Effect of a Danish Namibia and Botswana in WW2 [brainstorming]

While this have technical a POD in the 19th century, I thought I would throw it out here.

I’m working on a minor timeline with Denmark ending up with Namibia and Botswana. How and why aren’t the issue here. But it’s a low butterfly timeline, so it got me thinking how would that effect WW2. While the military effect would be very small, I’m more interested in the political effect. But potential battlefield for Danish forces would be interesting.

The colony would have 1,5-2 million inhabitants of which 600.000 would non-integrated Africans. Some industry with local production of licensed Fokker airplanes and Landverk armored cars, local production of Danish submarines etc. all in all relative small scale. Denmark establish a Free Denmark with it as center,and with the exile government in London and of course join the allies, which means no British occupation of Iceland and Faroe Island, and no American presence in Greenland. I expect a conscripted Force of around 150-200.000 based on the number of soldiers the Free French raised among the pied noir in Algeria and a younger average age of the Danish citizens (both White, colored and assimilated Africans) in the colony than among the pied noir. Plus 15-20.000 volunteers from Africans non-citizens and a similar number from the North Atlantic part of the Danish commonwealth. So a armed forces of 180-240.000 all in all.

Denmark with a colonial empire will likely also be more self-important, so we see a better defense of the homeland, but which doesn’t change anything, it take a few days to conquer Denmark instead of a day, the Norwegian invasion aren’t effected, Copenhagen get the Amsterdam treatment. But we still see Danish cooperation in the mainland as in OTL, just after a slightly rougher invasion.

So what I was thinking what effect would this have? How would the Free Denmark be treated by the other allies, would Denmark have seat at the negotiation table etc.

What do you people think?
 
I would expect some of the soldiers would be used in East Africa against the Italian, much as Belgian native Congolese forces were. Beside that I would expect Danish submarines would be used against the Japanese. Later I could see them being used at Normandy and the West European theater.
 
Yeah those numbers seem wildly optimistic considering the danish population was sub 4 million at that point.

Smelling a lot of wishfull thinking of this one.
 
Perhaps a large amount of the 1,5-2 million inhabitants
The population of both Namibia and Botswana adds up to a total of 660,000 in 1946

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Botswana#Population
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Namibia#Population

assimilated africans?
The issues with that on the Danish side of things would be the wiliness to put in the resources required and viewing the Africans as equal to Whites. On the African side of things, It would require a lot of time, an increase in the standard of living and a wiliness to adopt Danish lifestyles.
 
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Where are you getting these people from and what incentive do they have to move to Namibia and Botswana ?

As I said I’m not interested in discussing that, this is brainstorming setting for a timeline I working om. But the obvious difference are that the POD are in the 1820ties.
 
Also the border are only roughly Namibia and Botswana, but I didn’t think it was really important to give more than a rough border outline.
 
How might the events that lead up to Denmark getting colonies, in what is now Namibia, and Botswana affect the relationship between Denmark and Britain?

Will there be any Boer wars in your TL? If so, will there be a migration of Boers from South Africa to Danish Africa? How large, or how small would the influx be? Could the influx make a impact on the Danish perception of Britain?

Was there a Dano-German competition for the area?
 
How might the events that lead up to Denmark getting colonies, in what is now Namibia, and Botswana affect the relationship between Denmark and Britain?

Slightly negative in the period from 1885-1910, afterward a return to OTL status, just with a slightly more hostile public view of Britain to around 1930. It won’t have any real major effect.

Will there be any Boer wars in your TL? If so, will there be a migration of Boers from South Africa to Danish Africa? How large, or how small would the influx be? Could the influx make a impact on the Danish perception of Britain?

Yes there was Boer Wars, it didn’t result in a significant long term influx of Boer to Danish Namibia-Botswana (but there was refugee camps under the war and weapons being smuggled in). Around 20% of the citizens population of the colony are Afrikaans/Dutch speakers, but only a quarter of these are Boer/White Dutch, the rest are Colored and Black.

Was there a Dano-German competition for the area?

No Denmark had established its claim to the territory before 1871.
 
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