Of the many events that took place in the final phase of World War II, the activities on the small Danish island of Bornholm are among the least remembered. On May 9, 1945, just as Germany was surrendering to the Allies, the Red Army occupied Bornholm. The island's strategic location 150 miles northeast of the German city of Lubeck could have given the Soviets control of the route between the Baltic and North seas, creating leverage for the Kremlin in any postwar settlement. And a Soviet presence there fed Stalin's hope of imposing Soviet-Danish cooperation, both political and economic.
But the Soviets stayed for less than a year. When the Red Army withdrew in April 1946, Norman Naimark writes, the islanders “were able to resume their lives . . . as full members of a free Danish polity.” The 11-month occupation of Bornholm turned out to be relatively benign, without the widespread rape and pillage that characterized the Soviet onslaught into Germany. Even so, the experience of Soviet occupation was traumatic enough—combined with the Danes' unwillingness to accept Soviet domination in any form—for Denmark to abandon its traditional neutrality and become an original member of NATO in 1949.
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