british attack copenhagen ww2

[b], Thus, on 7 September Peymann surrendered the fleet (eighteen ships of the line, eleven frigates, two smaller ships, two ship-sloops, seven brig-sloops, two brigs, one schooner and twenty-six gunboats). The reason for the targeting of the lower parts could be the obvious, that the planes aimed at the centre of the building to be sure to hit some of it. The Germans had also been quick to establish control over the bridge across the Little Belt, thus gaining access to the island of Funen. Mers el Kebir: Why the Royal Navy Sunk the French Fleet in WWII WW II: The World at War 1943 - euronet.nl Signing this treaty "in the name of the King" was a clear violation of his diplomatic powers, but Kauffmann argued that he would not receive orders from an occupied Copenhagen. All banknotes issued since the changeover date remain valid indefinitely; earlier ones are not valid. Militrmusikalske minder fra de slesvigske krige 1848-50 og 1864. The west wing collapsed and a fire started. Most of the building was destroyed, and the building was unusable after the street corner collapsed. On 12 August, the 32-gun Danish frigate Friderichsvrn sailed for Norway from Elsinor. HMS Rook attached to the British fleet), and a very large number of merchant or requisitioned ships carrying troops or supplies. Denmark was now at war with Britain, and a part of the Anglo-Danish conflict would be taken up by privateers. Although neutral, Denmark was under French pressure to pledge its fleet to Napoleon. Since the country has virtually no natural resources of its own it was very vulnerable to these price shocks and shortages. The Shellhus, or in English the Shell-building, was (and still is) situated near the centre of Copenhagen, 500 metres west of the Town hall. Did the British bomb a French school in Copenhagen? - Quora Operation Carthage, on 21 March 1945, was a British air raid on Copenhagen, Denmark during the Second World War which caused significant collateral damage. The occupation of Denmark was initially not an important objective for the German government. The Germans administered the rest of the country, and the Danish Parliament did not convene for the remainder of the occupation. Danish public opinion generally backed the new government, particularly after the fall of France in June 1940. [3], On the following day, a reconnaissance aircraft surveyed the target to assess the results. The Danish government refused to deal with the situation in a way that would satisfy the Germans, who presented an ultimatum to the government, including the following demands, on 28 August 1943: A ban on people assembling in public, outlawing strikes, the introduction of a curfew, censorship should be conducted with German assistance, special (German military) courts should be introduced, and the death penalty should be introduced in cases of sabotage. In comparison with other countries this is a relatively low mortality rate in the concentration camps. The references, in Danish, are as follows. [21], On 26 August, General Wellesley was detached with his reserve and two light brigades of British artillery, as well as one battalion, eight squadrons and one troop of horse artillery from the King's German Legion (KGL) to disperse a force which had been sent to relieve the beleaguered city. Operation Carthage, on 21 March 1945, was a controversial British air raid on Copenhagen, Denmark, during World War II. gte optagelser viser angrebet fra piloternes perspektiv", "Bombningen af Den Franske Skole blev redigeret ud af erindringen", "Attack on Gestapo Headquarters, Copenhagen, 21 March 1945", IWM Interview with RAF officer Edward Sismore, who participated in the raid, "The Bombing of the Shellhus on March 21, 1945", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Operation_Carthage&oldid=1157088298, Aerial operations and battles of World War II involving the United Kingdom, History of the Royal Air Force during World War II, Short description is different from Wikidata, Articles needing additional references from March 2015, All articles needing additional references, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 4.0, (DK in Danish, encyclopaedic) On the French School (encyclopedic), (DK in Danish, encyclopedic) On the Shell office building (encyclopedic), (DK in Danish) On the bombing of the French School, This page was last edited on 26 May 2023, at 06:14. In October 1942, Adolf Hitler transmitted a long, flattering birthday telegram to King Christian. "Nay, the fact that he has openly avowed such intention in an interview with the Emperor of Russia is brought to this country in such a way as it cannot be doubted. Learn about key WWII dates in this timeline of events, including when WW2 started and ended. The Gestapo had limited trust in the Danish police, which had a total 10,000 members;[41] 1,960 of these were arrested and deported to Germany on 19 September 1944. Within a week some 200 miles of coast had been secured and the Danish army in Holstein prevented from passing into Zealand to lend support. Nils Arne Srensen, "Narrating the Second World War in Denmark since 1945." For the most part, the refugees were from East Prussia and Pomerania. Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, however, was by that time convinced that some aggressive action ought to be taken; and Paul Reynaud, who succeeded douard Daladier as France's premier on March 21, was of the same opinion. The raid had destroyed the Gestapo headquarters and records, severely disrupting Gestapo operations in Denmark, as well as allowing the escape of 18 prisoners. At the Jeanne d'Arc School, 86 schoolchildren and 18 adults were killed, many of them nuns. A further "unsinkable" floating battery (Flaadebatteri No 1) of twenty-four 24-pound cannon was rendered inoperable and decommissioned the following year. The Battle Of Copenhagen 1807: What Happened? - HistoryExtra battleship Strasbourg escapes toward the open sea at right, and another old battleship, Bretagne, burns furiously in the background during the Royal Navy attack on the French fleet at Mers el Kebir. In 1945 alone, more than 13,000 people died, among them some 7,000 children under the age of five. Kaperbreve (letters of marque) were issued in Denmark and Norway[35] from 1807 to 1813copies of original letters of marque for the two ships Odin and Norges Statholder are included in this reference. At the time of the German capitulation there were about 250,000 German refugees in Denmark. There were many issues that they had to work out with Germany in the months after the occupation. Scavenius had a strict mandate not to change a sentence and stated that he would be unable to return to Copenhagen with a different content from the one agreed upon, but that he was willing to reopen negotiations to clarify the matter further. In return, the British undertook to leave Copenhagen within six weeks. The task fell to German diplomat Ernst von Weizscker to patch up a compromise. Historically, Denmark had a large amount of interaction with Germany. This had specified that Denmark only had police-like obligations. During years of occupation the Danish economy was more and more aligned on meeting German demands, which mainly meant agrarian products. A look at Kates sexuality and dating life, Things you should know about Miles Heizer, NetflixsTriptych: The shows bizarre real-life story, Is Bank of Dave a real bank? National Socialist Workers' Party of Denmark, History of Greenland Strategic importance, "The diaries: Quisling sealed Denmark's WWII fate", "Dan Hilfling Petersen: 9. april 1940 hele historien. It was carried out by the Royal Air Force (RAF), Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) and Royal New Zealand Air Force (RNZAF). The Dido's guns . Denmark in World War II - Wikipedia The principal belligerents were the Axis powersGermany, Italy, and Japanand the AlliesFrance, Great Britain, the United States, the Soviet Union, and, to a lesser extent, China. Prime Minister Stauning's notes from the day stated: The objective is a political positioning. The British, with continual blockade service against France and Spain, were particularly well drilled. During the first attack, a Mosquito hit a lamp post, damaging its wing and causing the aircraft to crash into a garage complex next to the Jeanne d'Arc School, about 1.6km (1mi) to the west-southwest of the target, setting it on fire. Although outnumbered and poorly equipped, Danish soldiers in several parts of the country put up resistance, most notably the Royal Guard in Copenhagen and units in South Jutland. The elderly French battleship Provence is shown under fire in the foreground, while the modern. [28], On 21 October, the British fleet left Copenhagen for the United Kingdom. The Danish underground supplied a photograph showing the building burning from end to end. 140 Wing RAF, comprising No. Few were ardent Nazis; some explored the economic possibilities of providing the German occupiers with supplies and goods; others eventually formed resistance groups towards the latter part of the war. Stauning agreed on these terms since it would effectively make the signing meaningless. Some sources estimate that about 360 Danes died in concentration camps. The target of the raid was the Shellhus, Gestapo headquarters, in the city centre, a building that had been used for the storage of dossiers and the torture of Danish citizens. Christopher F. Shores: 2nd Tactical Air Force, Osprey, England, 1970, 298 pages. 