| This Mere Men article has not been expanded past 1947 yet. |
| Kingdom of Denmark Kongeriget Danmark (Danish) Timeline: Mere Men
OTL equivalent: Denmark | ||||||
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| Anthem: Der er et yndigt land Kong Christian stod ved højen mast |
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| Capital (and largest city) | Copenhagen | |||||
| Official languages | Danish | |||||
| Other languages | Greenlandic, German | |||||
| Demonym | Danes | |||||
| Government | Unitary parliamentary constitutional monarchy | |||||
| - | Queen | Margarethe II | ||||
| - | Prime Minister | |||||
| Legislature | Folketing | |||||
| History | ||||||
| - | Unification | 965 | ||||
| - | Treaty of Kiel | 14 January 1814 | ||||
| Area | ||||||
| - | Total | 2,209,012 km2 852,904 sq mi |
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| Currency | Danish krone | |||||
| Time zone | CET (Denmark) WGT, EGT (Greenland) |
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Denmark, officially the Kingdom of Denmark (Danish: Kongeriget Danmark) or the Danish Realm (Danmarks Rige) is a country spanning mainland Denmark on the Jutland peninsula and nearby islands in Northern Europe and Greenland in Northern Atlantic Ocean. Denmark borders Germany to the south and Norway and Sweden across the Skagerrak a Kattegat straits; Greenland is located between Iceland and Canada.
History[]
Denmark declared neutrality in the Second World War. After the British invasion of Scandinavia, Denmark was caught by surprise and overran by the Wehrmacht during Germany's own invasion of Norway on 22 March 1940. The Danish government under King Christian X and Prime Minister Thorvald Stauning was however permitted to operate even under German occupation. Danish overseas territories of Faroe Islands and Greenland were occupied by the United Kingdom and the United States respectively. After the death of Stauning in 1942, the King appointed Vilhelm Buhl as Prime Minister, but his tenure was short as the German authorities decided to disband Danish government and place Denmark under complete German control to crack down on unrest and resistance movements. Meanwhile, the Danish overseas territories gradually started shifting towards independence, with Iceland, which had been in personal union with Denmark since 1918, proclaiming a republic in 1944 and Faroe Islands declaring independence in 1946. Christian X, unable to prevent this development, reluctantly congratulated both nations on their independence, but considered them an integral part of Denmark until his death in April 1947. In Greenland, Danish ambassador to the United States Henrik Kauffmann also worked towards independence of Greenland under American protection, but was unable to achieve this goal during the war.
In 1946, Bornholm became the first part of Denmark to come under Soviet control and the construction of a secret Red Army military base started later that year. At the Havana Conference, Denmark was left on the Soviet side of the demarcation line and Denmark fell under Soviet control by 1947. The head of the Soviet forces in Denmark visited Frederick IX, heir to the Danish throne after his old father regarding the restoration of the Danish state, proposing a national union government led by Aksel Larsen, leader of the Communist Party of Denmark (Danmarks Kommunistiske Parti) who was also a significant resistance leader after the outbreak of the Soviet–German War. Frederick was unhappy about the choice of Larsen as the Prime Minister, but ultimately agreed to the proposal persuaded Christian to appoint him as he feared the Soviet leadership would otherwise set up a republican government instead.
Denmark became a point of contention at the peace conference in what became later known as the Danish Straits Crisis. The Allies were unwilling to accept a Soviet-aligned Denmark as they feared it would lead to the isolation of Sweden and subsequent spread of communism further into Scandinavia, while the Soviet Union wanted to maintain the military base on Bornholm and control of the straits to secure access to the North Sea. In the end, an agreement was made according to which the Red Army withdrew from Denmark and the Allies left Greenland, leaving Denmark as an neutral state. Denmark also was to officially recognise the independence of Iceland and Faroe Islands. The Soviet Union abandoned Denmark and even refused to support Larsen's attempts to form a DKP–dominated national front similar to the Democratic Front established in Germany to prevent the Allies from further attempts to sway Turkey into its sphere of influence. In the 1948 elections, the DKP gained a record number of votes, nearing a one-fifth of the total votes cast, but finished third behind the Social Democrats (Socialdemokratiet) and Venstre, defeating the Conservative People's Party (Det Konservative Folkeparti) only by a narrow margin.