How the West Prevented a Soviet Invasion of Denmark | May 1945
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- Опубликовано: 12 сен 2024
- In early May 1945, as the war in Europe drew to a close, the troops of the British 6th Airborne Division received special orders; race through enemy territory and seize the German city of Wismar to prevent the Soviet Red Army sweeping through and invading Denmark.
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- Reflection by Oliver Michael
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As a matter of fact, the Soviets did capture and occupy the Danish island of Bornholm which is situated in the Baltic Sea, quite a bit east of the rest of Denmark. They only reluctantly left the island in 1946 after considerable international pressure. During the Cold War, it became an important NATO asset because of its forward position, sandwiched in between neutral Sweden and the Warszawa pact countries of Eastern Germany, Poland and the Baltic countries.
now that would be an interesting documentary tale to show.
"neutral" Sweden
And Rønne and Nexø, which are the two biggest cities on Bornholm, was bombed by the soviets on the 7th and 8th of May while the rest of Denmark was celebrating the liberation.
So there is hope after all
Excellent intro to the seldom explored topic of Stalin's aspiration to take the European continent.
They've wanted to control the whole Baltic Sea since Peter the Great.
Compared to Western interests to send troops to Greece during the latter stages of the war even thought the germans had left and Greece was never one of Stalin's objective BUT you can't have greek communists take over thought Churchill. So much for allowing each country to decide its future govenrment.
@@ishitunot5152 Poppycock.
Stalin's IMMEDIATE interests didn't include Greece precisely because there was already a communist apparatus undermining that country, and he had bigger fish t fry just then.
Allowing communists to take over ANY country is inimical to "allowing each country to decide its future govenrment" since people making a free choice wouldn't choose to have 20% or more of their poulation wiped out as a necessary pre requisite to communist consollidation of power, to be follwed by an absolutely Orwellian surveillance state.
@@ishitunot5152communist Greece is a disgusting thought
@@ishitunot5152The Greeks were British allies at the start of the war, hence the allied assistance in the reconquest of their nation.
The invasion of Denmark is pretty well covered in Danish history lessons but I had no idea the Russians had invasion plans for Denmark. Interesting video.
They would be able to control everything in and out of the Baltic sea, if they invaded us. That's why they took the island of Bornholm and didn't leave untill 1946.
@@phunkeehone psss someone took the island of Iceland and didn't return it till this day
@@phunkeehone I didn't know that! You're lucky you got it back! Japan still complains about the Sakhalins.
they did invade bornholm and kept it for a year.
This June my wife and I retraced the route of 1 Can Para from their D-Day drop zone in Normandy, through Holland, Belgium and Germany, ending in Wismar. My father was a Private in the 1st Canadian Parachute Battalion. He was 20 years, 4 months old on VE Day in Wismar.
My friend, Trp. Joe Thomas, was WIA (wounded in action) June 6th during D-Day. Joe was noted in the war diary of the 1CPB for his piano playing and that it was a shame that he lost his arm.
We are forever grateful to your father and Canada for saving us from soviet occupation.
@@landersen8173 Thank you for your kind thoughts.
The British and Canadians save many both Wismar and Denmark civilian lives from the Soviets plot to invade Denmark great video.
I always wondered if Churchill pressured Montgomery to do Operation Market Garden in the hopes of pushing into Northern Germany quicker, he was really looking ahead to curtail Soviet domination of central Europe and if Stalin had reached Denmark first he could've controlled access to the Baltic Sea.
Market Garden was not Montgomery's operation. His plan to take the bridges had been shelved, but was resurrected and revised by the Americans with more ambitious objectives than Montgomery's.
Wismar recognized the role Canadians played with a plaque on the side of the town hall
I would like to inform that in the same period, The Danish brigade was getting ready in South Sweden to land in Sjælland and free it from the Germans
It would have been disgraceful if they had done that.
@@tonyhunter1892 why?
@@kiankier7330 Sitting in a neutral country and doing SFA to aid the war effort, and then jumping in to claim the glory?
