

at 14 Grandfather got a job in the shops and he was starting to like the Germans now. One summer a group of German soldiers only three or so years older then he was stationed in Denmark for the summer on training exercise and light occupation duties. Summer ended and it was 1944 and they were sent east. He still remembers them crying and sobbing, so Grandfather used his money and bought them all treats cigarettes and food from their grocery store and they left as friends.

In 1965 Grandfather was living in Canada with his new wife and children, and my mom remembered a strange man smiling at her when she came home from school and the man got out of his car. An amputee. He approached my Grandfather and introduced himself as one of the boys he helped out in summer 1944. He was the last survivor of the group, they were captured or killed in Poland January 1945 and he was the last one to survive Soviet imprisonment, of which he was released in 1951. He thanked Grandfather for what he did for them, they had dinner and he left for West Germany shortly after.

About 6 months or so later he got word the German had killed himself. War is fucked.

Did your grandpa mention how the Germans treated others around him? How did they treat the rest of his family? What about the danish women? Any other stories?

Generally speaking he felt the Germans were very respectful with regards to the people they were occupying. They minded their business and served primarily as a heavily armed police force then a military occupation. He felt that the ones who caused the headaches were the Danes themselves. The Germans showed a real restraint and wanted the occupation to be a model one. It only started to get bad in 44 and 45. His first job was a bus boy and he was waiting tables one night when a Danish teen walked into a restaurant and shot a German officer dead right in front of his wife and children. They were screaming and crying and Grandfather was trying to scrub blood off the little girl he had. That pretty much settled the debate on whether or not to join the resistance forming at the time.

I wish I could answer the women question, but I haven't talked about those days with him in several years now. He developed dementia and pretty much all his past is gone now. Written down what I know and am thinking about going to his children, my mom and aunts and uncles for what they know. But they were never interested in that era as I am. My grandmother and is going strong still, so I'm going to have to sit her down and talk about it.

Why the Germans never annexed Denmark prior to WW2 is beyond me.

Thanks for the stories user, I'm sorry you have to see your grandpa with dementia, especially when he held truths about a time in history that's surrounded by the most propaganda and lies

probably cause youre a retard

And at what point in history would they have the chance for that?

That time Bismarck tricked Denmark into war.

You know, I'm starting to get the impression Otto wasn't a very nice guy.

Denmark wasn't tricked into war in 1864, it was a combination of the nationalistic movement in the country and the belief that the other European powers would help them (they wouldn't). Bismarck might not have been the nicest guy, but annexing Denmark was in no way in his interests.

deserved to die 'desu desu

Why would they? And what makes you think they could? Bismarck was interested in uniting the GERMAN people. He only wanted to take the German parts of Denmark. Militarily the Germans wouldn't have been able to occupy Denmark due to their weak naval might and the fact that Denmark is made up of a shit ton of islands..
In 1864 the Danes actually blockaded every major port in North Germany and won the only naval battle of the war. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Heligoland_(1864)

That said, the Danish king actually did propose as a peace offer to enter into the German Confederation as an autonomous state. Bismarck rejected that, again since he had no interests in Denmark beyond Schleswig and Holstein.

Not to mention the fact that the other European powers would in no way allow Germany to annex Denmark, the amount of access Germany could have with Denmark's naval area would be too much of a danger to England and Russia, and at the same time also giving them a reason to annex Greenland, which the US would not have been happy about.

>danes roleplay they were occupied

cooperation with nazis, volunteers to SS, no uprising, no nothing
you should have be handled like the axis, same for norgay

fucking fake westerners

We were actually very, very close to be put in the axis basket.
Only thing that saved us were the sailors that joined the allies, our mediocre resistance groups and that we saved the Jews by sailing them to Sweden.
We also did have an uprising.

Let's not try to pretend that the resistance was that serious, most of the time it was just kids hanging anti-nazi banners in their offices.

Absolutely. But it was serious enough that the Allies classified us as "allies" and not "axis".

But yeah, the Sailors and Rescue of the Jews probably was more influential.

...

Otto was not a nice man but he was the greatest statesman and diplomat of his time.

The Danes did fight the Germans, it made news when they figured out the initial skirmishes between the Germans and the Danes happened and the Germans covered it up.
Granted they did not fight tooth and nail, but why would they? They did not have a modern army, and Poland was brutally crushed, Denmark would have been destroyed.

DK was forced into Napoleons side after 1801 when the British bombarded Copenhagen after they refused to turn over their navy to the British-

completely flattened even