Following the German occupation 9 April 1940 the Danish Government made a deliberate effort to safeguard as much of Danish sovereignty as possible. Danish diplomats around the world were instructed to follow the line of the national Government in Copenhagen and to respect its cautious line of cooperation with Germany. In Washington, the Danish Minister, Henrik Kauffmann, refused to accept the line of his government which he claimed was acting under duress. He sought American support for a position as »independent representative« for »The Free Denmark« and urged his colleagues throughout the free world to follow his example and defy orders from Copenhagen. Seven out of some twenty-four heads of mission responded positively to Kauffmann's request but the vast majority of the 73 Danish diplomats living abroad in 30 countries remained loyal to the Copenhagen government, each of them having to consider not only the financial and personal implications of a break-off with Copenhagen, but also the - often ambiguous - attitude of their »host« governments which in most cases in the indecisive first years of the war were not eager to commit themselves to a break-away » independent« Danish diplomat. Even Kauffmann, as it turned out, was not able to drum up a clear American commitment to refuse any new Danish Minister, should he be withdrawn by the Danish Government. 

In April 1941 Kauffmann provoked an end to relations with Copenhagen as well as American recognition of himself as »independent representative for Free Denmark« when he - behind the back of his government - signed an agreement with the USA for the defence of Greenland. Soon, the majority of his fellow diplomats in the Western hemisphere followed, alongside with a few Eastern posts. 

Kauffmann now actively sought to orchestrate an alternative »Independent Danish Foreign Service«, drawing upon frozen Danish funds in the USA to pay the costs. As the Soviet Union and the USA were drawn into the war, the process gained momentum, and by 1942 18 out of a total of 30 Danish diplomatic representations in the free world had declared themselves »independent«, even if only 9 of these were primary diplomatic posts. 

Of the remaining 15 representations in Europe only a few could - and would - come out in favour of Kauffmann, partly because of German control and/or loyalty to Copenhagen, partly out of reluctance to commit themselves to the course of the renegade diplomat. By Fall 1943 almost half of the total Danish diplomatic representations had switched over to Kauffmann. 

At the same time, »The independent Foreign Service« managed to accredit a few new diplomats to posts previously evacuated by Danish diplomats loyal to Copenhagen. Kauffmann in 1942 got himself accredited with the nationalist Chinese Government in Chungking and in 1944 a representative of »fighting Denmark« backed by the Danish Freedom Council was received in Moscow. 

One main conclusion of the analysis of the situation of the individual diplomats is that they held widely different views on what constituted the »true interests« of occupied Denmark. In particular, they held diverging views on the prudence of the policy of cooperation pursued by the Danish Government. More

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surprisingly, however, it can be argued that both those who broke away from the policy of cooperation and those who remained loyal, and both those who stayed in Copenhagen for the duration of the war and those who were posted abroad tended to let their position be determined by their personal assessment of the best Danish interests in the situation rather than by the Government line. All of them - in other words - in principle constituted an »independent« foreign service, not driven by the policy line of the Government but by the personal belief of the individual diplomats.