@@tonyhunter1892
A) I would not call Sweden a neutral country
B) The Brigade was made not for glory, but to help the liberation of Denmark by using some of "refugee" in Sweden
C) The brigade did land in Denmark OTL 1945 May 5
@@kiankier7330 A. It doesn't matter what you refer to Sweden as, it was officially a neutral country regardless of its collaboration with the Nazis.
B. Maybe not set up for glory, but for them to swoop in from the safety of a neutral country and "liberate" their country from an already surrendered army, after doing absolutely nothing to facilitate said surrender would have been a disgrace.
C. Do you have a source that the Danish Brigade actually landed on the 5th May?
D. The Brigade would have been better used to retake Bornholm.
Good interceptions by the Brits of the Russians.
If they wanted the place we would have been but a bump in the road
@@shanequeen5003 sure but soviet would be nuked
@@Flamechr with what go learn history b4 writing something
@@shanequeen5003 The nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki occurred only months after VE-day. In an alternate reality were soviets and allies became hostile immediately after VE-day, it's not unthinkable that Little Boy or Fat Man would've instead been dropped on a soviet target. If not that, then the infrastructure (uranium enrichment and plutonium breeding) put up during the Manhattan Project would produce another two nuclear bombs in summer 1946 (see: operation crossroads).
@@Flamechr in 1945? How?
When I was a school kid we had a veteran from the 51st Division, Black Watch as a teacher. A truly great guy. He told us one day that the order came through to drive as fast as possible to the Baltic. He said there was no opposition from the Germans.
Brilliant work lads!
Thank you for your research and sharing of this video - little known facts of how close we were to the Red Army pushing through, calmer heads prevailed and Operation Eclipse was a success only to be turned over to the Soviets until 1990. Cheers and take care
and Brits are eternally grateful for all the Canadians gave us!
I appreciate that you have excerpts from the regimental diaries
There are lot of pictures of the 1st Royal Dragoons that went on to Liberate Denmark after the the 4th May. Most Germans had already been arrested by home forces, so it was just a matter of showing their presence in the major cities.
thankyou.
some things are worth fighting for...and others is having a drink over.
Very interesting video, never heard of this. I wish Communism never took over Russia....
Same. Would have probably saved tens of millions of lives throughout the world...
I once heard someone comment years ago...that the psychopaths change their name and became the communists?
@@Foreign0817If Communism and Socialism never came to be, there would be approximately 170 million people who did not have their lives cut short by their own governments.
@@Tone-defLeft ist ideology is psychopathic.
@@cbbees1468 True, the only """"good"""" side was that they had a better chance at fighting the Germans in 1941. I say in quotation marks because Gulags, Massacres etc.
Denmark owes the Canadians a debt of gratitude which should last for generations. This American Soldier is cheered by this story of Canadian Valor. 🇨🇦
we dont owe anybody shit
@@stevencigar9897 we can thank alot of people who is not us, for the freedom we have today thats just facts but i think we settled the '''debt'' with canada with all the ''gammel dansk'' we left them at hans island :P
@@Bisgaard91 sure we can thank their grandfathers and what not but like i said we dont "owe" anybody anything. besides the "freedom" youre talking about, didnt really apply to Denmark as we were arguably the best treated out of everybody in ww2.
and also lets not forget this happened awhile ago, should americans still suck off the french because they helped them during the war of independence ? seems a bit silly
@@Bisgaard91 For those not knowing, we Danes had a long time and intense War with Canada, fighting hard and "Dirty" for the possession of an Island in a border stream to Greenland: Hans Ø (only visible during Summer)! The War finally became ended in a Decent Way, with an Agreement, splitting the Island in two parts!
I read somewhere,possibly in a book about the gulags that Russian troops who met with Americans,Brits,Canadians ended up being arrested and sent to the labour camps
Thank you for researching and sharing this knowledge with the world. As a Dane I am surprised to learn that the soviet armies were so dedicated to invade Denmark and so close to do so. The Danish people should be even more grateful to Canada and Great Britain for this accomplishment in the end of World War Two, not only liberating us from the Nazi regime but also from becoming another satellite of the USSR. In view of the political developments after the collapse of socialism in 1989 in what became East Europe (and the unbearable sufferings until then), I am glad that the liberation armies my grandparents cheered in May 1945 were British, not Soviet.
