War Diary of the German commander-in-chief in Denmark, 1943-45
War Diary of the German commander-in-chief in Denmark, 1943-45
Below is a full transcript of the war diary of the operations department (Abteilung Ia) of the staff of the German commander-in-chief in Denmark (Wehrmachtbefehlshaber Dänemark) for the period from 4 November 1943 to 28 May 1945.
The war diary was the diary of the staff of the German commander in which all important decisions and reports were introduced by the day.
The War diary comprise of two parts, 4 November 1943 to 31 December 1944, and 1 January 1945 to 28 May 1945, each of which has its pages numbered in sequence. The war diary also included a large number of original documents, which are not reproduced here.
The model for the transcript is found in the National Archives in Copenhagen. This is a typewritten original, which obviously often written from day to day. Thus, one can in some places tell the difference in the density of writing, which shows that the sheets has been typed on at least two typewriters. The typewriter used were presumably purchased in Denmark, as the German “β” is not used in the text.
Additions or corrections in the text done by hand are listed in square brackets [].
The original spelling of the document is retained. However, in some cases where personal names are spelled incorrectly, the correct spelling is written in brackets [].
Although war diary seems complete, there are a few places disorder in the page numbering: So, In the war diary of 1943-1944 the page number -2- is used twice. On the other hand, the pages 137, 161-162, 167 and 198 are missing. From the context, it would appear that the page numbers have been skipped by accident as no text seems to be missing. In the war diary of 1945 no page 170 is found.
The original war diary is kept in the National Archives in Copenhagen, Håndskriftssamlingen XVI, pk. 200-201. A photo copy can be found in the Bundesarchiv, Abteilung Militärarchiv, RW 38/182 to 185.
