this post was submitted on 12 Feb 2026
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This was done by all the allies, not just Norway and Denmark. In 1945 none of the allies had motivation to stop Norway, since they themselves had decided to do it this way. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forced_labor_of_Germans_after_World_War_II
Even mine sweeping at sea was done by German sailor POWs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Mine_Sweeping_Administration
As legal justification as to why they could do this, the allied command claimed that these prisoners of war weren't POWs anymore after Germany surrendered, instead they were "Disarmed Enemy Forces" and thus according to them the Geneva convention no longer applied: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disarmed_Enemy_Forces
There's also a Danish film about these POWs: Land of Mine. Good movie imo. And after seeing it a few years ago, I looked up the historical background, which is how I knew that your comment was incorrect.
The movie is also partially incorrect, as Danish military wasn't involved in the clearing, it was overseen by British officers.
I just assume that every historical movie contains inaccuracies. Narrative reasons, budget constraints, dramatization, ... I don't always agree with the creative choices, but I understand why they do it and I'm not going to let it ruin my viewing experience. I can always jump into a wikipedia rabbit hole after the movie.
I can only think of one movie where they went too far for my tastes: the Hollywood movie where it's USA soldiers who capture an intact enigma machine from a u boat.
That said, the danish military was involved in the mine clearing, only not in the way how it was depicted in the movie. https://commons.lib.jmu.edu/cisr-journal/vol22/iss1/4/ The actual pdf contains a better description of who did what than the abstract.