Rye Airfield and Refugee Camp

Visitors to the Museum at Gl. Rye Mill still show enormous interest in the exhibition about Rye Airfield and the Refugee Camp.

The airfield was built in 1935 as a private airfield by the then Director of F.L. Smidth & Co., Gunnar Larsen. He built the airfield so that he could commute between his country house, Højkol, and his job in Copenhagen.

In 1938 Gunnar Larsen managed to get certification from "Det Danske Luftfartsselskab", D. D. L. (The Danish Air Company), for larger aircraft to land in Rye after making important improvements and extensions. The airfield, that went under the name of Silkeborg Airfield, was registered in the official Danish air traffic routes. A radio and control building was built along with a waiting-room and office where it was possible to buy tickets to Copenhagen, Aalborg, and Esbjerg. 

All this ended suddenly when the Germans occupied the airfield on the 9th of April 1940. The first German soldiers arrived by train or in vehicles. They arrived before midday and soon after the first military aircraft were landing there. "Flugstützpunkt Kdo. 18/IX Rye" was established and it continued to function as such until the 5th of May 1945. 

The organization of the military airfield was set in motion. Barracks for the personnel were constructed with wash-rooms and kitchen facilities and an impressive officers’ club was built.

In addition the necessary military installations were built. Bunkers and trenches were constructed and, in the woods, large storage barracks were partly dug into the ground for use as depots for ammunition and other military stores.

Finally enormous tanks were buried in the ground for storing huge quantities of petrol transported to the airfield.

Due to erroneous information that there were 200 German aircraft stationed at the airfield, it was bombed by the Royal Air Force on the 2nd of May 1940. This was the only attack on the airfield which thereafter was not considered as an important target. It is now known that in the main the airfield was used as a training place.

The airfield eventually became a large workplace giving employment and income to the local population. The relationship to the occupying power could not be described as particularly tense. There were around 500 German soldiers stationed there. They were quartered in barracks by the airfield, in private homes in Gl. Rye, in church halls and in Ry Højskole.

From a German military airfield to a refugee camp

Already by the end of 1944 the first German refugees were arriving at Rye Airfield, becoming residents just like the German military personnel. The refugees came from East Germany.

In all around 250,000 refugees arrived in Denmark from across the Baltic. And the German occupation forces quartered them forcibly in schools, church halls and in private homes. Rye Airfield became one of Denmark’s largest refugee Camps with up to 12,000 refugees. The Danish Government took over responsibility for the many refugees after the 5th of May 1945 and the last refugees finally left "The Refugee Camp, Rye Airfield" in 1949.
 
The refugee "town" had its own mayor, post office, telephone exchange, hospital, dentist and much more. The refugees worked in various workshops, offices, on the camp’s own farm or in the large kitchen. The children were able to go to school from school age up and including the sixth form. 





Map of Rye Airfield and Refugee Camp


On a trip into the beautiful lake district near Gl. Rye it is still possible to see the remains of bunkers, concrete roads, the nearly invisible trenches and the foundations from the barrack buildings.  

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