In an earlier blog post I showed a picture of Lieutenant Colonel Troels-Smith representing DIS in Yugoslavia. Let’s take a look at what actually happened and find out if DIS was successfully promoting their merchandise. Here follows the third part of the story.
The hard work finally seemed to be paying off. In 1941 Director Henckel was in Belgrade to negotiate a deal for 100 machine cannons and 200 lmg. At the same time engineer E. Sætter-Lassen demonstrated Madsen for the air force in Zemun and for the marine in Boka Kotorska.
Unfortunately for DIS the world history hindered this deal. 22 March Germany presented Yugoslavia with a of ultimatum, this put a stop to the deal with DIS – the larger implications of the Yugoslavia – German relationship is not discussed further but Yugoslavia split into several fractions and one of them continued as Croatia.
In 1942 the situation was different. In Helsingfors director Henckel met a Croatian comission with colonel Mijo Seletković, lieutenant Romnaldo Mandl, lieutenant Mihovil Saric and Eugen Kuborczy. They were interested in 20 mm machine cannon and 7,92 lmg. In September the comission was in Denmark and Madsen was demonstrated at the shooting range at Mosede Fort (picture above). In November the contract on the mg was signed and paid for in Swiss franc.
To be continued….