51 Drahy 2 yr. ago Yes, the Danish crown prince encouraged Norway to have a constitution to prevent Sweden from taking Norway. [6] He refused to publish the source because he said it would endanger their lives. As part of a controversial agreement reached by the German Commander General Georg Lindemann, the Danish Government and the British Armed Forces, German soldiers with experience in defusing mines would be in charge of clearing the mine fields. [citation needed], Contemporary Danish painting of the bombardment at night, An illustration by C.W. The production of new notes happened without the knowledge of the German forces located at the bank, and by the spring of 1945 the bank's stock of notes was sufficient to initiate the exchange. It is on the north side of Kampmandsgade between Nyrupsgade and Vester Farimagsgade (see map at right). Instead, Danish authorities established a camp-internal medical system with German medical personnel which took some time to work adequately. On August 8 the intensive phase began, when the Germans launched bombing raids involving up to nearly 1,500 aircraft a day and directed them against the British fighter airfields and radar stations. Some reports suggested that the Danes had secretly agreed to this. 0.4% of the Faroese population at the time. On 31 July, Napoleon ordered Talleyrand to tell Denmark to prepare for war against Britain or else Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte would invade Holstein. 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. Scavenius was a diplomat, not an elected politician, and had an elitist approach to government. The target of the raid was the Shellhus, a building in Copenhagen's city centre used by the Gestapo as their regional headquarters and which contained storage facilities for classified information along with housing interrogation chambers for captured members of the Danish resistance movement. Operation Carthage, on 21 March 1945, was a British air raid - Reddit On 29 June 1941, days after the invasion of the USSR, Free Corps Denmark (Danish: Frikorps Danmark) was founded as a corps of Danish volunteers to fight against the Soviet Union. [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. Battle of Copenhagen - Wikipedia I dag er det et af landets meste besgte historie hjemmesider med omkring 500 besgende om dagen. Phil Giltner has worked out that Germany had a "debt" of roughly 6.9 billion kroner to Denmark as a whole. 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. MP William Wilberforce said the expedition could be defended on grounds of self-defence. Battle of Copenhagen (1807), a British bombardment of Copenhagen to capture or destroy the Dano-Norwegian fleet See also 2000 UEFA Cup Final riots, a series of riots in City Hall Square, Copenhagen between fans of English football team Arsenal and Turkish side Galatasaray Many of the refugees were women, children, or elderly. [16] Many were killed and imprisoned because of their work resisting the German authorities. The Faroe Islands were repeatedly attacked by German aircraft, suffering minimal damage. [c], The following ships sailed with Gambier from England on 26 July 1807:[citation needed]. 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. The cabinet sent a car to pick up Scavenius at the ferry, to avoid keep him from needing to ride the train alone to Copenhagen. View of Kongens Nytorv in Copenhagen During the English Bombardment of Copenhagen at Night between 4 and 5 September 1807, C.W. The fire spread to the rest of the building and it burned down. [12], As a result of the cooperative attitude of the Danish authorities, German officials claimed that they would "respect Danish sovereignty and territorial integrity, as well as neutrality. Due to the relative ease of the occupation and copious amount of dairy products, Denmark earned the nickname the Cream Front (German: Sahnefront). According to Danish law, it was not illegal to join a foreign army, but active recruiting on Danish soil was illegal. The second step was to seize the Danish navy and, with its help, attack Northern Ireland. One week later he wrote: "Nothing ever was more brilliant, more salutary or more effectual than the success [at Copenhagen]" and Perceval expressed similar sentiments. On 15 August, Comus caught Friderichsvrn off Marstrand and captured her. If you wonder whether the Shell House existed in