British and US Post-Neutrality Policy in the North Atlantic Area 09.04.1940
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_________________________________________________________________________Swansea University E-Theses British and U.S. post-neutrality policy in the North Atlantic area 09.04.1940-1945: The role of Danish representatives. Horni, Hanna i How to cite: _________________________________________________________________________ Horni, Hanna i (2010) British and U.S. post-neutrality policy in the North Atlantic area 09.04.1940-1945: The role of Danish representatives.. thesis, Swansea University. http://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa42732 Use policy: _________________________________________________________________________ This item is brought to you by Swansea University. Any person downloading material is agreeing to abide by the terms of the repository licence: copies of full text items may be used or reproduced in any format or medium, without prior permission for personal research or study, educational or non-commercial purposes only. 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Hanna \ Horni Submitted to the University of Wales in fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Swansea University 2010 ProQuest Number: 10807501 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a com plete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. uest ProQuest 10807501 Published by ProQuest LLC(2018). Copyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States C ode Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106- 1346 o *9 LIBRARY SUMMARY Following the German occupation of Denmark on April 9th 1940 Danish representatives were left to their own devices and their positions in their respective host-countries became very much dependent upon the goodwill shown to them by their host-govemments and, in the case of the Faroe Islands, Iceland and Greenland, the governments and officials of the occupying forces. With their connections with the Government in Copenhagen severed the main task of the Danish representatives was to secure Danish interests in the North Atlantic Territories as well as elsewhere. The fact that Denmark had not put up a fight to defend her neutrality and the subsequent collaboration of the Danish Government with the German occupiers counted against the Danish representatives abroad. However, the Danes were able to exercise a remarkable level of influence on the British and Americans with regard to their policies towards the North Atlantic Area. The extent of influence was mainly due to the entrepreneurship of each individual, the constitutional status of the territory as part of the Kingdom of Denmark, and also due to strategic importance attached by the occupying forces’ governments to the occupied territories in question. This latter point became especially apparent in the power struggle amongst the Danish representatives that emerged from the lack of a Danish Government in exile. It became important to the British and the Americans that it was the Danish representative in their country, who emerged as the victor of this power struggle, because that would help to secure their future interests in the North Atlantic territories. The Danish representatives were thus in some cases shown more goodwill and attention than their Norwegian colleagues, although the Norwegians had put up a brave fight against the Germans and had joined the allied side. The North Atlantic area proved very important to the general war policy of the British and Americans during Second World War. British policies were much dependent upon the Americans and Greenland and Iceland became instrumental in the increased involvement of the Americans in the war. 2 DECLARATION This work has not previously been accepted in substance for any degree and is not being concurrently submitted in candidature for any degree Signed, (candidate) Date... STATEMENT 1 This thesis is the result of my own investigations, except where otherwise stated. Where correction services have been used, the extent and nature of the correction is clearly marked in a footnote(s). Other sources are acknowledged by footnotes giving explicit references. A bibliography is appended. Signed (candidate) Date STATEMENT 2 I hereby giver the consent for my thesis, if accepted, to be available for photocopying and for inter-library loan, and for the title and summary to be made available to outside organisations. Signed, (candidate) D ate... 3 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost I would like to thank my supervisor Dr. Alan Collins, who was kind enough to take over as my supervisor, when my firstly appointed supervisor, Clive Ponting, retired one year into my PhD. The gratitude I have for the support, advice, help and guidance Alan has provided, both academically and privately, cannot be justified by a few lines. I will forever be grateful. I would also like to thank the staff at the Department of Politics and IR at Swansea University, both present and past, for always making me feel at home in the department. A special thank to Dr. Mark Evans and Dr. Jonathan Bradbury, who have always been ready to provide additional assistance, when needed. My fellow PhD-researchers also need recognition for making, what could have been a lonely and dreary work, highly enjoyable. I will miss the good humour of Room 017. My gratitude to Granskingarra5i5 for funding this project; I also want to thank my bosses at the Mission of the Faroes to the European Union for the support and understanding, so that I could finish the thesis in time. At last, but not least, I would like to thank my family and friends for their support and patience. 4 TEXT AND REFERENCES Throughout the thesis the reader will notice that there is some inconsistency in the spelling of Danish, Faroese and Icelandic names of people and places. This is due to the fact that there are some letters in the Danish, Faroese and Icelandic languages, which do not appear in the English alphabet. Subsequently, most references to place names or people’s names in the British and American documents appear slightly different than in the rest of the text. The confusion, however, should be minimal, since the difference in the English writing rarely changes the names substantially. There are also occurrences, where the titles of the Danish representatives are being referred to differently by the various departments and countries, mainly because there is no English or American equivalent for the Danish title. For example, there is no English term for the Danish title ‘landsfoged’, which the title of the position that Svane and Bran hold in Greenland. In some documents they are referred to as ‘county chiefs’, in others as ‘governors’. The reader should also be made aware of the fact that throughout the thesis the term “Home Rulers” is used as a common term to describe those politicians in the Faroes, who wanted increased Faroese independence from Denmark prior and during the war. The reason for this is that in their documents related to Faroese matters the British officials use the term “Home Rulers” as a common term for both the moderate and the extreme independence party, the People’s Party, who wanted full independence like Iceland. However, it needs to be pointed out that after the war the term “Home Rulers” became a term for those only, who wanted increased Faroese influence on Faroese matters while remaining under the Danish Crown. 5 INDEX SUMMARY........................................................................................................................ 2 DECLARATION................................................................................................................3 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS...............................................................................................4 TEXT AND REFERENCES..............................................................................................5 INDEX.................................................................................................................................6 INTRODUCTION............................................................................................................11 CHAPTER I: DANISH AND NORTH ATLANTIC AIMS AND POLICIES WITH REGARD TO THEIR NEUTRALITY. SOVEREIGNTY AND INDEPENDENCE AT THE OUTBREAK OF WAR AND TILL APRIL 9 th 1940.................................. 28 A. HISTORICAL OVERVIEW.......................................................................................29 B. DENMARK..................................................................................................................31 1. Defending