Very few Danes know just how close Denmark came to being "liberated" by the Soviet troops in those early days of May 1945. We owe a great measure of gratitude to the 6th Airborne Division for stalling the advance of the Soviet troops in Wismar in those crucial days and hours. Post war Denmark would have been a VERY different place if the Soviets had been our overlords!
Sir…….
As always……. Be bow in gratitude for what you have done and for your posts
Lest we forget x
Churchill once said he'd say a favorable word about the Devil in the House of Commons if Hitler invaded Hell. Well, we ended up supplying the Devil when Hitler invaded the USSR. The enemy of your enemy, I guess.
Look at all the material help the US gave Chiang Kai-Shek. His Kuomintang was every bit as fascist as Mussolini's or the Nazis, but more corrupt than both. Made no sense. His contribution to the war effort was in the negative.
Which we are extremely happy and humbled by in Denmark.. it would have been 42 years in absolute misery.
The soviets did stay on the island of Bornholm for a full 20 months.
Until the danish government actually said something against the mighty red bolsheviks
Fascinating. I love your work. Please keep it up.
My father served with 6th Airborne’s airborne light artillery regiment as part of the FO team. He was in Wismar during the confrontation with the Russians and told me that they had a problem with drunken Russians trying to enter Wismar to ‘entertain’ local women. It ended in a minor firefight, which is one reason why Montgomery turned up to meet the Russian commander to calm the situation down. I understand that many civilians used the Division’s occupation of the town to move west and away from the Russian area of occupation. In memory of my father, I visited Wismar some years ago and stood in the main town square that is featured in some of the photographs in this video. PS. I understand that news of the VE-Day celebrations - especially those in London - did not go down well with the frontline troops who were facing the Russians.
Great overall video! It taught most viewers, including myself, something we didn't already know. Thank you!
I’d also like to add that the Soviets did eventually make it to Denmark in May of 1945. They took over the eastern Danish island of Bornholm from the Germans and oddly stayed around for a while longer than they were welcomed (read: occupied). However, they eventually left about a year later in April 1946.
Excellent. Thank you.
Brings up an interesting "what if" scenario for an alternate timeline. What if Denmark had found itself behind the Iron Curtain and become an eventual member of the Warsaw Pact.
Thanks guys
The 1st Canadian Parachute Battalion also played a role
Good interceptions by the Brits of the ra pi s ts .
I used to listen to Shortwave radio. On the 40th anniversary of the end of the war I listened to the the English broadcast of Radio Moscow. It's story was that the Capitalist armies had rushed into the countries which had been "nazi" controlled to deny the victors of the Great Patriotic War which it was their right to possess after the Soviet Union had won the war, in order to rescue their Nazi allies.
We knew back then who the Soviets really were, and what they were doing to the conquered people they had overrun. Later, we learned what Stalin did to every POW the Germans had captured and then "liberated," along with those who had joined the Axis to fight. Apparently all were executed as it was considered that to surrender was treason against Stalin. The number is put at some 6,000,000. The brutality of the Soviets was such that even though the fighting agains the Axis powers was over in August, 1945, the U.S. Army did not declare WW2 over until 1950.
And yet Russians use their number of losses to glorify their war effort. As if half of those casualties weren't caused indirectly or even killed by the Soviet regime and enforcers. Worse, many of those weren't even Russians to begin with.
It's worth mentioning that while Soviet troops didn't make it to mainland Denmark, they did occupy Bornholm, the eastern most danish island, for about a year before leaving.
It just shows the Soviets agressvive expansionism!Dennmark did nothing to them was far to the west and didnt really have communist but they just wanted it because they wanted as much terrritory for themselves.
Great coup by the Canadians/Brits ... BUT ... they later pulled out of Wismar which then belonged to the Soviet controlled zone, later to become the GDR/DDR.
I like how the Enemy at that time was not the "real" enemy
But the enemy was certainly a "real" enemy. However, one of the friends was not a "real" friend.
