danmarks flymuseum (13. 721)

For a grey day, with the bonus that dogs are allowed inside, we took a tour of the Danish Air Museum annex of the Stauning regional airfield just east of Ringkøbing Fjord. Founded in 1975 under the name of the Denmark Veteran Air Collection, the double hangers contain about seventy aircraft from all over the world including domestically built Kramme & Zeuthen and Scandinavian Aero Industri planes. There were historical exhibits of the first gliders and an early helicopter—plus the Danish naval Sikorsky redningshelikopter, the fleet used for sea rescue and to transport the royal family. 

There were also many defensive planes from the Spitfire to modern fighter jets and shelves of model planes of every era, including many made of LEGO bricks, to discover. The museum also holds the plane of Folke Bernadotte of Wisborg, the Swedish diplomat who helped negotiate the release of hundreds from Danish and Swedish concentration camps and thirty thousand more prisoners of war as vice-president of the Swedish Red Cross and was instrumental in securing the surrender of the Third Reich—Heinrich Himmler personally asked the count for an armistice and to convey a peace proposal to Truman and Churchill that Nazi Germany be allowed to capitulate to the Allies only and continue to fight the Soviet Union, without the Führer’s knowledge. That plan went no where but did lead to eventual acceptance of defeat.

Following the war, Bernadotte, as a UN mediator, tried to ease Arab and Israeli fighting following the partition of Palestine and the creation of an independent Jewish state—recommending Muslim nations have the final say on the disposition of the country in consultation with the local populace—and achieved a temporary ceasefire but was assassinated by Zionist paramilitary militants posing as IDF soldiers before he could further advocate for his proposal. Denmark itself was “invited” to join the Anti-Comintern Pact against the Communist International (the USSR) and pressured to accept what was frame by Germany as protective occupation, enjoying a relatively light subjugation—though any appearance of independence was a sham for foreign propaganda and politicians particularly were under the control of Nazi authorities. Conditions for the Danes took a turn for the worst with the ordered a general crack down, the withdrawal of Danish troops from Jutland and a prime minister installed of the Reich’s choosing after Hitler sent King Christian a long and flattering birthday greeting by telegram, with the monarch responding only, “Meinen bester Dank aus. Chr— Rex,” which sent the Führer into a fit of rage over the perceived lack of gratitude.