1948 Easter Crisis

You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in Danish. (June 2023) Click [show] for important translation instructions. Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing Danish Wikipedia article at [[:da:Påskekrisen (1948)]]; see its history for attribution. You may also add the template {{Translated|da|Påskekrisen (1948)}} to the talk page. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

The 1948 Easter Crisis (Danish: Påskekrisen 1948) was the fear that the Soviet Union or Soviet-aligned Communists were planning an invasion or coup d'état in Denmark, in the wake of the 1948 Communist Coup in Czechoslovakia. Until this crisis, Denmark had tried to remain neutral between East and West, but in the election of 1947, the Communists had been reduced from 18 to 9 seats in the Folketing, removing them from participation in the parliamentary defence and security committee. It was now possible for defence to be discussed without any Communist intervention. Growing fear of attack from the East caused Denmark's government led by Hans Hedtoft to align with the West. After an abortive attempt to form a Scandinavian Defence Union with Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden, Denmark joined NATO in 1949.