History of the Danish Navy

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The L16 Absalon and F357 Thetis in front of Copenhagen at the fleet parade for the 500th anniversary of the Danish Navy (2010)

The history of Danish seafaring began with the Great Migration and Viking Voyages , but a national and permanent Royal Danish Navy was not created until the early 16th century. The minimum task of the Danish fleet has always been the defense of the Danish islands (possibly giving up the mainland) and Copenhagen . Besides the defense of the Danish coasts, the main tasks were and are also the control of the Baltic Sea exits, the securing of connections to Norway and Skåne and the predominance of the south (western) Baltic Sea (between Zealand and Bornholm ). The main opponents were Lübeck and the Hanseatic League in the Middle Ages , Sweden in modern times , but then also Great Britain and Germany. The most important allies were at times the Netherlands and Russia .

Danish naval history

Beginnings and prehistory

Rock carvings in Skåne , the original home of the Danes, indicate shipbuilding and seafaring as early as the Bronze Age. However, the use of sails in the Baltic Sea did not emerge until the 6th century. Unlike the Norwegians, who mainly devoted themselves to deep sea navigation in the North Sea, the Danes and Swedes in the Baltic Sea initially specialized in coastal navigation.

In ancient times, the Danish mainland (the Jutland peninsula ) was initially inhabited by the Germanic Cimbri . There are controversial assumptions according to which the ancestors of the Cimbri belonged to those Bronze Age sea ​​peoples who lived as early as 1200 BC. u. Z. had attacked Egypt, Mycenae and Troy or initiated the Aegean migration . Allegedly from the southern Scandinavian region of Skåne came the Herulians , who settled in the 3rd century a. Z. (together with the Goths) also tried as seafarers and pirates in the Aegean and Black Sea. The later Danish sea power was based on the union of two other seaworthy peoples - the West Germanic (Ingvaeon) Jutes and the North Germanic Dannen (Danes).

  • After the emigration of the Cimbri, the Jutes moved into the deserted areas and gave the Cimbrian Peninsula its current name (Jutland). In the middle of the 5th century they crossed the North Sea and conquered England together with Angles (at least a people related to the Danes according to legend) and Saxons .
  • The Danes originally came from Skåne, whose inhabitants ( suionen ) were described as seafarers by the Roman ethnographer Tacitus as early as the 1st century. In the middle of the 6th century they crossed over to the Danish islands and then also subjugated Jutland, where they merged with the rest of the Jutian population.

The spread over the islands and from the islands to the mainland made the Danes seafarers or was only possible because they were seafarers. Seafaring and shipbuilding were essential for the subjugation, settlement and domination of the islands and the adjacent mainland (Jutland and Skåne). Almost all of Denmark and Scania were covered with forests suitable for shipbuilding, but the cultivated land for arable farming was limited. A spread of the Danes was limited in the north by Swedes and Norwegians , in the south by Saxons and Franks. The population surplus, which could no longer be fed by the small indigenous plaice, could therefore only migrate overseas, the Viking Age began. A fleet of Danish Vikings under King Chlochilaicus attacked the Frankish Empire for the first time in the early 6th century . In the middle of the 9th century, Danish Vikings established themselves in England and Ireland, at the beginning of the 10th century in Normandy, and in the middle of the 10th century in Pomerania ( Jomsburg ).

With their victory in the naval battle of Svold in the year 1000, a Danish-Swedish fleet ousted its Norwegian competitors from the Baltic Sea; in the naval battle of Helgeå in 1026, the Danish fleet asserted itself against a Norwegian-Swedish alliance. King Canute the Great had longer ships built to carry a greater number of rowers and warriors. With these long boats , he and his sons ruled not only Denmark and the North Sea at the beginning of the 11th century, but also England (1016-1042), Holstein (1025), Norway (1028-1035) and Scotland (1031-1035). Although Danish fleets helped the German Emperor in 1049 in the fight against Lower Lorraine, Friesland and Flanders, Knut's nephew Svend II and his son Knut IV were unable to protect the Danish coasts against the Norwegians, even with superior fleets (defeat at Nissan, 1062) or to retake England, which fell to the Normans (expeditions 1069/70, 1075 and 1085).