Nazi-occupied Denmark, the answer is yes. On the morning of 21 March 1945, a special force of Mosquitos from No 140 Wing took off Four Mosquito FB Mk.VIs of 487 Squadron from 140 Wing from an aerodrome in England to attack the Gestapo Headquarters in Copenhagen. The largest groups of fatalities were amongst Danish merchant sailors, who continued to operate throughout the war, most falling victim to submarines. Hitler also demanded that Erik Scavenius become prime minister, and all remaining Danish troops were ordered out of Jutland. Of these, 13,500 were punished in some way. On April 9, 1940, Germany attacked Denmark with all its might. William Cobbett in his Political Register wrote that it was "vile mockery" and "mere party cavilling" to claim that Denmark had the means to preserve her neutrality. [2], Britain's first response to Napoleon's Continental System was to launch a major naval attack on Denmark. 1 Mustang crashed in a park north of the Shellhus. 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. The bombers carried 44500 pound bombs. Finland accepted reluctantly on 25 November and stated that it presumed that Denmark would also attend the ceremony (effectively conditioning its own attendance). Denmark's strategic importance for Germany was limited. The Danish people were divided about what the best policy toward Germany might be. Most received prison sentences of under four years. German occupation (1940-1945) On the morning of 9 April 1940 Denmark was attacked by Germany. [10], Sixteen Danish soldiers died in the invasion,[citation needed] but after two hours the Danish government surrendered, believing that resistance was futile and hoping to work out an advantageous agreement with Germany. "[8] The German authorities were inclined towards lenient terms with Denmark for several reasons: their only strong interest in Denmark, that of surplus agricultural products, would be supplied by price policy on food rather than by control and restriction (some German records indicate that the German administration had not fully realized this potential before the occupation took place, which can be doubted);[13] German terror against Danish resistance fighters and civilians increased in these final months. Parliament and the government agreed to work closely together. Throughout the years of its hold on power, the government consistently refused to accept German demands regarding the Jews. [8], During the night of 21/22 July, Canning received intelligence from Tilsit that Napoleon had tried to persuade Alexander I of Russia to form a maritime league with Denmark and Portugal against Britain. After the war there was some effort to find and punish profiteers, but the consequences and scope of these trials were far less severe than in many other countries, largely a reflection of the general acceptance of the realistic need for cooperation with Germany. by Klaus Velschow The Shellhus, or in English the Shell-building, was (and still is) situated near the centre of Copenhagen, 500 metres west of the Town hall. Follow-on planes took the smoke for the target and dropped their bombs on it killing 125 civilians, including 86 children. Its territory and population were too small to hold out against Germany for any sustained period. The British bombing of Copenhagen resulted in 125 civilian deaths The Bombardment is based on the true story of a British bombing raid of Copenhagen in 1945. The Danish negotiators, led by secretary of state Nils Svenningsen[da], would only agree provided that approximately 4,000 Danish citizens, mainly policemen, who were being detained in German concentration camps, were liberated. Jrgen Hstrup (1979), "Departementschefstyret" in Hstrup, Jrgen; Kirchhoff, Hans; Poulsen, Henning; Petersen, Hjalmar (eds. Kryssing, Chief of the 5th Artillery reg., Holbk, has with the consent of the Royal Danish Government assumed command over 'Free Corps Denmark'". At the same time a large demonstration gathered outside of Parliament, which led the Minister of Justice, Eigil Thune Jacobsen[da] to remark that he did not like to see Danish police beating up students singing patriotic songs. The next crisis came when he was met by Renthe-Fink, who informed him that Ribbentrop had informed Fink that there had been a "misunderstanding" regarding the four clauses and that clause 2 would be deleted. Answer (1 of 2): Yes. 18 of the bombers were Mosquito F.B. The German debt had accumulated due to an arrangement with the Danish central bank, in which the German occupation forces could draw on a special account there to pay their bills from Danish suppliers. A small number of employees