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Danish resistance movement

The Danish resistance movements (Danish: 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 authority allowed the democratic government to stay in power, the resistance movement was slower to develop effective tactics on a wide scale than in some other countries.

Members of the Danish resistance movement were involved in underground activities, ranging from producing illegal publications to spying and sabotage. Major groups included the communist BOPA (Danish: Borgerlige Partisaner, Civil Partisans) and Holger Danske, both based in Copenhagen. Some small resistance groups such as the Samsing Group and the Churchill Club also contributed to the sabotage effort. Resistance agents killed an estimated 400 Danish Nazis, informers and collaborators until 1944. After that date, they also killed some German nationals.


In the postwar period, the Resistance was supported by politicians within Denmark and there was little effort to closely examine the killings. Studies in the late 20th and early 21st centuries revealed cases of improvised and contingent decision making about the targets, including morally ambiguous choices. Several important books and films have been produced on this topic.

Nonviolent resistance: 1940–1943[edit]

The "model protectorate"[edit]

During the invasion of Denmark on April 9, 1940 and subsequent occupation, the Danish king and government chose not to flee the country and instead collaborated with the German authorities who allowed the Danish government to remain in power. The Germans had reasons to do so, especially as they wanted to showcase Denmark as a "model protectorate", earning the nickname the Cream Front (German: Sahnefront), due to the relative ease of the occupation and copious amount of dairy products.[1] As the democratically elected Danish government remained in power, Danish citizens had less motivation to fight the occupation than in countries where the Germans established puppet governments, such as Norway or France. The police also remained under Danish authority and led by Danes.


Daily life in Denmark remained much the same as before the occupation. The Germans did make certain changes: imposing official censorship, prohibiting dealings with the Allies, and stationing German troops in the country. The Danish government actively discouraged violent resistance because it feared a severe backlash from the Germans against the civilian population.

Resistance groups[edit]

Immediately after the occupation began, isolated attempts were made to set up resistance and intelligence activities. Intelligence officers from the Danish army, known as the "Princes," began channeling reports to London allies as early as April 13, 1940. Soon afterwards, Ebbe Munck, a journalist from Berlingske Tidende, arranged to be transferred to Stockholm. From there he could more easily report to and communicate with the British.[2]


Following Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941 the Germans banned the Danish Communist Party and had the Danish police arrest its members.[3] Those members who either avoided arrest or later escaped thus went underground and created resistance cells. From October 1942, they published a clandestine newspaper, Land og Folk ("Land and People"), based on the previous Communist Party newspaper, Arbejderbladet, which was distributed widely across the country. Circulation grew to 120,000 copies per day by the end of the occupation.[4] At the beginning of 1943, the cells were centrally coordinated under BOPA (Borgerlige Partisaner – Civil Partisans), which also began to plan acts of sabotage.


As time went on, many other insurgent groups formed to oppose the occupation. These included the Hvidsten group, which received weapons parachuted by the British, and Holger Danske, which was successful in organizing sabotage activities and the assassinations of collaborators. The Churchill club, one of the first resistance groups in Denmark, was a group of eight schoolboys from Aalborg. They performed some 25 acts of sabotage against the Germans, destroying Nazi German assets with makeshift grenades and stealing Nazi German weapons.


When the Germans forced the Danish government to sign the anti-Comintern pact, a large protest broke out in Copenhagen.


The number of Danish Nazis was low before the war, and this trend continued throughout the occupation. This was confirmed in the 1943 parliamentary elections, in which the population voted overwhelmingly for the four traditional parties, or abstained. The latter option was widely interpreted as votes for the Danish Communist Party. The election was a disappointment for the National Socialist Workers' Party of Denmark (DNSAP) and German Reichsbevollmächtigter. Dr. Werner Best abandoned plans to create a government under Danish Nazi leader Frits Clausen, due to Clausen's lack of public support.