It was not until the end of the 12th century that Denmark rose to become a major regional power again. Waldemar I won Rügen and ruled the Baltic Sea around 1180, his sons and successors Knut VI. and Waldemar II subjugated Holstein, Mecklenburg and Pomerania. With almost 1400 ships, Waldemar II ruled the Baltic Sea as far as Estonia at the beginning of the 13th century, but on land he was defeated in 1225 and 1227 by a North German coalition led by the Hanseatic city of Lübeck. Copenhagen was burned down by Lübeck fleets twice, in 1241 and 1248. A Swedish-Norwegian navy pressed Denmark's coasts in 1253. In the North Sea, too, the Hanseatic League and Norway questioned Danish supremacy. Norway subjugated Greenland and Iceland in 1261/62, but had to submit to the Hanseatic League in 1272 and 1285. It was not until the middle of the 14th century that Waldemar IV was able to restore the Danish Baltic Empire. At first he had allied himself with the Hanseatic League, in 1342/43 the allies fended off a Norwegian-Swedish attack on Copenhagen and in 1360 the Hanseatic League helped him recapture Skåne, which had since fallen to Sweden. In the First Waldemark War , after a Danish fleet had plundered Wisby in 1361 and a Hanseatic fleet in 1362 Copenhagen, the Danish fleet initially remained victorious off Helsingborg in 1362, but in the Second Waldemark War a Hanseatic fleet conquered and plundered Copenhagen again in 1368 and broke the Danish alliance with Sweden Supremacy. Denmark then allied itself against the Hanseatic League with Norway from 1380 and with Sweden from 1397 in the Kalmar Union . Queen Margaret I ordered the establishment of a joint fleet for the first time in 1401, but it was her successor Erik VII who equipped royal fleets. Together they were able to repel another attack by the Hanseatic League in 1418.

Allegory of Denmark's maritime rule over the Oresund , view of Elsinore (in the background)

One of the geo-strategic strengths of Denmark and one of its main sources of income was the possibility of non-Danish of all ships en route between the Baltic and North Sea the bottleneck of Öresund had to happen duties to enforce. For this purpose Denmark built the Kronstadt fortress near Helsingør . From 1425 Denmark began to raise this sound tariff, to which the Hanseatic League responded with another war and after changeable fortunes in war (Danish victories at the Öresund in 1427 and before Copenhagen in April 1428, Danish defeats before Copenhagen in June 1428 and at Dänholm in 1429) exceptional and Forced special regulations. In addition, Sweden rebelled against Denmark within the Kalmar Union in 1434 and could not be effectively subdued again by a Danish fleet demonstration off Stockholm. From 1448 Denmark and Sweden were at war again. However, the Hanseatic League also split, and Denmark allied itself with the split-off Dutch Hanseatic cities .

In the North Sea, there was also a rivalry with England, between 1484 and 1490 Denmark and England fought a pirate war that extended into the North Atlantic, in which the German captain Didrik Pining , who was in Danish service, distinguished himself and was promoted to admiral. Already between 1470 and 1476, about two decades before Christopher Columbus, a Danish expedition to Greenland under Pining's command had probably also reached North America.

  • Copenhagen's conquest by the Hanseatic League (1368) initially ended Denmark's supremacy

  • Søren Norby's fleet conquered Stockholm (1520) but could not hold it.

  • The loss of the fleet in the storm off Gotland (1566) put an end to Denmark's offensive power.

Danish-Norwegian Navy

On the eve of a war against Lübeck , Union King John I had, from 1509, carried out the final organizational amalgamation of the Danish and Norwegian naval powers into a permanent royal fleet. August 10, 1510 is still honored today as the actual founding day of the Danish Navy (Fleet Day). On that day Henrik Krummedike was appointed its first commander-in-chief (øverste kaptajn). Krummedike beat the Lübeck fleet in the same year at Nakskov and again a year later at Bornholm. At the outbreak of the Swedish War of Independence , Johann's successor Christian II appointed Admiral Søren Norby as commander-in-chief of the fleet. With the help of this fleet, the conquest of Stockholm succeeded in 1520 and thus a final restoration of the Kalmar Union. Norby's fleet secured and supplied the conquered or Danish loyal coastal cities of Sweden and Finland. But already in 1522 a Swedish fleet was established with the help of Lübeck, and Sweden and Lübeck defeated Norby's fleet together; In 1523 the Swedes were also able to recapture Stockholm. Although Lübeck was able to finally split the Kalmar Union, Denmark and Sweden allied themselves during the feud of the counts against Lübeck in 1534 and, under Peder Skram's leadership, defeated the Lübeck fleet in 1535, first at Bornholm, then at Svendborg. Three decades later, Lübeck finally had to ally itself with its previous arch enemy Denmark against Sweden in the three-crown war ; the Hanseatic League's rule in the Baltic was broken. The Swedish fleet was superior to the Danish, but with the help of the Lübeckers, the Danes were initially able to hold their own despite a defeat off Bornholm (1563) and further loss-making sea battles. The death of Admiral Herluf Trolle (1565) and the sinking of the Danish-Luebian fleet off Gotland (1566) also overwhelmed Denmark. In the Baltic trade from now Danish and Swedish, but mainly Dutch ships dominated.