@@NorthDownReader Thats also right. For good sake they are today good allies (US/GER)
The 15th Scottish was part of 2nd Corps of the 1st Canadian Army since 1943 when elements of 1st Army were sent to Sicily. 6th Airborne became part of the first Canadian Army in late 1944, making this a Canadian operation not British as implied in the video.
That's one the Danes owe us. Bless um . Brilliant stuff . 👊💛👍
Only, Stalin was sticking to a deal. And deal was for Elba as demarcation until final setylement was made. They pulled back from Norway, Finland and Austria right away after war. There was nothing preventing Red Army to take whole of Korea in 1945, and they even pulled from China after Japan's capitulation.
now it is the case that an island that belongs to Denmark got Russian troops, they were on the island for 11 months, as far as I know, they pulled them from this island when England would have stayed in Denmark
when Denmark was friendly to Germany
the two largest cities were bombed so that there were not many houses in the two cities that were not hit
the help did not come from Denmark as new houses had to be built
no, it was countries to the north of this island (Sweden)
Patton was right about the russians...
Hush, that truth was and remains inconvenient.
Patton was a buffoon and a blowhard. The Soviets had 10 million seriously battle-hardened troops and 20,000 tanks between the western Allies and Moscow. If you really want to know who Patton was, look up the Baum Task Force.
@@M167A1 Now all he had to do was convince the Western Democracies to go from one World War straight into another.
Keep in mind, everybody was pretty much crapped out by this point, especially the Brits.
@@MM22966 The US had the nuclear weapon. The ruzzians not. There would be no world war and no comunism in Europe.
I understand..
Hitler's wild card was always splitting the Allies. But he'd restarted the Great War so he was doomed.
It seems this relatively uneventful operation had incredible consequences for the people of Denmark and possibly the "peace" that followed WW2.
they conquered the Danish island of Bornholm, and occupied it for a year
My oldest son (an accident with my college girlfriend) visited Aalborg in May of 2009, working for an IBM hardware reseller Minneapolis, and it turned out, quite by accident, impregnated a beautiful woman (he was 26, she was 29), now I have 3 grand kids there, I've visted a dozen times, so, I am and always will be, a British Airborne fan (love the 82nd & BoBs et al) but worship with grats the Brits, & Monty has always been my man!!
During Yalta the split of Europe was arranged, so Denmark and Norway were given to the US sfere of influence. Plus the way the split Gernany, all of Danish land border area would be in western ocupation zone. So this stories makes no sense. The Soviets couldn't maintain an ocupation there. Also, if i remember correctly, Denmark lacked any major comunist party of it's own at that point
So if the Soviets had advanced into Denmark, and acquired an Atlantic port, Stalin would just have told his armies to pack up and go home?
@@RichardBrown7k in short, Yes. He wouldn't have choice. In 1945 Soviet Union was still heavly depending on US aid. The presure would be to strong. The best he could get would be some trade off
The Wehrmacht had already surrendered to Montgomery at Luneburg, all of their forces in Holland, the Rhine and Denmark.
The drive to Wismar took place on 2nd May. The German surrender in the north took place on 4th May.
German resistance was not exisitant: Well if the British want you to surrender to them before the Soviets arrive why would you want to stop them?
On 7 May 1945 British Field Marshal Montgomery and Soviet Marshal Konstantin Rokossovsky met in Wismar. In accord with the Occupation Zone Agreements of the Yalta Conference Wismar became a part of the Soviet Occupation Zone of Germany on 1 July 1945, as British troops retreated and Soviet troops took control over the area.
Thank you for quoting wikipedia to us. Word for word.
@@titaniummechanism3214Their grasp of the copy and paste function is commendable.
@@M167A1 I've seen people copy-pasting segments out of wikipedia articles related to the video topic a coupe times over the past years. First I thought that it was bots, but the accounts seemed to belong to real users. I'd love to know what motivates people to do this.
@@titaniummechanism3214 you're welcome
Wonder what happend if Soviet wanted to fight?
"British"? "The west"? It was the 1st Canadian Parachute Battalion.
