Foreign relations of the Axis powers

Foreign relations of the Axis powers includes states which were not officially members of the Axis but had relations with one or more Axis members.

Europe Andorra During the Second World War, Andorra remained neutral but was an important smuggling route between Vichy France and Spain.

Austria On February 12, 1934, the new Austrofascist regime provoked the Austrian Civil War by ordering search warrants for the headquarters of the socialist party. At that time the socialist party structures were already weakened and the uprising of its supporters was quickly defeated. Subsequently, the socialist party and all its ancillary organisations were banned.

On May 1, 1934, the Engelbert Dollfuss cabinet approved a new constitution that abolished freedom of the press, established a one party system (known as "The Patriotic Front") and created a total state monopoly on employer-employee relations. This system remained in force until the Anschluss in 1938, when Austria became part of Nazi Germany. The Patriotic Front government frustrated the ambitions of Nazi sympathisers in Austria who wished both political influence and unification with Germany, leading to the assassination of Dollfuss on July 25, 1934. His successor Kurt Schuschnigg maintained the ban on Nazi activities in Austria, but was forced to resign on March 11, 1938, following a demand by Hitler for power-sharing with pro-German circles.

On March 12, German troops entered Austria, who met celebrating crowds, in order to install Nazi puppet Arthur Seyss-Inquart as Chancellor. With a Nazi administration in place and the country integrated into Nazi Germany, a referendum on April 10 approved the annexation with a majority of 99.73%.

As a result, Austria ceased to exist as an independent country during World War II. Technically, this annexation was forced by military invasion, but large parts of the Austrian population were in favour of the Nazi regime. The large Jewish population (about 200,000 Jews were living in Vienna at that time), which had had considerable significance for science and culture at that time, was killed or forced into exile, as were many socialist and Catholic Austrian politicians. Approximately 1.2 million Austrians either volunteered or were drafted into the Wehrmacht, of which about 250,000 were killed. Nearly 67,000 Austrians served in the Waffen SS, a disproportionately high number viz. its population compared with Germany's at the time. Austrian troops made up the bulk of seven alpine and infantry divisions, three armoured divisions and three garrison divisions.

Belarus

During World War II, the Nazis attempted to establish a Belarusian puppet state, led by collaborationist Belarusian Central Rada, with symbols similar to the short-lived Democratic Republic of Belarus. The Germans imposed a brutal racist regime, burning down some 9,000 Belarusian villages, deporting some 380,000 people for slave labour, and killing hundreds of thousands more civilians.

Almost the entire, previously very numerous, Jewish population of Belarus that had not been evacuated, was killed. One of the first uprisings of a Jewish ghetto against the Nazis occurred in 1942 in a small Polish town of Łachwa (now Lakhva, Belarus).

Belgium

Before the occupation of Belgium by Germany, Belgium withdrew from its alliance with France and declared itself neutral, compromising the Maginot line in the process. King Leopold III of Belgium choose to remain in the country, rather than going into exile. Around 15,000 Belgians served in two separate divisions of the Waffen-SS, divided along linguistic lines.

During the late 1930s through 1945, Belgium had many fascist groups and parties, such as Vlaamsch Nationaal Verbond and many others. Nazi Germany and fascist groups had moved to Belgium to establish a fascist party in Belgium. They had some success; Belgium decided not to go with any Axis powers.

Channel Islands

While the German Army was preparing to land an assault force of two battalions to capture the Channel Islands, a reconnaissance pilot landed in Guernsey on June 30, 1940, to whom the island officially surrendered. Jersey surrendered on July 1. Alderney, where no one remained, was occupied on July 2, and a small detachment travelled from Guernsey to Sark which officially surrendered on July 4. In Guernsey, the bailiff, Sir Victor Carey and the States of Guernsey handed overall control to the German authorities. Day-to-day running of island affairs became the responsibility of a Controlling Committee, chaired by Ambrose Sherwill.

The policy of the island governments, acting under instructions from the British government communicated before the occupation, was one of passive co-operation, although this has been criticised because of the deportation of Jews from the islands. Some island women fraternised with the occupying forces, although this was frowned upon by the majority of islanders, who gave them the derogatory nickname "Jerry bags".

Czech Republic

Bohemia and Moravia were occupied and declared a protectorate of Germany and were placed under the supervision of the Reichsprotektor, which position held consecutively several people. Emil Hácha remained as technical head of state with the title of State President; German officials staffed departments analogous to cabinet ministries, while small German control offices were established locally. The Gestapo assumed police authority. Jews were dismissed from the civil service and placed in an extralegal position. Political parties were banned, and many democratic politicians fled to France and United Kingdom where they established anti-Nazi government in exile. Many Communist Party leaders fled to the Soviet Union.