  • Admiral Søren Norby was devoted to Christian II's cause. In Sweden he is considered a pirate.

  • Peder Skram defeated Sweden in the Count Feud of Lübeck and in the Three Crown War (1562).

  • Denmark's sea hero Herluf Trolle was killed in the Three Crowns War against the Swedes (1565).

Struggle with Sweden for control of the Baltic Sea

Christian IV's bravery in the sea ​​battle on the Kolberger Heide (1644) became the theme of the national anthem. Its flagship sank in a storm a year later.

It was not until the 1560s and 1570s that Frederick II - as well as his Swedish opponents Erik XIV. And Johann III. - the expansion of the fleet, and imperial admirals were used for the first time in both Sweden and Denmark . In addition to the large orlog ships , a galley fleet was built from 1565 onwards. Friedrich sought a renewed supremacy of Denmark both in the Baltic Sea ( Dominium maris Baltici ) and the North Sea. After two centuries of Hanseatic dominance, Denmark was only able to maintain the rule of the Baltic Sea, which had only just been regained after two centuries of Hanseatic dominance and was dependent on the benevolence of the allied Netherlands, in the Three Crowns War and in the Kalmar War against Sweden. Frederick's son Christian IV sent Danish ships not only to Greenland , but also across the North Sea and founded the first Danish East India Company in 1616 , while his admiral Ove Gjedde acquired Tranquebar, a first colony in India in 1620 .

In 1555 a large fleet was sent to the North Sea to fight Scottish and French pirates, but the Danish Navy was no longer able to prevent the raids of North African pirates on Iceland in 1627, as it was meanwhile again occupied with defending the main Danish lands. During the Thirty Years' War and the Torstensson War , Denmark was defeated on land and Jutland was occupied by the enemy (1627–1629 by German troops, 1643–1645 by Swedish troops). The superior fleet prevented the enemy from landing on the islands, which initially saved Denmark from a complete defeat.

With the introduction of the sound tariff for Dutch ships in 1635, Denmark had made an important friend into an enemy, and in 1640 the Dutch and Swedes allied themselves. The Danish fleet was initially able to assert itself against the Dutch in the North Sea in 1643 (and in the naval battle in Lister Tief in 1644 ), and in the same year one Danish fleet bombed Hamburg while another blocked the Swedish fleet in the Kiel Bay (1644 Sea battle on the Kolberger Heide ). However, the superiority of the fleet was over when the Dutch and Swedes united, and a Dutch-Swedish fleet defeated the Danes in the sea ​​battle at Fehmarn in 1644 , at least twelve Danish ships were lost. At Falsterbo and at Møn the Danish navy was able to resist the Swedish in 1657, but in 1658 the Swedes invaded the islands from Jutland via the frozen Belt and their superior army besieged Copenhagen by land ( Second Northern War ). The valiant defense of the capital prevented the full Swedish conquest. Denmark had to cede Skåne and exempt Sweden from the sound tariff; Danish supremacy in the Baltic was finally lost.

  • Jørgen Vind fell in the sea battle on the Kolberger Heide in 1644 against the Swedes.

  • Also Niels Juel's victories over the Swedes were incorporated into the national anthem.

  • The Norwegian Cort Adeler became a Venetian, Dutch and Danish admiral.

