Recent Danish military history contains many interesting periods as well as exciting buildings.
At the same time, the flow of information is so easy and accessible that many read the lesson before leaving home, or on smartphones and I-pads on the site itself.
This also means that the experience will be both completely different and the story present.
Today, one must well be investigative and challenging, including in military history. Something just 30 years ago was almost unheard of. It was somethinng for strange old men.
I began actively dealing with military history myself in 1985 and still remember the rolling eyes when I told what I was doing in a seemingly desolate forest or in forest of weeds.
The experiences and history are still waiting and waiting to be experienced.
Cannons at Fredericia
The Schleswig wars have left a lot of interesting stories and interesting places.
Fredericia, best known from the counterattack in 1849, stands today with her bastions and north of the city are still several of the redoubts from 1949. The story tells of General Rye and Colonel Lunding while Michaelis cemetery tells of the victims who rests in the great common grave.
Rye’s redoubts at the Helgenæs tells how Rye sailed from here to Fredericia from the north, and assisted by General de Merza who came by sea by sea from the south, liberated the city.
The Redoubts at Bustrup, where over 500 Danish soldiers and Schleswig-Holstein rebels are buried.
The Isted Lion at Flenborg Sct. Maria cemetery with graves from both the 1st and 2nd Schleswig War.
Common grave with 15 danes 1864
From 1864 there are more historical sites.
Mysunde, the place where the Prussians would have liked to set about to surround the Dannevirke Stranghold. Here are the remains of one of the redoubts and the city’s bombardement houses with cannonballs in the walls.
The Dannevirke Stronghold with the restored redoubt no. XIV, Sankelmark where the Danish rear troops fought against Austrian husars, Kongshøj (Königshügel) with the Austrian memorial after the fighting on the hill.
The Dybboel redoubts are a chapter in itself. There is virtually nothing left while the Prussians looped them and built new and larger ones on top of them.
But history is present. This is where it happened and the story flies with wide wings.
The common graves and the many memorials tell their own sad story. The cemeteries in the area also tell about the many victims, especially Broager, Dybbøl and Sønderborg.
To the north of the peninsula Arnkil you can see the Prussian crossing points from 1864 with their memorial stones and to the south at the village of Kær meets the many tombs at the roadside.
Twenty-two years later, the constructions of the Copenhagen’s fortifications begins.
The 14 kilometers long Vestvold with the moats, ramparts and all the facilities. The 5 forts to the north and the forts and batteries along and off the coast around Copenhagen.
German Machinegun bunker 1916 (Vedsted)
In the souhern part of Jutland Sicherungsstellung Nord was built during the period 1916-18. It was built by the Germans in the part og Denmark that was German from 1864 to 1920, as a result of the Danish defeat i 1864.
The Sicherungsstellung Nord is a position to defend northern Germany against an English attack from the north, possibly backed by Denmark.
There are plenty of original remains of the Stronghold. Both traces of trenches and barbed wire, remains of the large ruptured batteries and intact bunkers from 1916.
Almost all the cemeteries in the southern Jutland region have memorials over the more than 6,000 danes who were forced into into German war service.
From World War II, there are numerous places witnessing and the German Atlantic wall. Along the entire west coast, around the Skagen and to Frederikshavn there are larger and smaller plants.
We can also find these memories elsewhere in the country.
Nike Ajax at Sigerslev
The 45 years of the Cold War have left a lot of historical footprints.
Lots of larger and smaller plants still exist around the country testifying of the time when nuclear war seemed like a likely opportunity and a real threat.
Many of the facilities were closed down from 1970 onwards. Either because they were outdated or because other solutions to the tasks to be solved had come up.
And at the same time, the interest in preserving and telling was non-existent. Like any other unpleasant contemporary story, those who experienced it, do not find it exciting to tell about.
Now, 30 years later, we can tell the story to the new generations.