Vagn Bennike (6 January 1888 – 30 November 1970) was a Danish army engineer and

demolition Demolition (also known as razing, cartage, and wrecking) is the science and engineering in safely and efficiently tearing down of buildings and other artificial structures. Demolition contrasts with deconstruction, which involves taking a ...

s expert. During the

occupation of Denmark At the outset of World War II in September 1939, Denmark declared itself neutral. For most of the war, the country was a protectorate and then an occupied territory of Germany. The decision to occupy Denmark was taken in Berlin on 17 December ...

during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

he worked in the

Danish resistance movement The Danish resistance movements ( da, Den danske modstandsbevægelse) were an underground insurgency to resist the German occupation of Denmark during World War II. Due to the initially lenient arrangements, in which the Nazi occupation autho ...

Jutland Jutland ( da, Jylland ; german: Jütland ; ang, Ēota land ), known anciently as the Cimbric or Cimbrian Peninsula ( la, Cimbricus Chersonesus; da, den Kimbriske Halvø, links=no or ; german: Kimbrische Halbinsel, links=no), is a peninsula of ...

, where he was attached to the army's illegal tasks unit. In the summer of 1944 he took charge of resistance operations in Jutland, and was at times criticized by other resistance groups for the priority in operations he gave to his loyalty to the army. On 28 April 1945, with the liberation of Denmark, he was promoted to

Major General Major general (abbreviated MG, maj. gen. and similar) is a military rank used in many countries. It is derived from the older rank of sergeant major general. The disappearance of the "sergeant" in the title explains the apparent confusion of a ...

, and spent the next 8 years as Inspector General of Engineers. He was subsequently appointed in 1953 to succeed William E.Riley as the UN overseer in charge of monitoring the truce lines between Israel and her Arab neighbours, becoming Chief of Staff of UNTSO, the

United Nations Truce Supervision Organization The United Nations Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO) is an organization founded on 29 May 1948 for peacekeeping in the Middle East. Established amidst the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, its primary task was initially to provide the military com ...

, a post in which he served for the period between June 1953 and August 1954. One of his first decisions, in September 1953, was to overrule his predecessor Riley's go-ahead to Israel for work on the proposed

hydro-electric Hydroelectricity, or hydroelectric power, is electricity generated from hydropower (water power). Hydropower supplies one sixth of the world's electricity, almost 4500 TWh in 2020, which is more than all other renewable sources combined an ...

project from B'not Yaakov Bridge to

Lake Kinneret The Sea of Galilee ( he, יָם כִּנֶּרֶת, Judeo-Aramaic: יַמּא דטבריא, גִּנֵּיסַר, ar, بحيرة طبريا), also called Lake Tiberias, Kinneret or Kinnereth, is a freshwater lake in Israel. It is the lowest ...

, which ran through part of the demilitarized zone. Vagn Bennike suspended the work until multilateral negotiations could settle the dispute. After the

Qibya massacre The Qibya massacre occurred during "Operation Shoshana", a reprisal operation that occurred in October 1953 when Israeli troops under Ariel Sharon attacked the village of Qibya in the West Bank. At least sixty-nine Palestinian villagers were k ...

, he was called to testify before the

United Nations Security Council The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) is one of the Organs of the United Nations, six principal organs of the United Nations (UN) and is charged with ensuring international security, international peace and security, recommending the admi ...

in October 1953 He also wrote a foreword to his colleague Commander E.H. Hutchison's book ''Violent Truce: The Arab-Israeli conflict 1951-1955''.Commander E.H. Hutchison, ''Violent Truce: The Arab-Israeli conflict 1951-1955''.

John Calder John Mackenzie Calder (25 January 1927 – 13 August 2018) was a Scottish-Canadian writer and publisher who founded the company Calder Publishing in 1949. Biography Calder was born in Montreal, Canada, into the Calder family associated with the ...

, London 1956

References

External links

E H Hutchison “Violent Truce”
1888 births 1970 deaths Danish generals United Nations military personnel Danish resistance members Burials at Hellerup Cemetery {{denmark-mil-bio-stub