Operation Carthage

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Operation Carthage
Part of the Second World War
The air raid on the Shellhus
Date 21 March 1945 Location Copenhagen, Denmark 55°40′40″N 12°33′42″E / 55.6778°N 12.5617°E / 55.6778; 12.5617 Result British victory
Belligerents
RAAF Royal Air Force RNZAF	Gestapo Kriegsmarine
Strength
20 bombers, 30 fighters	Various antiaircraft defences
Casualties and losses
6 aircraft destroyed 9 aircrew killed 1 aircrew captured	The Danish headquarters of the Gestapo destroyed 55 German soldiers and 47 Danish employees of the Gestapo killed
123 Danish civilians killed, including 87 schoolchildren 8 Danish prisoners of the Gestapo killed

Operation Carthage, on 21 March 1945, was a British air raid on Copenhagen, Denmark during the Second World War which caused significant collateral damage. The target of the raid was the Shellhus, used as Gestapo headquarters in the city centre. It was used for the storage of dossiers and the torture of Danish citizens during interrogations. The Danish Resistance had long asked the British to conduct a raid against the site. The building was destroyed, 18 prisoners were freed and Nazi anti-resistance activities were disrupted. Part of the raid was mistakenly directed against a nearby school; the raid caused 123 civilian deaths (including 87 schoolchildren and 18 adults at the school).^[1] The incident was dramatised in the 2021 Danish film The Shadow in My Eye. A similar raid against the Gestapo headquarters in Aarhus, on 31 October 1944, had succeeded.