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.
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der Issue 136-Ausgabe von History of War.
Starten Sie Ihre 7-tägige kostenlose Testversion von Magzter GOLD, um auf Tausende kuratierte Premium-Storys sowie über 8.000 Zeitschriften und Zeitungen zuzugreifen.
Bereits Abonnent ? Anmelden
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der Issue 136-Ausgabe von History of War.
Starten Sie Ihre 7-tägige kostenlose Testversion von Magzter GOLD, um auf Tausende kuratierte Premium-Storys sowie über 8.000 Zeitschriften und Zeitungen zuzugreifen.
Bereits Abonnent? Anmelden
NAUMACHIA TRUTH BEHIND ROME'S GLADIATOR SEA BATTLES
In their quest for evermore novel and bloody entertainment, the Romans staged enormous naval fights on artificial lakes
OPERATION MANNA
In late April 1945, millions of Dutch civilians were starving as Nazi retribution for the failed Operation Market Garden cut off supplies. eet as In response, Allied bombers launched a risky mission to air-drop food
GASSING HITLER
Just a month before the end of WWI, the future Fuhrer was blinded by a British shell and invalided away from the frontline. Over a century later, has the artillery brigade that launched the fateful attack finally been identified?
SALAMANCA
After years of largely defensive campaigning, Lieutenant General Arthur Wellesley went on the offensive against a French invasion of Andalusia
HUMBERT 'ROCKY'VERSACE
Early in the Vietnam War, a dedicated US Special Forces officer defied his merciless Viet Cong captors and inspired his fellow POWs to survive
LEYTE 1944 SINKING THE RISING SUN
One of the more difficult island campaigns in WWII's Pacific Theatre saw a brutal months-long fight that exhausted Japan’s military strength
MAD DAWN
How technology transformed strategic thinking and military doctrine from the Cold War to the current day
BRUSHES WITH ARMAGEDDON
Humanity came close to self-annihilation with the Cuban Missile Crisis, Broken Arrows’ and other nuclear near misses
THE DEADLY RACE
How the road to peace led to an arms contest between the USA and USSR, with prototypes, proliferation and the world’s biggest bomb
THE MANHATTAN PROJECT
Einstein, Oppenheimer and the race to beat Hitler to the bomb. How a science project in the desert helped win a war
