The "model protectorate" During the
invasion of Denmark on April 9, 1940 and subsequent
occupation, the Danish king and government chose not to flee the country and instead collaborated with the German authorities who allowed the Danish government to remain in power. The Germans had reasons to do so, especially as they wanted to showcase Denmark as a "model
protectorate", earning the nickname
the Cream Front (), due to the relative ease of the occupation and copious amount of dairy products. As the
democratically elected Danish government remained in power, Danish citizens had less motivation to fight the occupation than in countries where the Germans established puppet governments, such as
Norway or
France. The
police also remained under Danish authority and led by Danes. Daily life in Denmark remained much the same as before the occupation. The Germans did make certain changes: imposing official
censorship, prohibiting dealings with the
Allies, and stationing German troops in the country. The Danish government actively discouraged violent resistance because it feared a severe backlash from the Germans against the civilian population.
Resistance groups Immediately after the occupation began, isolated attempts were made to set up resistance and intelligence activities. Intelligence officers from the Danish army, known as the "Princes," began channeling reports to
London allies as early as April 13, 1940. Soon afterwards,
Ebbe Munck, a journalist from
Berlingske Tidende, arranged to be transferred to
Stockholm. From there he could more easily report to and communicate with the British. Following Germany's
invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941 the Germans banned the
Danish Communist Party and had the Danish police arrest its members. Those members who either avoided arrest or later escaped thus went underground and created resistance
cells. From October 1942, they published a clandestine newspaper,
Land og Folk ("Land and People"), based on the previous Communist Party newspaper,
Arbejderbladet, which was distributed widely across the country.
Circulation grew to 120,000 copies per day by the end of the occupation. At the beginning of 1943, the cells were centrally coordinated under
BOPA (
Borgerlige Partisaner – Civil Partisans), which also began to plan acts of sabotage. As time went on, many other
insurgent groups formed to oppose the occupation. These included the
Hvidsten group, which received weapons parachuted by the British, and
Holger Danske, which was successful in organizing
sabotage activities and the assassinations of
collaborators. The
Churchill club, one of the first resistance groups in Denmark, was a group of eight schoolboys from
Aalborg. They performed some 25 acts of sabotage against the Germans, destroying Nazi German assets with makeshift grenades and stealing Nazi German weapons. When the Germans forced the Danish government to sign the
Anti-Comintern Pact, a large
protest broke out in
Copenhagen. The number of Danish
Nazis was low before the war, and this trend continued throughout the occupation. This was confirmed in the
1943 parliamentary elections, in which the population voted overwhelmingly for the four traditional parties, or abstained. The latter option was widely interpreted as votes for the Danish Communist Party. The election was a disappointment for the
National Socialist Workers' Party of Denmark (DNSAP) and German
Reichsbevollmächtigter. Dr.
Werner Best abandoned plans to create a government under Danish Nazi leader
Frits Clausen, due to Clausen's lack of public support. Helping fan the flames of resistance, Danish writers did their bit.
Karen Blixen, AKA Isak Dinesen, wrote the book
Gengældelsens veje (translated into English as
The Angelic Avengers) under the pseudonym Pierre Andrézel during the occupation. In 1942–43, resistance operations gradually shifted to more violent action, most notably acts of sabotage. Various groups succeeded in making contacts with the British
Special Operations Executive (SOE) which began making airdrops of agents and supplies. There were not many drops until August 1944, but they increased through the end of the occupation. In total throughout the war, over 600 tons of weapons, equipment and explosives were airdropped to the Danish resistance by the Allies, while fifty-three SOE agents were dispatched to Denmark.
Military intelligence operations On 23 April 1940, members of Danish military intelligence established contacts with their British counterparts through the British diplomatic mission in Stockholm. The first intelligence dispatch was sent by messenger to the Stockholm mission in the autumn of 1940. This evolved into regular dispatches of military and political intelligence, and by 1942–43, the number of dispatches had increased to at least one per week. == Violent resistance: 1943–1945 ==