What if the Soviets took Denmark in World War II?

[rfmcdonald]

We’re talking about a mainland Denmark under the full control of USSR, so he will create it because he can.

Then why did he not create the Norwegian Democratic Republic, instead withdrawing and allowing all of Norway into NATO?

For that matter, why did he allow for the reunification of Vienna and east Austria in a single capitalist state?

 

[Jürgen]

Then why did he not create the Norwegian Democratic Republic, instead withdrawing and allowing all of Norway into NATO?

For that matter, why did he allow for the reunification of Vienna and east Austria in a single capitalist state?

The question here what will happen if Stalin gain control over all of mainland Denmark (Jutland, Zealand, Funen, Bornholm etc.). The answers is that he will treat it as every single other country he gained control over. He gave up on Norwegian Lapland and Bornholm in OTL, because he hoped for Danish and Norwegian neutrality and he gave up on Eastern Austria because he avoided a Western aligned West Austria.

I mean this is not a very complex question, and I don’t really get why you question it???

 

[rfmcdonald]

The question here what will happen if Stalin gain control over all of mainland Denmark (Jutland, Zealand, Funen, Bornholm etc.). The answers is that he will treat it as every single other country he gained control over.

Why? As others have pointed out, unless we have an earlier POD involving Denmark going fascist and waging war against the Soviet Union, Denmark will be a different sort of country from the ones that were brought into the Soviet sphere.

Moreover, in your answer you point out reasons why Stalin might be very ready to trade indefinite control over Denmark off. A Sovietized Denmark would be a great way to bring not just Norway but Sweden into an anti-Soviet alliance, for instance, to say nothing about British concerns. Stalin was not unthinkingly bent on indefinite expansion; he was, instead, a man making rational decisions.

 

[Ambusher11]

For that matter, why did he allow for the reunification of Vienna and east Austria in a single capitalist state?

Um, you do know that the Soviets only allowed a fully unified neutral capitalist Austrian state in 1955 two years after Stalin's death, right?

 

[basileus]

It is not clear to me, though, what "Finlandized" would mean. Denmark, unlike Finland, had not been waging war against the Soviet Union, had no history of territorial disputes with the Soviet Union, posed no threats. The argument that to Soviet policy in Jutland would be different from Soviet policy in Finnmark needs some deeper justification: What would the Soviets want to achieve?

Finlandized in the sense of "held to respect Soviet sensibilities, while not Sovietized politically". That would require neutrality and absence of Soviet military bases, which is something, but far from impossible. I can see the liberation of Denmark as being largely self-conducted, with minimal involvement of Soviet boots on the ground (very much needed elsewhere), possibly only an operation to take Bornholm as per OTL and some Marine Infantry here and there, under the asssumption of an accord with the Western Allies to keep the Oresund effectively neutral, with future East Germany controlling the Kiel Canal and quite possibly Hamburg, while the British would retake and keep Helgoland so as to minimize any threat on the North Sea.
But, how would the vast German garrison in Denmark react? The entire Kriegsmarine would probably try to evacuate them to Norway to be captured by the British, together with hordes of civilians and collaborators.

 

[basileus]

Um, you do know that the Soviets only allowed a fully unified neutral capitalist Austrian state in 1955 two years after Stalin's death, right?

Austria saw the implementation of Stalin's original proposal for Germany: reunification under a neutral status (without any army, in the case of Germany).
Idea which the West obviously rejected out of hand, seeing it as a ploy in bad faith.

 

[rfmcdonald]

Um, you do know that the Soviets only allowed a fully unified neutral capitalist Austrian state in 1955 two years after Stalin's death, right?

Right.

(Austria, of course, being a smaller successor state to the Nazi Germany that had led the attack.)

Others have pointed out that a Sovietized Denmark, on top of other gains in the Baltics, would deeply alarm the British particularly with fears of a projection of Soviet naval power.

You could get a Sovietized Denmark. Counting on it happening is a mistake: Stalin was rational, by some standards, and would not automatically bring the country into the Soviet sphere if he thought it would hurt Soviet interests. Denmark is not even Czechoslovakia, never mind Poland or Romania.