In 1942–43, resistance operations gradually shifted to more violent action, most notably acts of sabotage. Various groups succeeded in making contacts with the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) which began making airdrops of agents and supplies. There were not many drops until August 1944, but they increased through the end of the occupation. In total throughout the war, over 600 tons of weapons, equipment and explosives were airdropped to the Danish resistance by the Allies, while fifty-three SOE agents were dispatched to Denmark.[5]

Military intelligence operations[edit]

On 23 April 1940,[6] members of Danish military intelligence established contacts with their British counterparts through the British diplomatic mission in Stockholm. The first intelligence dispatch was sent by messenger to the Stockholm mission in the autumn of 1940. This evolved into regular dispatches of military and political intelligence, and by 1942–43, the number of dispatches had increased to at least one per week.[6] In addition, an employee of Danmarks Radio was able to transmit short messages to Britain through the national broadcasting network.


The intelligence was gathered mostly by officers in the Danish army and navy; they reported information about political developments, the location and size of German military units, and details about the Danish section of the Atlantic Wall fortifications. In 1942, the Germans demanded the removal of the Danish military from Jutland, but intelligence operations continued. It was carried out by plainclothes personnel or by reserve officers, since this group was not included in the evacuation order.[6] Following the liberation of Denmark, Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery described the intelligence gathered in Denmark as "second to none".[7]

's 1987 and 1989 novels Lisa and Jesper presented fictionalized accounts of Danish resistance missions.

Carol Matas

's 2002 suspense novel Hornet Flight presents a fictionalized account of early Danish resistance.

Ken Follett

Stefan Emkjar's Stikkerdrab (Killing of Informers: The Resistance Movements' Liquidation of Danes during the Occupation, 2000) and Peter Øvig Knudsen's Etter drabet (Following the Death: Reports of the Resistance Liquidations, 2001), were both non-fiction studies of the resistance, published before the 60th anniversary of the end of the war.

[17]

(1989), children's historical fiction novel by Lois Lowry, won the Newbery Medal.

Number the Stars

's alternative history novel, Denmark Rising (2009), imagines a Denmark that implemented a total resistance to the Nazis via strategic nonviolence.

Barry Clemson

's Holger Danske - Afdeling Eigils sabotager og stikkerlikvideringer under Besættelsen (2010), Danish resistance member Povl Falk-Jensen's memoir. Povl Falk-Jensen was a leading member of the Danish resistance group Holger Danske during World War II and responsible for eleven executions of informers or collaborators.

Povl Falk-Jensen

's 1997 text The Spirit of Public Administration compares the response of the bureaucracy in Denmark to other European nations to the rise of the Nazi party and Adolf Hitler.

H. George Frederickson

Aage Bertelsen's "October '43" (1954) An autobiographical account of the Jewish escape to Sweden in 1943, written by a prominent member of the Danish resistance. Originally written in Danish, but translated into other languages. Author not to be confused with famous Danish painter Aage Bertelsen.

Ackerman, Peter and Jack DuVall. . New York: Palgrave, 2000. ISBN 0-312-24050-3

A Force More Powerful

Hæestrup, Jørgen. Secret Alliance - A Study of the Danish Resistance Movement 1940-45. Vols I, II & III. Odense University Press, 1976-77.  87-7492-168-1, ISBN 87-7492-194-0 & ISBN 87-7492-212-2.

ISBN

Jespersen, Knud J. V. No Small Achievement: Special Operations Executive and the Danish Resistance 1940-1945. Odense, University Press of Southern Denmark.  87-7838-691-8

ISBN

Lampe, David (1957). The Danish Resistance. New York: Ballantine Books.

Moore, Bob (editor). Resistance in Western Europe (esp. Chapter on Denmark by Hans Kirchoff), Oxford : Berg, 2000,  1-85973-279-8.

ISBN

Besættelsens Hvem Hvad Hvor (Who What Where of the Occupation), Copenhagen, Politikens Forlag, 3rd revised edition, 1985.  87-567-4035-2.

ISBN

Reilly, Robin. Sixth Floor: The Danish Resistance Movement and the RAF Raid on Gestapo Headquarters March 1, 2002.

Stenton, Michael. Radio London and Resistance in Occupied Europe, Oxford University Press. 2000.  0-19-820843-X

ISBN

Voorhis, Jerry. "Germany and Denmark: 1940-45", Scandinavian Studies 44:2, 1972.

Zimmerman, Susan, , Warfare History Network, 20 March 2019

Prisoner of the Gestapo: Freed by Words

– description of its activity to save Jews' lives at the Holocaust, at Yad Vashem website

Danish resistance movement