Did not watch the video properly but that is not surprising
Plenty of mention of 1 Can Para in this excellent video. I, like you, am very sensitive to the way Canadian contributions in the war always seem to get overlooked. In the case of this video, we have not been overlooked. It's a very fair video. We must remember that a lone bn within a div doesn't amount to much in the grand scheme of things. Historians often speak in terms of divs and corps - rarely discussing individual bns.
What a shame that afterwarts the Brits gave Wismar to the Russians and everything went to the sowjet zone at the end.
Many Russians & Ukrainians emigrated to Canada, and some of those Canadian troops could speak Russian.
They did not.
The Soviets took Bornholm
The soviets brutally bombed and invaded Bornholm even after the Nazis surrendered, am I right? just some ideas for next video title
@@fakesocialdynamics9929
You are right, they did. Didn't leave untill 46.
(West Prevented a Soviet Invasion of Denmark) what is this nonsense. before the soviet reach the Oder river. the boundary of Europe agreed for in Yalta among the main fighting force against Germany. We never hear that Soviet troops approached Denmark any time. you are creating parallel Fake History.
Next issue - How the Soviets Prevented a Western Allied Invasion of the Soviet Union post 1945 - Operation Unthinkable. At least this one will be true and not a Western conspiracy story backed up with no facts, just paranoia.
I smell bs😂
A story of nothing. Stalin never wanted Denmark. As Churchill said, Stalin kept to the Yalta Agreement. Speculation and propaganda for Operation Unthinkable would be the likely outcome.
That is directly contradicted by Soviet movements and what the commander on the ground was saying when he ran into the Commonwealth troops at Weismar.
Then why did Soviet occupied the danish island of Bornholm?
And why did the Soviets had to be pressured to leave Bornholm 1 year later??
From where did you learn this, Novak?
And one more thing: Stalin took WHATEVER he could including Finnish, German, Polish, Japanese, Lithuanian, Latvian, Estonian, Danish land!!!
Yet at Potsdam, Stalin remarked that, under Tsar Alexander, Russian troops had reached as far west as Paris. I wonder if Truman and Attlee were really convinced that it was intended to be a joke. If, of course, it was.
B.S. story 😁 If Soviets really wanted confrontation with the West, they would simply sweep away weak Canadian units. Reality on the ground was Yalta division of Europe, with carefully divided sectors. Canadians simply treacherously opened fire on their allies, which is of course in accordance with cowardly nature of that nation (always being a dog for someone, never independent) .
Nope. You're writing absolute shite! I suppose you're going to say the Poles welcomed the Soviet takeover!
Stop with the vodka.
@@iberiksoderblom Stop with kool aid and watching CNN 😝
@@aleksazunjic9672 stop breathing oxygen
@@EATPANT420 I leave that advice to you 🤪
'you gonna wanna reconsider the title "How the West Prevented a Soviet Invasion of Denmark | May 1945" before realizing half the people coming in here is confused when they followed such clown channel.
why
Bott.
@@suityboi2126 because you'd think people who watch this Channel is somewhat familiar with history
@@orwellboy1958 wow thinking head
@@fakesocialdynamics9929
And how is this video incorrect on its history?
Soviets shoulda advanced to Paris far as I’m concerned, de-natzi facation never happened under the Western wing.
Who had a pact with the nazis?
Who invaded Poland in a joint operation with the nazis?
@@iberiksoderblom keep lying my friend, your intentionally misrepresenting history or your ignorant of the real events.
Earning Vladimir's wages today?
Its always funny when you guys say that De-nazification never happened in the west when it didnt happen in the East either. Most of the stasi was made up of literal Ex-Gestapo members who still wore the same uniform as when they persecuted ethnic minorities or anyone the Nazis didnt like. The East germans also were the ones who funded Neo-Nazi terror groups in Western europe with the most known being the Hepp-Kexel group
The soviets were the ones who willingly handed over thousands of jews to the nazis after jointly invading Poland along with comitting genocide with the nazis in Poland
And yet AFD seems to be doing well today in the old East Germany.