Soviet invasion of Denmark

The location
It can be accessed directly from the roiling plains of the North German Plain or by a short sea journey from Malmö in Sweden. Denmark was seen as as stepping stone between Sweden and Norway at one end and Germany on the other. This fact had become aware to military planners in the Nepolionc War and WW2.

Denmark is a agricultural fertile and climactic temperate place which is formed by the mid and upper Jutland, along with the Danish archipelago of 443 named islands and many smaller named ones, of which around 70 of the name ones are inhabited.

The Jutland Penisular is by nature a flat heathland with a hilly eatern side, costal plains on the western side and costal bogs. It has a poulation of 2,528,129 (2008). Chalk is mined at the Thingbaek Chalk Mines in the north of the peninsular.

The islands are characterised by flat, arable land and sandy coasts, low elevation and ether of sedimentary or morainic origin. Zealand Island is the most populous Danish island with a poulation of 2,491,090 (2012 est.), representing about 45% of the country's total population. Lolland Island has the nickname "pancake island" because of its flatness with the highest peak just outside the village of Horslunde standing at only 25 m (82 ft) high. The Nazis and Vikings had realised it's strategic value of the coast of Germany, as had the NATO and Warsaw Pact planners of the Cold War after them.

Sugar beet field cover Lolland Island. Clay is found at comercialy viable levels on the remote Bornholm Island.

As a fellow Nordic nation, Denmark shares strong cultural and historic ties with its overseas neighbours Sweden and Norway that date back to Viking times and the Danish Language is both very closely related and mutually intelligible with Swedish and Norwegian.

The Fearoe Islands are owned by and akin to Denmark since they are for the most part the direct decendents the orginal Viking settlers. The islands are made up of rugged heathland, scrubland, sharp mountais and steep cliffs.

The plan
Denmark was seen as as stepping stone between Sweden and Norway at one end and Germany on the other. This fact had become aware to military planners in the Nepolionc War and WW2. Lolland Island would be due to the strategic fact that the island had control of Danish waters on the Fermern Belt between Lolland Island and Rügen Island. In some Soviet attack plans, Sjælland was seen as a large stop-over and nautical stationing point for Warsaw Pact forces going on to Sweden and eventually Norway and the Norwegian harbours. These harbours were on the strategically important North Atlantic Ocean coast and control over the North Atlantic meant control over the essential and vital link between Europe, the UK, Iceland and the U.S.A., as the Nazis had correctly assumed in WW2.

CS and CR gas attacks in Denmark
A mid level Soviet military planner (reportedly a Kazakh) and a short while later an E. German military offical suggested a more softly-softly approach on Denmark, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. The E. German suggested in the late 1980s a terrorist attack on Copenhagen the day before with CS and CR gas as a show of strength.

The GDR invades Lolland Island
The leading East German invasion on Lolland Island would be due to the strategic fact that the island had control of Danish waters on the Fermern Belt between Lolland Island and Rügen Island.

Poland and then the GDR invade Sjælland (Zealand) Island
The attack on Sjælland would be implemented primarily by Polish forces supported by the navy and Marines of the GDR. Later any spare Soviet reserve forces would join in. E. Germany's army and airforce would be spending most of the time fighting in W. Germany. Polish Minister of Defence and later Communist  President of Poland, Wojciech Jaruzelski, singed of the last set of plans for invading Sjælland in 1970. The Poles knew there military units were undermanned and crappy which is really didn't think it was a feasible undertaking. Of particular concern mixing Polish and E. German naval amphibious forces with commandeered civilian shipping Poland and E. Germany, which in theory proved to be potentially a abject failure.

The Soviets take the Faroe Islands and Bornholm Island
Bornholm Island would be taken early on by Soviet para-troopers and marines.

The Faroes Would be

End game
Copenhagen, the American airbase at Karup and Esbjerg port would be hit with conventional carpet bombing. Denmark would be ordered to surrender after a couple of days in it had not already done so. More E. Germans and Soviets would arrive in order to back up the Poles and E. German advance guards.

NATO
The Island Command Faroes (ISCOMFAROES) was set up in 1961 to take the place of the 10 year old Faroes Marine District.

A NATO anti-aircraft radar base was operated on Mjørkadalur's cloudy and often very foggy mountain Sornfelli, at 749 meters above sea level, from 1963 to 2007. Marine Station at Hoyvíksvegur 58 was built in 1963.

One of the main tasks for the Danish forces in peacetime was to monitor the Soviet shipping traffic through the Danish belts and the the Skagerrak which linked between the Baltic Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. It was also the colonial power in Greenland and the Faeroe Islands.