at the National Bank had clandestinely begun the production of new banknotes in late 1943. In addition, the British broke up or destroyed three 74-gun ships of the line on the stocks, along with two of the ships-of-the-fleet and two elderly frigates. A. N. Ryan, "The Causes of the British Attack upon Copenhagen in 1807. [18] Danish military officials also had access to sensitive German information, which they delivered to the Allies under government cover. [2] Thirty RAF Mustang fighters gave air cover from German aircraft and attacked anti-aircraft guns during the raid. World War II | Facts, Summary, History, Dates, Combatants, & Causes The building of the camp was for the sole purpose of keeping Danish Jews and other prisoners within Denmark's borders.[40]. By the end of 1944 the resistance-movement in Copenhagen was in danger of being rolled up by the Gestapo. [31], The opposition did not at first table a vote of censure on the battle and instead, on 3 February 1808, demanded the publication of all the letters sent by the British envoy in Denmark on information regarding the war-readiness of the Danish navy. [7], The reports of French diplomats and merchants in northern Europe made the British government uneasy, and by mid-July, the British believed that the French intended to invade Holstein in order to use Denmark against Britain. Operation Carthage bomb raid in Copenhagen 1945 This law allowed any Dane to exchange a total of 100 kroner to new notes, no questions asked. 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, four of which were the larger ships; two of the larger vessels had remained at safe harbour in Greenland. In addition to those named here, there were another three dozen smaller frigates, sloops, bomb vessels, gun-brigs and schooners (e.g. At first, the French refused to speak to negotiators. The British published a proclamation demanding the deposit of the Danish fleet; the Danes responded with "what amounted to a declaration of war". 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. It agreed that Kryssing should be removed in its meeting on 2 July 1941, but this decision was later withdrawn when Erik Scaveniuswho had not attended the original meetingreturned from negotiations and announced that he had reached an agreement with Renthe-Fink that soldiers wishing to join this corps could be given leave until further notice. Some 1,850 sailors died. Nonetheless, for Scavenius it was a strong setback that the four clauses would now only get the status of a unilateral Danish declaration (Aktennotitz) with a comment on it by Fink that its content "no doubt" was in compliance with the pact. Netflix released the movie on its streaming service in March 2022, as The Bombardment. Those negotiations failed on the question whether the Danish krone should be abolished.[42]. General Prior wanted to remove Kryssing and his designated second-in-command but decided to consult the cabinet. Inflation rose sharply in the first year of the war, as the German Army spent a large amount of German military currency in Denmark, most importantly on military installations and troop deployments. [38] Unencumbered by government opposition, sabotage increased greatly in frequency and severity, though it was rarely of very serious concern to the Germans. [citation needed], After the end of hostilities, over two thousand German prisoners of war were made to clear the vast minefields that had been laid on the west coast of Jutland, nearly half of them being either killed or wounded in the process. Officially remaining neutral throughout World War II, Iceland became a fully independent republic on 17 June 1944. George Canning's predecessor as Foreign Secretary, Lord Howick, had tried unsuccessfully to persuade Denmark into a secret alliance with Britain and Sweden. On 23 November, the Wehrmacht in Denmark was put on alert, and Renthe-Fink met Stauning and Foreign Minister Munch at 10 AM stating that there would be no room for "parliamentary excuses". William Leigh: "Did I not tell you we would save Plumstead from bombardment?" In 1809 there was a plan to give almost all of captured vessels more traditional British warship names, but this plan was later cancelled, and most Danish vessels retained their original names, or at least, anglicised versions thereof until they were broken up. [54] Some historians argue that the relatively accommodating policy which did not actively resist the occupation was the only realistic way of safeguarding Danish democracy and people. 23. BBC - WW2 People's War - The Liberation of Copenhagen, May 1945.

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