Vehicles
The Kingdom of Denmark left the First World War relatively unscathed, having maintained neutrality throughout the conflict. However, it had changed Denmark politically, economically, militarily, and even geographically. Due to the idea of strict neutrality, an army was deemed somewhat unnecessary and a waste of resources. Therefore, it was only given a small budget.
With a rising threat in Europe against democracies caused by authoritarian regimes, the Danish government, at the time a coalition of Social Democrats and Radical Liberals, tried to defuse this internal authoritarian threat by building a strong and socially healthy democracy, creating the basis of the modern concept of the welfare state. This required major investments in the public and social sectors, while other expenditures were cut short, such as the military. This weakened the defense against an external authoritarian threat.
The military procurement of armored vehicles was also severely affected by this policy. When a single Fiat 3000 tank was acquired in 1928, it was practically never used. However, a modest armored vehicle testing program was initiated in 1930 with first testing taking place in 1931 with domestically built armored cars, designated FP 1 and FP 2. These were later joined by two Vickers-Carden-Loyd Patrol Tanks and seven armored vehicles from Swedish Landsverk of various makes.
On 9th April 1940, Germany breached Danish neutrality and invaded the country. The government decided to adopt a cooperative policy, providing practically no resistance and receiving assurances for continued neutrality and internal sovereignty in return, effectively asking to become a puppet state. The uneasy relations caused the government to step down on 29th August 1943, starting the German military occupation of Denmark.
Initially, the resistance movements were small, but these grew over time, especially after the events of 1943. This led to the People’s Strike of July 1944 and the organization of an underground Danish Army that was to strike German forces when the Allies were close enough. When the war ended in 1945, this underground army suddenly emerged, even with some (improvised) armored vehicles, with the most famous of these being the V-3 Panservogn.