SCANDINAVIA UNDER ATTACK

Hitler’s forces smash through Denmark and Norway ina grim foretaste of the terrible fate awaiting the rest of Western Europe

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At 3:55am on 9 April 1940, German forces landed by ferry in Gedser in Denmark and moved north. German Fallschirmjäger units, meanwhile, had made unopposed landings taking Aalborg Airfield, the Storstrøm Bridge and the fortress of Masnedø. At 4am, the German ambassador to Denmark, Cécil von Renthe-Fink, phoned the Danish Foreign Minister Peter Munch to explain the situation. German troops were in the process of occupying Denmark to protect the country from an Allied attack. He demanded that Danish forces stand down to enable talks about the country’s future. Failure to do so, he explained, would result in the destruction of the Danish capital Copenhagen by aerial bombing.

Shortly afterwards, at 4:20am, a battalion of German infantry from the 308th Regiment landed by sea in Copenhagen harbour. They swiftly overran the Danish garrison there before advancing on Amalienborg Palace with the aim of capturing the Danish Royal Family. The King’s Royal Guard fought off the Germans’ initial attack and, as the Danish King Christian X and his advisors pondered what to do next, propaganda leaflets were dropped over the capital demanding immediate compliance.