When Sweden closed the sound itself, it turned the Netherlands against itself, and it was this change of sides between the Netherlands that saved Denmark from ruin. A Dutch-Danish fleet defeated the Swedes in the Øresund in 1658 . Without supplies from the fleet, the Swedish overseas colonies could no longer defend themselves. Denmark conquered all Swedish possessions on the Gold Coast (Ghana) in 1658/63 , while the Netherlands took over the Swedish colonies in North America ( New Sweden ). The dramatic defeat of 1658/60 led to a radical change in the power structure in Denmark. Friedrich III. consolidated the power of kingship and tried to rebuild the fleet. After losing control of the Baltic Sea, Denmark first turned to the expansion of the overseas colonies. On the side of the Netherlands, the Danish Navy was involved in a war against England in 1667 and briefly a (re) conquest of the former Danish-Norwegian Orkney Islands by a joint Dutch-Danish fleet was considered. A Danish West India Company was established, which took over Saint Thomas in the Caribbean in 1671 . Admiral Cort Adeler was appointed director of the East India Company and at the beginning of the War of Fine Arts as commander in chief of the fleet. After Adeler's death in 1676 the Dutch admiral Cornelis Tromp was appointed supreme general admiral of the united Dutch-Danish fleet, but despite brilliant sea victories of the admirals Tromp and Niels Juel over the Swedish fleet (1676 near Bornholm and Öland , 1677 near Møn and in the Køgebucht ) the reconquest of Skåne failed due to Danish defeats on land.

  • The Dutch and Swedes broke Danish rule of the Baltic Sea near Fehmarn (1644).

  • With their victory in the Sound, the Danes and Dutch prevented Sweden's rule in the North Sea (1658).

  • Danish victories at sea secured the invasion of Skåne (1676), but Sweden triumphed on land.

While in Sweden the defeats at sea from 1680 led to the reform and reorganization of the navy, something similar happened in Denmark after another Dutch change of sides and the Danish defeat in 1700. Right at the beginning of the Great Northern War , a united Dutch-English-Swedish fleet had Copenhagen bombed and a Swedish landing forced Denmark to surrender quickly. Denmark used the enforced peace to rebuild the fleet, General Admiral Ulrik Christian Gyldenløve became President of the Admiralty College or new Commander in Chief and founded the Royal Naval Academy in Copenhagen. After the Swedish defeat in Russia, Denmark entered the war again in 1709, the fleet again numbered 177 warships with 4,783 cannons, 39 of which were large ships of the line. The majority of the ships and most of the crews came from Norway. As in the War of the Gentiles, the Danish-Norwegian North Sea or Kattegat squadron was given the task of enclosing the Swedish North Sea squadron in Gothenburg and preventing it from merging with the Swedish Baltic Sea fleet in Karlskrona. The Danish Baltic Sea Squadron had the task of cutting the Swedish supply lines to Pomerania and of supporting the siege of Stralsund, Wismar and Stettin. The Danish navy landed in Skåne in 1709, but the invasion troops were defeated by the Swedes on land in 1710. The sea ​​battle in the Køgebucht (1710) ended in a draw, the landing of Swedish reinforcements on Rügen could not be prevented in 1711, and the blockade of the Swedish squadron in Gothenburg also failed in 1712. Gyldenløve, however, destroyed the Swedish supply fleet in the sea ​​battle off Rügen (1712) which contributed to the end of the Swedish rule of the Baltic Sea. This was also the case with the victories of the Russian fleet from 1714 and other Danish victories in the sea ​​battle near Jasmund (1715) (Rügen) and in the sea ​​battle near Fehmarn (1715) (in which Gyldenløve sank the Swedish flagship) and in the sea ​​battle in the Dynekilen fjord . Landing plans and the attack on Gothenburg (1717), however, failed in 1717 and 1719, which led to the recall of the hitherto successful Captain Peter Wessel Tordenskiold .

  • The Norwegian Henrik Bjelke became the last Reichsadmiral, the fleet was led by Admirals General

  • Ulrik Gyldenløve created the naval academy, reformed the fleet and fell against Sweden

  • The Norwegian Peter Tordenskiold defeated the Swedes in the Great Northern War.

After the loss of control of the Baltic Sea

In 1770 four ships of the line, two frigates and four smaller ships were sent against Algerian pirates; In 1797 against Tripoli there were only one frigate and one brig.

