Strategically, Denmark's importance to Germany was as a staging area for operations in Norway, and also as a border nation to Germany which would have to be controlled in some way. Given Denmark's position on the
Baltic Sea, the country was also crucial for the control of naval and shipping access to major German and Soviet harbours.
At 04:00 on 9 April 1940, the German ambassador to Denmark,
Cecil von Renthe-Fink, called the Danish Foreign Minister
Peter Munch and requested a meeting with him. When the two men met 20 minutes later, Renthe-Fink declared that German troops were then moving in to occupy Denmark to protect the country from Franco-British attack. The German ambassador demanded that Danish resistance cease immediately and that contact be made between Danish authorities and the German armed forces. If the demands were not met, the
Luftwaffe would bomb the capital,
Copenhagen.
As the German demands were communicated, the first German advances had already been made, with forces landing by ferry in
Gedser at 03:55 and moving north. German
Fallschirmjäger units had made unopposed landings and taken two airfields at Aalborg, the
Storstrøm Bridge as well as the fortress of
Masnedø, the latter being the first recorded attack in the world made by paratroopers.
At 04:20 local time, a reinforced battalion of German infantrymen from the 308th Regiment landed in Copenhagen harbour from the minelayer
Hansestadt Danzig, quickly capturing the Danish garrison at
the Citadel without encountering resistance. From the harbour, the Germans moved toward
Amalienborg Palace to capture the Danish royal family. By the time the invasion forces arrived at the king's residence, the
King's Royal Guard had been alerted and other reinforcements were on their way to the palace. The first German attack on Amalienborg was repulsed, giving
Christian X and his ministers time to confer with the Danish Army chief
General Prior. As the discussions were ongoing, several formations of
Heinkel He 111 and
Dornier Do 17 bombers roared over the city dropping
leaflets headed, in Danish/Norwegian,
OPROP! (proclamation).
At 05:25, two squadrons of German
Messerschmitt Bf 110s attacked
Værløse airfield on
Zealand and neutralised the Danish Army Air Service by
strafing. Despite Danish
anti-aircraft fire, the German fighters destroyed ten Danish aircraft and seriously damaged another fourteen, thereby wiping out half of the entire Army Air Service
Faced with the explicit threat of the
Luftwaffe bombing the civilian population of Copenhagen, and with only General Prior in favour of fighting on, King Christian and the entire Danish government capitulated at approximately 06:00, in exchange for retaining political independence in domestic matters.
The invasion of Denmark lasted less than six hours and was the shortest military campaign conducted by the Germans during the war. The rapid Danish capitulation resulted in the uniquely-lenient
occupation of Denmark, particularly until the summer of 1943, and in postponing the arrest and
deportation of Danish Jews until nearly all of them were
warned and on their way to refuge in Sweden. In the end, 477 Danish Jews were deported, and 70 of them lost their lives, out of a pre-war total of Jews and half-Jews at a little over 8,000
Danish troops at Bredevad on the morning of the German attack. Two of these soldiers were
killed in action later that day.
