They dropped atomic bombs on Russia, blew up Danish bridges, mobilized police and military against striking workers in Esbjerg. All the while they sat themselves isolated from the outside world in a nuclear-proof bunker in Jutland, 60 meters underground. During the Cold War in the 80s, Danish top officials participated in top secret, realistic war games that stretched over two weeks and each time ended in nuclear war.
They had to fight to the last man to prevent the Soviet Union from raising the red flag over Christiansborg, they had to survive nuclear- and gas-attacks with rain cover and gas masks as the only protection - and they were ready to ignore orders and fight using guerrilla tactics, if the Danish government gave up. In the ‘70s and ‘80s the Danish Territorial Army had extensive and secret plans to defend Denmark against attack from the Warsaw Pact.
During the Cold War, most Danes figured that a nuclear war would lead to total extinction, but secretly the authorities prepared for life after the atomic bomb. In cellars of schools and other public buildings, the civil defense stored emergency hospitals, sand bags, stretchers and everything that otherwise would be needed in the event of war.
During the Cold War, the island of Bornholm was Denmark’s and NATO’s eyes and ears behind the Iron Curtain. But if war broke out, Bornholm was to fend for itself. Right up to the end of the Cold War, successive Danish governments did not allow allied forces on the island, thinking it would provoke the Soviet Union. Therefore some Bornholmers, if the Warsaw Pact attacked, had plans to hide anti-aircraft guns in farmers' barns, use private hunting cabins to accommodate soldiers and using agricultural machines for defense.