The peace of 1720 only allowed Denmark to resume Swedish sound payments. Dominance in the Baltic Sea fell not back to Denmark, but to Russia, but Danish and Norwegian naval officers also served in the Russian Navy . Vitus Bering had commanded several ships of the line of the Russian Baltic Fleet and the Azov Flotilla during the war , and Cornelius Cruys was even commander-in-chief of the Baltic Fleet. In the years of peace that followed, Denmark-Norway devoted itself to expanding its overseas connections and colonies. The missionary work of Greenland began in 1721 and Gothab was built, but initially the island was only important as a whaling base. Bering and his first officer Martin Spangberg discovered important sections of the Northeast Passage and Alaska for Russia on their First and Second Kamchatka Expeditions . The Danish (formerly Swedish) possessions on the Gold Coast were combined into a crown colony from 1750 , with Serampore (near Calcutta) a second colony was founded in India in 1755.

In his (first) Political Testament of 1752, King Friedrich II of Prussia came to the following assessment with his analysis of Prussia's neighbors and potential war opponents:

“ Denmark [...] devotes all its strength to the fleet, which is kept in excellent condition, and neglects its land forces, [...] However, the Swedish fleet is weak and we do not have a warship. [...] There is a high probability that this kingdom [Denmark], if it wages war, will succeed at sea because it has been concerned about its navy, but the country [...] because of the weak military discipline will be beaten. "

- Friedrich II of Prussia

During the Seven Years' War , Denmark prepared in 1762 in support of the Russian Tsar Peter III. against Sweden fourteen ships of the line and eight frigates, which were not used until the end of the war. It was not until 1770 that the Danish navy gradually became involved in armed conflicts again: unlike Sweden, which made alliances with the Ottoman Empire (1738 and 1788) and paid protection payments to the pirates of the North African barbarian states well into the 19th century , Denmark dispatched in 1770 , 1772 and 1773 his fleet on punitive expeditions against Algiers. These attempts to combat piracy from the Mediterranean to the North Sea had just as little lasting success as the Swedish alliance and protection money strategy.

Because of the seizure of Danish and Norwegian merchant ships during the American War of Independence , Denmark formed a (first) Nordic League of armed neutrality with Russia and Sweden in 1780, thus provoking Great Britain. British warships captured Danish merchant ships and occupied the Danish Gold Coast; Danish and Russian warships then formed convoys for the threatened merchant ships and in turn captured British ships in the North Sea and the North Atlantic. Unlike the Franco-Spanish-American alliance, however, the Russian-Danish-Swedish League was inferior to the British Royal Navy; during the long period of peace (since 1720) the Danish fleet had been neglected, outdated and decayed. Although Denmark had again dispatched six ships of the line and three frigates to support Russia in the Russo-Swedish War in 1788 , a British-Dutch-Prussian alliance did not want a victory for Russia any more than a victory for Sweden, and by sending a naval squadron to the Baltic Sea forced both Denmark as well as Sweden to end the war. Against English attacks during the Revolutionary Wars , Denmark and Sweden allied again in 1794 and even temporarily formed joint squadrons to protect their merchant ships.

Lost to the British Royal Navy

In 1807 the British Royal Navy bombed Copenhagen and robbed almost the entire Danish fleet

Although the Danish war fleet still numbered 26 ships of the line around 1800, the (first) British attack on Copenhagen in April 1801 showed how poorly the fleet was prepared, equipped, trained and managed. The Copenhageners had to watch how in the roadstead, despite brave and heroic resistance, about half of the fleet was captured and burned by the British. Without Russian or Swedish help, the Danish Navy could only defend its honor. The young sub-lieutenant Peter Willemoes stood out more than the commanding Vice-Admiral Olfert Fischer . A month earlier, captain Carl Wilhelm Jessen had bravely defended the Danish honor when he took up combat with the small brig "Lougen" off Saint Croix against two superior British frigates and initially forced them to retreat. Shortly afterwards, however, a British fleet consisting of three ships of the line, six frigates and twenty smaller warships conquered the whole of the Danish West Indies , and the East Indian Tranquebar was also occupied by the British.

