What happened thereafter is described in a dispatch from the British Minister in Copenhagen to the British Foreign Secretary (1627). That dispatch reads:

"The actual events of the 9th April have been pieced together by members of my staff from actual eye- witnesses or from reliable information subsequently received and are given below. Early in the morning towards 5 o'clock three small German transports steamed into the approach to Copenhagen harbor, whilst a number of airplanes circled overhead. The northern battery, guarding the harbor approach, fired a warning shot at these planes when it was seen that they carried German markings. Apart from this, the Danes offered no further resistance, and the German vessels fastened alongside the quays in the Free Harbor. Some of these airplanes proceeded to drop leaflets over the town urging the population to keep calm and cooperate with the Germans. I enclose a specimen of this leaflet, which is written in a bastard Norwegian-Danish, a curiously un-German disregard of detail, together with a translation: Approximately 800 soldiers landed with full equipment, and marched to Kastellet, the old fortress of Copenhagen and now a barracks. The door was locked, so the Germans promptly burst it open with explosives and rounded up all the Danish soldiers within, together with the womenfolk employed in the mess. The garrison offered no resistance, and it appears that they were taken completely by surprise. One officer tried to escape in a motor car, but his chauffeur was shot before they could get away. He died in hospital two days later. After seizing the barracks, a detachment was sent to Amalienborg, the King's palace, where

[Page 754]

they engaged the Danish sentries on guard, wounding three, one of them fatally. Meanwhile, a large fleet of bombers flew over the city at low altitudes."

"

*******

"It has been difficult to ascertain exactly what occurred in Jutland. It is clear, however, that the enemy invaded Jutland from the south at dawn on the 9th April and were at first resisted by the Danish forces, who suffered casualties. The chances of resistance were weakened by the extent to which the forces appear to have been taken by surprise. The chief permanent official of the Ministry of War, for instance, motored into Copenhagen on the morning of the 9th April and drove blithely past a sentry who challenged him, in blissful ignorance that this was not one of his own men. It took a bullet, which passed through the lapels of his coat, to disillusion him." (D-627)

The German memorandum to the Norwegian and Danish governments spoke of the German desire to maintain the territorial integrity and political independence of those two small countries. Two documents indicate the kind of territorial integrity and political independence the Nazi conspirators contemplated for the victims of their aggression. An entry in Jodl's diary for 19 April reads:

"Renewed crisis. Envoy Braver is recalled: since Norway is at war with us, the task of the Foreign Office is finished. In the Fuehrer's opinion, force has to be used. It is said that Gauleiter Terboven will be given a post. Field Marshal [presumably a reference to Goering] is moving in the same direction. He criticizes as defects that we didn't take sufficiently energetic measures against the civilian population, that we could have seized electrical plant, that the Navy didn't supply enough troops. The Air Force can't do everything." (1809-PS)

It will be seen from that entry and the reference to Gauleiter Terboven that already by 19 April, rule by Gauleiters had replaced rule by Norwegians.

A memorandum dated 3 June 1940, signed by Fricke, at that date the head of the Operations Division of the German Naval War Staff, which was a key appointment in the very nerve center of German naval operations, relates to questions of territorial expansion and bases (C-41). It reads:

[Page 755]

"These problems are preeminently of a political character and comprise an abundance of questions of a political type, which it is not the Navy's province to answer, but they also materially affect the strategic possibilities open -- according to the way in which this question is answered -- for the subsequent use and operation of the Navy.

"It is too well known to need further mention that Germany's present position in the narrows of the Heligoland Bight and in the Baltic -- bordered as it is by a whole series of States and under their influence - - is an impossible one for the future of Greater Germany. If, over and above this, one extends these strategic possibilities to the point that Germany shall not continue to be cut off for all time from overseas by natural geographical facts, the demand is raised that somehow or other an end shall be put to this state of affairs at the end of the war.

"The solution could perhaps be found among the following possibilities.

"1. The territories of Denmark, Norway and Northern France acquired during the course of the war continue to be so occupied and organized that they can in future be considered as German possessions.

"This solution will recommend itself for areas where the severity of the decision tells, and should tell, on the enemy and where a gradual 'Germanizing' of the territory appears practicable.

"2. The taking over and holding of areas which have no direct connection with Germany's main body, and which, like the Russian solution in Hango, remain permanently as an enclave in the hostile State. Such areas might be considered possibly around Brest and Trondjem.

"3. The power of Greater Germany in the strategic areas acquired in this war should result in the existing population of these areas feeling themselves politically, economically and militarily to be completely dependent on Germany. If the following results are achieved -- that expansion is undertaken (on a scale I shall describe later) by means of the military measures for occupation taken during the war, that French powers of resistance (popular unity, mineral resources, industry, Armed Forces) are so broken that a revival must be considered out of the question, that the smaller States such as the Netherlands, Denmark and Norway are forced into a

[Page 756]

dependence on us which will enable us in any circumstances and at any time easily to occupy these countries again, then in practice the same, but psychologically much more, will be achieved." (C-41 )

Then Fricke recommends:

"The solution given in 3, therefore, appears to be the proper one, that is, to crush France, to occupy Belgium, part of North and East France, to allow the Netherlands, Denmark and Norway to exist on the basis indicated above."

*******

"Time will show how far the outcome of the war with England will make an extension of these demands possible." (C-41)

The submission of the prosecution is that that and other documents which have been submitted tear apart the veil of Nazi pretense. These documents reveal the menace behind the good-will of Goering; they expose as fraudulent the diplomacy of Ribbentrop; they show the reality behind the ostensible political ideology of tradesmen in treason like Rosenberg; and finally and above all they render sordid the professional status of Keitel and of Raeder.

The original plaintext version of this file is available via ftp.

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