Karup did not begin as a Danish base. Within months of the German occupation of 9 April 1940 the Wehrmacht began building an airfield on the heath between Karup and Grove, about 25 km north-east of Herning. Lex, in an entry written by two Forsvarsakademiet historians, says the Germans expropriated 43 properties for it and named it Fliegerhorst Grove. Wikipedia gives its first German name as Einsatzhafen Grove, an operating field that was later upgraded.

By 1945 the site held about 600 buildings. The largest was Bunker 1137, raised between 1942 and 1944 as a Luftwaffe command centre and described by Lex as Denmark’s largest bunker. Today the station covers about 30 square kilometres, and the German-built bunker is still part of it, according to the cold-war portal koldkrig-online.dk, which describes it as the Luftwaffe’s wartime command centre.

The war ended at Grove with an unusual surrender. According to Wikipedia, citing the British test pilot Eric Brown’s memoir, Brown flew in expecting a captured airfield, found it still a working Luftwaffe base, and accepted the surrender of its commander and some 2,000 men, holding it for a day until British troops arrived. Jet aircraft found there were ferried to Farnborough for evaluation; the sources say nine or twelve Arado Ar 234s.

After the liberation the airfield became one of the largest camps for German refugees. Lex puts the number at about 22,000 between 1945 and 1947; Wikipedia says the camp operated until 1949, so its closing date is given as 1947–1949. Many did not survive. Lex records more than 2,800 refugee and soldier graves in the area, about 1,500 at Kølvrå and about 1,300 at Grove.

The Danish army took over in 1946 and, according to Wikipedia, the Army Air Corps set up a flying school and maintenance centre in 1947. When the Royal Danish Air Force was created as an independent service on 1 October 1950, Karup became its main base. Lex notes that it housed Meteor Mk 4 jets, and Danish Defence says NATO’s infrastructure programme paid to build up Karup, Skrydstrup and Aalborg as the service’s primary bases.

The build-up under US aid was fast and costly. Eskadrille 727 was founded at Karup on 1 November 1952 with the F-84 Thunderjet, and Wikipedia says five new squadrons formed here between 1952 and 1954. Danish Defence’s own history says the service’s first years were plagued by internal disputes, uncertainty and a long series of accidents. In 1955 the two regional air commands were merged into Tactical Air Command (Flyvertaktisk Kommando), headquartered at Karup.

Karup’s weight inside NATO came from its position covering the exits of the Baltic. Lex says the joint Danish-German command Allied Command Baltic Approaches (BALTAP) was created in 1961 with its headquarters at Karup; Wikipedia dates its founding to 8 January 1962. Its commander was always Danish and his deputy always German. One of its four subordinate commands, Allied Air Forces Baltic Approaches (COMAIRBALTAP), also sat at Karup.

Danish Defence says the chief of Tactical Air Command doubled as COMAIRBALTAP, so the same officer at Karup ran both the national air force and the allied air forces, Danish and West German, assigned to the Baltic approaches. From 1959 the air force’s control and warning service also had its headquarters at Karup, until the radar operations centre moved to the Vedbæk bunker in November 1971 when NATO’s NADGE system came into service. The naval command, COMNAVBALTAP, moved to Karup from Kiel-Holtenau in 1976.

The end of the Cold War dismantled this structure in stages. Wikipedia says the air and naval headquarters were deactivated on 1 October 1993 and replaced by an interim combined air operations centre. BALTAP was renamed Joint Command North East in 2000. Lex dates its disbandment to 2004, while Wikipedia gives 2002; the difference may reflect a formal deactivation followed by closure. Air Command (Flyverkommandoen), the national headquarters, remains at Herningvej 30.

In 1968 Denmark chose the Saab 35XD Draken, a Swedish double-delta fighter, over the Dassault Mirage III and the Northrop F-5. Lex, in an entry by two Forsvarsakademiet authors, says 51 were bought in 1970: 40 single-seaters and 11 two-seat trainers. Wikipedia and the Danish Aviation Museum split the single-seaters into 20 F-35 fighter-bombers and 20 RF-35 reconnaissance aircraft, with the trainers designated TF-35.

All of them were based at Karup. Eskadrille 725 flew the F-35 in the strike role and Eskadrille 729, which had earlier flown RF-84F Thunderflash reconnaissance jets, flew the RF-35. In the 1970s the jets gained radar warning receivers and chaff and flare dispensers, and a weapon delivery and navigation system upgrade with a new head-up display and laser rangefinder was completed by 1986, according to Wikipedia.

The end came with the post-Cold War cuts. Danish Defence says two squadrons were closed and the Draken phased out in 1992–1993, and Lex’s station entry says Karup’s fighters had gone by the end of 1993. Lex’s Draken entry says the type served until 1994, so the final date is given as 1993–1994. Several airframes found a second life in the United States: six former Danish Drakens flew with the National Test Pilot School until 2009.

Karup’s second life began in the 1990s. The elementary flying school moved here from Avnø in 1993, and in 2003 the Army Flying Service was transferred to the air force and its base at Vandel closed. Since then all Danish military helicopters have been gathered at Karup under what is now Helicopter Wing Karup, whose motto, Jutus Fortis Tenax Est, is rendered by the wing as “the Jutlander is strong and tough”.

Eskadrille 722, formed in 1951 from army and navy aviators, flies the AW101 Merlin. Denmark bought 14 in 2001 and flew them from 2007; Wikipedia says the six tactical-transport machines were handed to the UK in 2007 and replaced by new-build aircraft, and Danish Defence says the last arrived in 2010. Three stand 24-hour rescue watch at detachments around the country. Eskadrille 723 has nine MH-60R Seahawks, introduced in 2017 to replace the navy’s Lynx, and flies them from inspection ships off Greenland and the Faroes and from frigates.

Eskadrille 724 flies the AS 550 Fennec, bought for the army in 1990 and taken over in 2003; the Danish Aviation Museum lists 12. It supports the police and special forces and has served in Iraq, Afghanistan and on EU border missions. The Flying School runs a five-month elementary course on the Saab T-17 Supporter, 32 of which entered service from 1975. Graduates continue training abroad, and Danish Defence says glider pilots have a markedly better chance of passing.

Karup is more than a helicopter base. Danish Defence lists Air Command (Flyverkommandoen) and Air Control Wing at the same address, Herningvej 30, and the air control wing runs Denmark’s round-the-clock airspace surveillance under the motto “nothing remains unseen”. Major General Jan Dam was installed as chief of Air Command at a parade at Karup on 17 May 2021. Lex put the station’s military workforce at about 3,500 in 2018, which includes non-air-force units.

The civil side shares the runways. Domestic flights began in 1965, and the terminal was renamed Midtjyllands Lufthavn in February 2017 and Midtjylland Karup Airport in February 2026. Lex counted about 135,000 civil passengers in 2018. During the wave of drone sightings over Danish airports and bases in September 2025, Karup’s airspace was closed for a time on the evening of 27 September.

On 3 December 2025 the defence ministry told the parties to the defence agreement that Denmark’s new air-to-air refuelling and transport capacity would be based at Karup. Denmark had joined NATO’s Multinational MRTT Fleet in June 2025; the ministry says two Airbus A330-200 MRTT will be bought through the NATO Support and Procurement Agency and flown from a forward operating base at Karup, supplementing the fleet’s bases at Eindhoven and Köln. No arrival date or staffing figure was published.