  • In the Caribbean, Captain Jessen's brig attacked two British frigates and tried to board

  • Peter Willemoes encourages the men in the sea battle off Copenhagen (1801)

  • The Danes and Norwegians attacked the British Royal Navy with cannon-armed rowing sloops

Then in 1807 a superior British fleet again attacked Copenhagen and also landed troops on Zealand. Friedrich VI. wanted to sink the entire fleet himself rather than let it fall into British hands, but the British bombarded the Danish capital from land and sea for four days and set four fifths of Copenhagen on fire to force the surrender of the remaining warships . Eventually they robbed 17 ships of the line, 17 frigates and corvettes, 7 briggs and 33 smaller warships; three ships were burned (a ship of the line, two frigates), most of the others incorporated directly into the Royal Navy . In addition, the British robbed 92 Danish merchant ships on which material important for the Navy was being carried away (rigging, canvas, cannons). Only the two ships of the line "Prinds Christian Frederik" and "Lovisa Augusta" remained in Denmark because they had been in Norwegian waters far from Copenhagen. Jessen was the captain of the "Prinds Christian Frederik", and Lieutenant Willemoes also served on board. You were assigned to escort a Franco-Spanish convoy that was bringing troops to protect Denmark. In 1808 the "Prinds Christian Frederik" was intercepted by the British off Sjællands Odde . In a valiant battle against two ships of the line and three frigates, she ran aground, but continued to fire until the British reached her and burned her. Willemoes fell during that naval battle.

After the loss of the Prinds Christian Frederik , Denmark had only one large warship , the ship of the line Lovisa Augusta , commanded by Captain Johan Cornelius Krieger . The connection to Norway was interrupted by the British and Swedes, and Danish and Norwegian sea trade brought to a standstill. Since Denmark now had no ships of its own, but good seamen, and France again had a lack of experienced seamen, the French Navy manned two ships of the line and two frigates with Danish naval officers and sailors in 1808. With the remaining small gunboats and rowboats equipped with guns, Denmark repeatedly attacked individual British warships and convoys, while Danish and Norwegian gunboats actually waged a kind of guerrilla war at sea. In vain in 1808 27 Norwegian gunboats even attacked part of the Swedish archipelago anchored in Strömstad . Krieger became commander in chief of the gunboat flotilla (kanonbåds eskadrillen, Roflotillen) and reorganized the Danish coastal defense. In this unequal battle, referred to by the British as Gunboat War ( gunboat war ), the Danes and Norwegians repeatedly achieved spectacular successes (e.g. attack on the British frigate Tartar in 1807 , on the British liner Africa in 1808 ), but ultimately they had no choice than to retreat into the Norwegian fjords in front of the superior British and Swedish liners. A new frigate called the Naiaden was built in 1811 , but it was sunk by the British in 1812 near Lyngør . After the French-Danish defeat in 1814 in the Peace of Kiel , Denmark lost not only Norway but also two thirds of the remaining fleet to Sweden.

  • Rear Admiral Johann Cornelius Krieger was the father of modern coastal defense.

  • Before Copenhagen, Vice Admiral Steen Andersen Bille failed with a counterattack on the British.

  • Captain Carl Wilhelm Jessen fought valiantly against an overwhelming British force.

Decline and modernization

In order not to fall into German hands, the Danish fleet sank itself in 1943

Denmark's maritime regime was completely lost, and the Danish navy never regained its former importance. A handful of ships of the line and frigates were built with limited financial means from 1815 and the first steamers were put into service from 1824. Against Prussia and Austria, however, Denmark was dependent on British and Swedish protection in the wars for Schleswig-Holstein , and finally it had to cede its Indian and African overseas colonies to Great Britain in 1845/50. The Admiralty College was dissolved in 1848 and a naval ministry was created instead , and the Sundzoll was abolished in 1857.

Nevertheless, the small Danish navy was still clearly superior to the German imperial fleet and the Prussian and Austrian navy . In 1848 it consisted of seven ships of the line, nine frigates, four corvettes, six steamers and several smaller ships. In both 1848/50 and 1863/64 the Danish fleet blocked not only the Elbe estuary, but also the entire German North Sea coast and all ports on the German and Prussian Baltic coast from Kiel and Lübeck to Danzig and Pilau. Although the Danes lost a ship of the line and a frigate to German land batteries in an attempt to land off Eckernförde in 1849 , they were able to assert themselves against the Schleswig-Holstein Navy in front of Fehrman and Neustadt (1850), and in two sea battles off Heligoland ( 1849 , 1864 ) the Germans were able to and Austrian warships do not break the Danish blockade on the Elbe. The Danish victories in the naval battle at Jasmund (1864) and off Heligoland could not prevent the total defeat on land and the German occupation of Jutland, without the intervention of Great Britain and Sweden Denmark lost Schleswig-Holstein and Lauenburg in 1865. From 1867 onwards, the USA and in 1899 the German Naval Office also showed interest in Denmark's last colonies in the West Indies . Army submissions and naval programs (12 ships of the line planned) were repeatedly postponed by the Danish Reichstag, at the end of the 19th century Denmark was covered with four armored ships (only one modern), an old armored frigate, three tank batteries, ten cruisers, eight gunboats, 22 torpedo boats, seven patrol boats, twelve training ships and 4200 men only as a third-class sea power.

