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 Napoleonic Wars 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, which also has many sandy beaches. Clay is found at commercially viable levels on the remote Bornholm Island. The Isle of Møn is made almost entirely of chalk. The tiny, ovoid and completely flat Vejrø island lies north of Lolland island. It covers an area of only 1.57 km² and has two inhabitants as of 2005. It had a privately run tourist site, cottages and marina as of 2005.

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. Fearoes is related like wise with Icelandic and some Norwegian dialects.

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

The plan


Denmark was seen as as stepping stone between Sweden and Norway at one end and Germany from Sweden and Norway 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. Copenhagen was historicity important as a port and had been fraught over in the 1801 Battle of Copenhagen and the 1807 Battle of Copenhagen. 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. The Islands of Møn and Falster were to be shelled by a E. German warship to help cover the E. German and Polish landings.

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 was mixing the Polish and E. German naval amphibious forces' vessels with commandeered civilian shipping Poland and E. Germany, which in theory proved to beat best mediocre and in certain circumstances a potential for an abject failure.

The Soviets take the Faroe Islands, North Jutland and Bornholm Island

 * 1) Bornholm Island would be taken early on by Soviet paratroopers and marines.
 * 2) North Jutland would be taken later on by Soviet paratroopers.
 * 3) The Faroes would be taken later on by Soviet paratroopers and marines.
 * 4) A Ekranoplan would also be used here if they had lived up to expectorations.

The end game
North Jutland had only 1 Danish patrol boat on active duty. North Jutland was to be taken by Soviet paratroopers. Copenhagen, the American airbase at Karup and Esbjerg port would also be hit with conventional carpet bombing.

After this, Denmark would be ordered to surrender after a couple of days if 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.

The Soviet invasion of Iceland and the Faroe Islands would then occur. This would only require a few gunboats and paratroopers since the Icelandic Armed Coastguard, Fraeroese Police Force and the small detachment of American troops in Iceland would be easily overcome due to their lack of numbers.

Eventually the Soviet invasion of Greenland would occur to prevent a Danish goverment in exile forming, assuming the American air bases had not already secured the island for NATO.

Denmark
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, a  patrol boat and circa 20,000 home guards guarding key infrastructure.

North Jutland had 1 Danish patrol boat on costant patrole.

Danish Brigade in Schleswig-Holstein and a minor Danish based unit of the British Army of the Rhine (BAOR). The were also the American airbases at Arboug, Athurst and Karup.

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

Faroe Islands
The Island Command Faroes (ISCOMFAROES) was set up in 1961 to take the place of the 10 year old Faroes Marine District. It supported the local government with military advice as well as search and rescue capabilities. The Fraeroese Police Force was unarmed at this time and probably still is since crime is minimal on the islands.

Island Command Faroes was amalgamated with Island Command Greenland to a Joint Arctic Command on 31 October.

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.

Marine Station at Hoyvíksvegur 58 was built in 1963 as the new home of the Faroe Islands Command, which until 1979 consisted of command authority (Faroe Command), Marine Station Hoyvíksvegur 58 and Naval Radio Tórshavn.

By what I can gather, the converted trawler come patrol Boat Saman was docked in Tórshavn from 1944 to 1947. It was scrapped shortly afterwards.

Warsaw Pact
'' Poland and later the GDR attacks Sjælland (Zealand) Island. ''
 * 1 GDR Marine regalement
 * 1 Polish Landing Davison
 * 1 Polish Airborne Division
 * 2 Soviet Army Divisions (if available)
 * Obviosly several low grade Polish, GDR and USSR vessels for support and transport duties.

'' The GDR would attack Lolland Island. ''
 * 1 GDR Marine regalement
 * 1 GDR Engineering regiment

'' Møn and Falster Islands. ''
 * 1 or 2 unspecified E. German war ships

'' The Soviets would attack North Jutland. ''
 * Unspecified Soviet paratroopers.

'' The Soviets would attack Bornholm Island. ''
 * Unspecified Soviet paratroopers and marines.

'' The Soviets would attack The Faroes. ''
 * Unspecified Soviet paratroopers and marines.
 * I also asume a couple of Soviet patrole boats would have helped out as well.

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 airbases at Arboug, Athurst and Karup was also a target for either smaller 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 as of 1983.

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
 * Warsaw Pact
 * NATO

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
 * 21) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vejr%C3%B8 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vejr%C3%B8
 * 22) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_Command_Faroes