Editing History of Greenland (section)

=== World War II ===
{{main|Greenland in World War II}}

The [[Nazi Germany|German]] [[Denmark in World War II|invasion and occupation]] of Denmark in 1940 cut Greenland off from Danish control and supplies. Greenland emerged as strategically important to the Allies and Nazi Germany for use as bases in the [[Battle of the Atlantic]] and for vital weather forecasting. [[Henrik Kauffmann]], the [[Danish Ambassador to the United States|Danish Minister to the United States]]&nbsp;— who had already refused to recognise the German occupation of Denmark&nbsp;— signed a treaty with the United States on 9 April 1941, granting permission to establish stations in Greenland.<ref name=":1">{{Cite news|url=http://arcticjournal.com/culture/2968/sledge-patrol|title=The Sledge Patrol|work=The Arctic Journal|access-date=2017-03-08|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170308222716/http://arcticjournal.com/culture/2968/sledge-patrol|archive-date=2017-03-08|url-status=dead}}</ref> Kauffmann did this without the knowledge of the Danish government, and consequently "the Danish government accused him of high treason, fired him and told him to come home immediately – none of which had any result".<ref name=":1" /> A series of 14 American bases were built on the west and east coasts Greenland to ferry aircraft to Europe and to provide bases for American, Canadian and British forces to attack German submarines. Because it was difficult for the Danish government to govern the island during the war, and because of successful exports, especially of [[cryolite]], Greenland came to enjoy a rather independent status. Its supplies were guaranteed by the United States.

German forces attempted set up a series of weather stations in Eastern Greenland to gain strategic weather intelligence as part of the [[North Atlantic weather war]]. Greenland established [[Sirius Dog Sled Patrol|"The Sledge Patrol"]] in 1941 using small teams of Greenlanders and sled dogs to locate and attack the stations in conjunction with US naval and air units. In the series of remote attacks and counterattacks that followed, one Dane and a German were killed in fighting and the Germans were forced to abandon their weather stations by 1944.<ref name=":1" />