At the beginning of the 20th century it became necessary to modernize and strengthen the fleet. First of all, there was a threat of war between Norway and Sweden in 1905, into which Denmark could also have been drawn. From 1912 the Danish Navy put its first submarines into operation. At the beginning of the First World War , Germany asked neutral Denmark to block access to the Baltic Sea, and the Danish Navy then mined the Belte and the Oresund. The fact that German, British, Russian and French warships accepted the Danish lockdown was more a success of Danish diplomacy than the clout of the Danish navy or the effectiveness of the Danish mines. However, since Sweden refused the German request, British submarines were able to repeatedly penetrate the narrow Swedish part of the sound and thus advance into the Baltic Sea. In addition, several British-German naval battles took place off the Danish coasts ( Helgoland 1914 , Saltholm 1915, Skagerrak 1916 , Helgoland 1917 ), and on the world's oceans the Danish merchant navy lost 21.7% of its tonnage (0.3 million GRT) in unlimited quantities Submarine war . Around 700 Danish seafarers lost their lives. During the war, the German naval chief of staff Adolf von Trotha had called for the annexation of the Danish Faroe Islands and the occupation of Danish and Norwegian North Sea ports, while the US was planning to forestall German plans in the Caribbean and instigated an uprising in St. Thomas. Unable to defend the distant possessions in the West Indies against an American invasion, Denmark had to sell this last overseas colony to the USA in 1917, and in 1918 also gave Iceland its independence. After almost a war with Norway over East Greenland had broken out in 1931/33, and after 1935 both Germany and Great Britain continued to arm, Denmark finally decided to launch a naval armament program in 1937. At that time, the Danish Navy only had three coastal armored ships, 23 torpedo boats, eight submarines and 1700 men. At the start of the war, only two coastal armored ships, eleven submarines, 17 torpedo boats and 30 smaller vehicles were operational.

The Danish navy was so surprised by the German attack in World War II in 1940 that the German landings on Funen and Zealand could not be prevented. Denmark capitulated and had to deliver some torpedo boats to Germany. In order not to let the rest of the fleet fall into German hands, Vice Admiral Aage Vedel gave the order to scuttle the Danish fleet in 1943 : 32 ships were lost, but the coastal armored ship " Niels Juel " and 64 smaller ships were shortly afterwards taken over by the German navy , captured heavy battle. Only the torpedo boat Havkatten and twelve smaller ships were able to escape to neutral Sweden. In 1944, in Karlskrona, Sweden, a Danish flotilla in exile (Danske Flotilla) was formed under Captain Johannes Jegstrup, which was no longer used before the end of the war. In May 1945, however, a Danish-British command in Kiel took possession of the Danish ships captured by the German Navy. Exactly to prevent this, the "Niels Juel" had been sunk a few days earlier, this time by the Germans themselves.

  • The torpedo boat Havkatten escaped to Sweden in 1943

  • The rest of the Danish fleet assembled in Karlskrona, Sweden (1943)

  • Niels Juel , captured by the Germans, was sunk by them in 1945

Cold war and present

The HDMS Iver Huitfeldt of the Iver Huitfeldt class supports the fight against pirates in the Horn of Africa.

After a Danish-Swedish-Norwegian defense alliance failed due to Swedish resistance to US arms deliveries, Denmark and Norway joined NATO in 1949 , while Sweden remained neutral. Denmark has also been allied with Germany within NATO since 1955. During the Cold War , the Danish and German navies were responsible for the "forward defense" in the Baltic Sea region against Soviet, East German and Polish fleets. Denmark was given the task of blocking the Baltic Sea exits in the event of war, while mixed Danish-German army units were supposed to defend Jutland in order to secure it for Allied reinforcements to land.