The population of the protectorate was mobilised for labour that would aid the German war effort, and special offices were organised to supervise the management of industries important to that effort. Czechs were drafted to work in coal mines, the iron and steel industry, and armaments production; some young people were sent to Germany. Consumer goods production, much diminished, was largely directed toward supplying the German armed forces. The protectorate's population was subjected to strict rationing.

Denmark

On May 31, 1939, Denmark and Germany signed a treaty of non-aggression, which did not contain any military obligations for either party. On April 9, 1940, citing intended British mining of Norwegian and Danish waters as a pretext, Germany occupied both countries. King Christian X and the Danish government, worried about German bombings if they resisted occupation, accepted "protection by the Reich" in exchange for nominal independence under German military occupation, thereby ending the fighting in Denmark already on the day of the invasion. Three successive Prime Ministers, Thorvald Stauning, Vilhelm Buhl and Erik Scavenius, maintained this samarbejdspolitik ("cooperation policy") of collaborating with Germany.

Denmark coordinated its foreign policy with Germany, extending diplomatic recognition to Axis collaborator and puppet regimes and breaking diplomatic relations with the "governments-in-exile" formed by countries occupied by Germany. Denmark broke diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union and signed the Anti-Comintern Pact of 1941.

In 1941, a Danish military corps, Frikorps Danmark was created at the initiative of the SS and the Danish Nazi Party, to fight alongside the Wehrmacht on Germany's Eastern Front. A government statement following the formation of the Frikorps was widely interpreted as a sanctioning of the corps. Frikorps Danmark was open to members of the Danish Royal Army and those who had completed their service within the last ten years. Between 4,000 and 10,000 Danes joined the Frikorps Danmark, including 77 officers of the Royal Danish Army. An estimated 3,900 Danes died fighting for Germany during the Second World War.

Denmark transferred six torpedo boats to Germany in 1941, although the bulk of its navy remained under Danish command until the declaration of martial law in 1943.

Denmark supplied agricultural and industrial products to Germany as well as loans for armaments and fortifications. The German presence in Denmark, including the construction of the Danish part of the Atlantic Wall fortifications, was paid from an account in Denmark's central bank, Nationalbanken. The Danish government had been promised that these expenses would be repaid later, but this never happened. The construction of the Atlantic Wall fortifications in Jutland cost 5 billion Danish kroner.

The Danish protectorate government lasted until August 29, 1943, when the cabinet resigned following a declaration of martial law by occupying German military officials. The Danish navy managed to scuttle 32 of its larger ships to prevent their use by Germany. Germany succeeded in seizing 14 of the larger and 50 of the smaller vessels and later to raise and refit 15 of the sunken vessels. During the scuttling of the Danish fleet, a number of vessels were ordered to attempt an escape to Swedish waters, and 13 vessels succeeded in this attempt, four of which were larger ships.Søværnets mærkedage - August Flåden efter 29. august 1943 By the autumn of 1944, these ships officially formed a Danish naval flotilla in exileDen danske Flotille 1944-1945 In 1943, Swedish authorities allowed 500 Danish soldiers in Sweden to train themselves as "police troops". By the autumn of 1944, Sweden raised this number to 4,800 and recognised the entire unit as a Danish military brigade in exile. Danish collaboration continued on an administrative level, with the Danish bureaucracy functioning under German command.

Active resistance to the German occupation among the populace, virtually nonexistent before 1943, increased after the declaration of martial law. The intelligence operations of the Danish resistance was described as "second to none" by Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery after the liberation of Denmark.

Estonia

After Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, and the Wehrmacht reached Estonia in July 1941, most Estonians greeted the Germans with relatively open arms and hoped for restored independence but it soon became clear that sovereignty was out of the question. Estonia became a part of the German-occupied "Ostland". A Sicherheitspolizei (secret police) was established for internal security under the leadership of Ain-Ervin Mere.

A conscript Waffen-SS Estonian unit that eventually became a full-sized Waffen-SS division, the 20th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (1st Estonian), was formed in 1944. The Estonian units saw action defending the Narva line throughout 1944.

Estonia had a Jewish population of 4,300 people before the war. Most of the Jews were deported to Siberia along with other Estonians by the Soviets. It is estimated that a few thousand Estonian Jews suffered this fate. Out the approximately 4,300 Jews in Estonia prior to the war, 950 Jews were caught by the Nazis. Round-ups and killings of Jews began immediately following the arrival of the first German troops in 1941, who were closely followed by the extermination squad Sonderkommando 1a, part of Einsatzgruppe A.

France

Before the Battle of France, France had signed the Munich Agreement which would allow Hungary and Nazi Germany, 2 Axis powers, and Poland, an allied power which also had a relationship, to take over Czechoslovakia in 1938.

Greece