Zealand (Sjælland) would in theory have held United Kingdom Mobile Force (UKMF) of 17,000 troops centred around a reinforced infantry brigade, 2 USMC brigades, at least 2 Danish mechanise or heavy brigades, 1 artillery regiment, 1 engineering regiment, 1 logistics regiment and circa 20,000 home guards guarding key infrastructure.

Danish Brigade in Schleswig-Holstein and a minor Danish based unit of the British Army of the Rhine (BAOR). the American airbase at Karup.

The Almegårds Kaserne is Bornholm Island's local armed forces base.

Warsaw Pact
'' Poland and later the GDR attacks Sjælland (Zealand) Island. ''


 * 1) 1 GDR Marine regalement
 * 2) 1 Polish Landing Davison
 * 3) 1 Polish airborne Division
 * 4) 2 Soviet Army Divisions (if available)

'' The GDR would attack Lolland Island. ''


 * 1) 1 GDR Marine regalement
 * 2) 1 GDR engineering regiment

The Soviets attacks the Faroes and Bornholm Soviet para-troopers and marines.

The first nukes
Assuming Denmark had not surrendered, which it would have done in the face of overwhelming odds like in WW2 and the Cold War nuke would have got in to the military equation at that point. After a few days Roskildein Denmark would be targeted for its cultural and historical significance demoralise them, while Esbjerg port would be targeted because it had a large harbour capable of facilitating delivery of large NATO reinforcements. The American airbase at Karup was also a target for either nukes and/or conventional carpet bombing. Copenhagen would have only conventional carpet bombing.

The next 57 to 75 nukes
If Denmark had not folded up in a few days, some say about a week, then it was to be total eradicated due to it's strategic value to the NATO forces. The ownership of the waters of the Skagerrak, Fermern Belt and Baltic Sea was seen as a major strategic issue in a East-West War, just as it had been in World War 2.

Danish-Soviet cold war history
The Soviet occupation of Bornholm Island was from 1945 to 1946.

On 7 July 1952, Denmark chose to hand over the Danish-built tanker Apsheron to the USSR, which faced protests from it's opponents in the USA.

Denmark and the Soviet Union signed a trade agreement on 24 October 1969.

Denmark economically sanctioned Poland and the Soviet Union after the declaring of the Martial law in Poland in 1981, but in March 1983, Denmark was the first country in the then European Economic Community, to end the sanctions against the reforming Soviet Union.

Nikita Khrushchev's personal perspective on Denmark
Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev visited Denmark from 16 June to 21 June 1964 and he fell in love with the nation. He liked the agricultural life style, nice scenery and benevolent people!

In the parallel in-game universe
There is a major government command and control centre in a bomb proof bunker under the city of Aalborg.

Also see

 * Operation Square Leg (1980) and Exercise Hard Rock (1982)
 * Germany's Fulda Gap
 * Swedish pseudo-neutrality
 * The Swiss National Redoubt (1880-2010)
 * French nuclear plans and the Force de Dissuasion
 * North German Plain
 * Finnish pseudo-neutrality
 * Operation Northern Norway
 * The southern Danube route
 * Soviet/NATO invasion of Finland
 * The week of war policy
 * Operation Gladio
 * Greece, Turkey and southern Italy
 * Cold War secret police organisations
 * How Governments become Authoritarian
 * Nations in 1988
 * Nations in 1991
 * O.T.L. history notes
 * Today's OTL types of economies, societies and regimes
 * Why the USSR broke up in reality

Online links

 * 1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Days_to_the_River_Rhine
 * 2) http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/operation_eclipse.htm
 * 3) http://coldwarsites.net/country/denma
 * 4) http://repository.tamu.edu/bitstream/handle/1969.1/6465/Corbin%20Williamson%20Fellows%20Thesis.pdf?sequence=1
 * 5) http://www.dupi.dk/webdocs/attack_plan.jpg
 * 6) http://www.strategypage.com/militaryforums/44-379.aspx#startofcomments
 * 7) http://www.isn.ethz.ch/php/index.htm
 * 8) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denmark%E2%80%93Soviet_Union_relations
 * 9) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zealand
 * 10) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denmark
 * 11) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jutland
 * 12) http://www.paradata.org.uk/units/216-parachute-signal-squadron
 * 13) http://www.showcaves.com/english/misc/mines/Thingbaek.html
 * 14) http://jacobsurland.smugmug.com/Landscapes/Travelling-in-HDR/i-dmHzfQc/A
 * 15) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lolland
 * 16) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bornholm
 * 17) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_Command_Faroes
 * 18) http://www.panoramio.com/photo/42618435
 * 19) https://www.defencetalk.com/forums/military-strategy-tactics/hypothetical-cold-war-invasion-10807/
 * 20) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasion_of_Iceland