After the end of the Cold War in the Baltic Sea, the three Danish corvettes of the Niels Juel class took part in the wars in the USA and in the fight against piracy overseas. The Olfert Fischer helped 1,990 at the blockade of Iraq, the Niels Juel helped 1992-97 at the naval blockade of Yugoslavia, the Peter Tordenskiold supported the UNIFIL off the Lebanese coast. A Danish naval association consisting of the Olfert Fischer and a submarine took part in the 2003 US attack on Iraq.

After that, the Navy was subjected to a renewal process. In 2004, all five remaining submarines were canceled without replacement, but new surface units were built. The three corvettes were decommissioned in 2009 and are to be replaced by three modern frigates of the Iver-Huitfeldt class in the course of 2013 . Of these three frigates, however, only one was completed by the end of 2012, the Iver Huitfeldt has been in action against pirates off the Somali coast ever since.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Rudolf Simek: The Vikings. CH Beck, Munich 1998, p. 16 f. and 39.
  2. ^ Tacitus: Germania. Reclam, Stuttgart 2006, p. 57.
  3. ↑ Ulla Ehrensvärd, Pellervo Kokkonen, Juha Nurminen: The Baltic Sea - 2000 years of seafaring, trade and culture. National Geographic, Hamburg 2010, p. 32.
  4. ↑ a b Ewart Cagner: Die Wikinger , pages 7f and 14. Burkhard-Verlag Ernst Heyer, Essen 1974
  5. ^ Robert Bohn: Danish history. CH Beck, Munich 2001, p. 8.
  6. ↑ Christopher Lloyd: Ships and Ship People. Büchert-Verlag, Hamburg 1962, p. 10.
  7. ^ Karl Ploetz: Extract from the story. Ploetz, Würzburg 1962, p. 194.
  8. ^ Walter Markov , Alfred Anderle , Ernst Werner , Herbert Wurche: Kleine Enzyklopädie Weltgeschichte , Volume 2, page 104. Bibliographisches Institut, Leipzig 1979
  9. ^ Meyers Konversations-Lexikon . Volume 4 (Denmark). 3. Edition. Leipzig 1875, p. 887.
  10. ↑ Ingrid Mittenzwei (ed.): Friedrich II. Of Prussia - writings and letters. Reclam, Leipzig 1987, pp. 192, 213 and 222 f.
  11. ^ A b Meyers Konversations-Lexikon. Volume 4 (Denmark). 5th edition. Leipzig / Vienna 1897, p. 558.
  12. ^ Meyers Großes Konversations-Lexikon , Volume 4 (Denmark). 6th edition. Leipzig / Vienna 1906, p. 483 .
  13. ^ Brockhaus : General German Real Encyclopedia for the educated estates , Conversations-Lexikon, Volume 4, page 585. F. A. Brockhaus, Leipzig 1852
  14. ^ Meyers Konversations-Lexikon. Volume 15 (Sea Power). 5th edition. Leipzig / Vienna 1897, p. 844.
  15. ^ Werner Rahn: Strategic Problems of German Naval Warfare 1914-1918. In: Wolfgang Michalka (Ed.): The First World War. Seehamer Verlag, Weyarn 1997, p. 364.
  16. ^ Children / Hilgemann: dtv atlas for world history. Volume 2, Munich 2004, p. 430.
  17. ^ Robert Bohn: Danish history. CH Beck, Munich 2001, p. 107.
  18. ↑ Michael Epkenhans: The Imperial Navy in the First World War. In: Wolfgang Michalka (Ed.): The First World War. Seehamer Verlag, Weyarn 1997, p. 329 and 339.
  19. ↑ The New Brockhaus. First volume (Denmark), Leipzig 1936, p. 496.
  20. ^ Heinz Neukirchen: Sea power in the mirror of history , page 381. Gondrom-Verlag, Berlin 1988
  21. ^ Wolfgang Weber: Military Doctrines of NATO and its member states. Military Publishing House of the GDR, Berlin 1988, pp. 82–86.
  22. ↑ Floppy hats instead of submarines: Danes are looking for agents via advert. In: Spiegel-Online. March 15, 2005 (Retrieved December 10, 2008)

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