Danish resistance

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The Danish resistance against the German occupation forces in World War II was made up of different groups, individuals and their environment. After the Second World War it was seen more and more as a unit. Illegal newspapers were produced and distributed, actions of sabotage were prepared, and there were attacks on individuals.

Well-known organizations were: Churchill Club , Frit Danmark, Dansk Samling , de Frie Danske, Danmarks Kommunistiske Parti , Holger Danske , Borgelige Partisaner (BOPA) and Ringen .

Unarmed Resistance (1940-1943)

Since the democratically established government remained in office after the occupation of Denmark on April 9, 1940, there was little reason for the Danish population to fight against the occupation. German measures concerned censorship , the ban on trade with the Allies and the stationing of troops. Leaflets against the German occupation were distributed from around September 1941.

The number of Danish National Socialists was before and remained low during the war. In 1943, too, they did not achieve a significant share of the vote in the parliamentary elections. The German Reich Plenipotentiary Werner Best did not attempt to include the Danish National Socialist leader Frits Clausen in a government cabinet.

Winston Churchill called Denmark "Hitler's lap dog" because there were few acts of resistance. After the German attack on the Soviet Union in 1941, many Danish communists formed resistance cells , and in 1942 the Borgelige Partisan Network (BOPA) was formed.

In 1942 and 1943 the resistance became more violent and there were more acts of sabotage. Various groups managed to establish contact with the SOE , the British secret service's department for covert operations in Europe.

In summer 1944, there was a big strike movement against the occupation ( People's strike ).

Military espionage

On April 23, 1940, members of the Danish Military Intelligence Service established links with the British Intelligence Service through the embassy in Stockholm. There was a regular exchange of information from autumn 1940. In 1942/1943 the number of contacts rose to once a week. In addition, an employee of the Danish Broadcasting Corporation managed to send short messages to the British. Up-to-date reports on the strength and positions of German troops and the expansion of the Atlantic Wall in Denmark came to the British. In 1942 the Germans demanded the withdrawal of Danish troops from Jutland . Nevertheless, the espionage with reserve officers could continue there.

The visible results of the RAF air raids on the Shell house, the Gestapo headquarters in Copenhagen

One visible consequence was the Shellhus bombing on March 21, 1945 , the RAF air raid on the Gestapo headquarters in Copenhagen (Operation Carthage). With 20 "Mosquito" bombers under the protection of 30 "Mustangs" three waves of attack were flown. Of the 20 bombers, 16 returned to base. In addition to 100 Gestapo members, members of the resistance and children and other civilians were killed in a nearby school that was mistakenly hit (123 dead).

From September 1943 the resistance was led by the Danish Freedom Council. An underground government was formed, which was also able to win recognition from the Allies.

Armed Resistance (1943 until the end of the war)

In 1943 the resistance rose sharply, so that the Germans were no longer satisfied with how the Danish authorities dealt with it. After the so-called August revolt , at the end of August, the Germans completely took over government and administration. This made it easier for them to increase their pressure on the population. But this also increased the number of people who came to the resistance.

Controversial in Denmark are "acts of revenge" of the group Holger Danske , where the collaboration accused persons were murdered.

Actions that have become known

Union railroad workers built this armored car in Frederiksværk . He was used in the capture of the camp of the Danish National Socialists in Asserbo in northern Zealand on May 5, 1945.

On August 29, 1943, a state of emergency was declared by the occupying forces , and the Danish army was disarmed after a brief resistance, which mainly served to make weapons and equipment unusable. 26 soldiers were killed. The officers were interned by the German Wehrmacht. Most of the naval ships were sunk themselves , and some units managed to escape to Sweden. The largest ship in the Danish Navy , the ironclad Niels Juel, tried to escape northwards towards the Kattegat at maximum speed . At the exit of the Isefjord it was attacked by German planes - the Danish ship returned fire. The battle in the Isefjord began, but in the end the ship had to be put aground near Zealand . (see self-sinking of the Danish fleet )

Shortly before the German "Judenaktion", King Christian X wrote a protest letter to the German Foreign Minister Ribbentrop, in which he announced "the worst consequences" for such a case. The rescue of the Danish Jews in October 1943 was made possible not least by the German diplomat Georg Ferdinand Duckwitz (1904–1973), who secretly organized the admission of Danish Jews by neutral Sweden . In this way, he prevented the murder of several thousand Danish Jews in the course of the Holocaust , as they were initially hidden from German security forces in a night-and-fog operation before they were deported by the German side, and later, among others, by Danish fishermen across the Baltic Sea to safety Sweden could be brought. Over 7,000 of the 8,000 Danish Jews were able to save themselves from the National Socialists.

In his sermon, Kaj Munk , a Danish Lutheran pastor, threatened the Germans with revolt because of the persecution of the Jews. Exactly one month later, on January 5, 1944 , the body of the shot Munk was found at Hørbylunde Bakke, shortly before Silkeborg . The evening before, an SS commando arrested him in his rectory in Vedersø on the North Sea and took him away.

The interruption of the train connections ( supplies ) after D-Day in France was successful - this delayed the relocation of German troops there.

On June 29, 1944, the Germans shot eight Danes as members of the Hvidstengruppen resistance group .

On March 8, 1945, it managed to resistance fighters in Gedser , the railway ferry Danmark to sink in the harbor.

In 1944, the Danish Brigade was set up as a police unit in Sweden and the Danish flotilla was formed from the ships and boats of the Navy that had fled to Sweden. The brigade (around 5000 men) crossed to Denmark on May 5, 1945 and took over military control of the country together with British troops and the Danish underground army .

Almost half of the Danish victims of the war died in the resistance. The Danish National Museum commemorates the resistance.

The Danish Resistance is included as an organization on the list of Righteous Among the Nations .

Members of the resistance who have become prominent

After the war

When the German troops surrendered in Denmark on May 5, 1945, around 50,000 Danes belonged to some form of resistance movement, from which 140 Germans and 375 Danish collaborators were shot and thousands of attacks carried out, to which the Germans reacted with ever increasing repression.

Of the victims, 862 dead are named, of which 500 were killed in actions. The others died in concentration camps or were executed.

Werner Best was imprisoned in Copenhagen on May 21, 1945. The Copenhagen City Court sentenced Best to death in 1948 . He was finally pardoned in Denmark in 1951. In 1958 a court in Berlin classified Best as the “main culprit” and sentenced him to a fine of 70,000  DM .

40,000 people were arrested after the war in Denmark on suspicion of collaboration . Some of them were held in the Fårhus camp in Frøslev. 13,500 people were punished for this in some form. That is why there were 78 death sentences after the war, 46 of which were carried out, but none of them against a German war criminal .

See also

literature

  • Gads leksikon om dansk besættelsestid 1940–1945. 2002.
  • Matthias Bath : Danebrog against swastika. The resistance in Denmark 1940–1945 . Wachholtz, Neumünster 2011, ISBN 978-3-529-02817-5 .
  • Axel Holm: Hvidsten groups. Gravers Andersens Forlag, Aarhus 1945
  • Rasmus Jørgensen: Folkestrejken. Da hovedstaden gjorde oprør. Udg. af forlaget Documentas, 2004, ISBN 87-91345-15-4 (176 pages, with photos)
  • Rasmus Jørgensen: Besættelsen dag for dag. Udg. af Aschehoug. 280 pp.
  • Rasmus Jørgensen: Deporteret "beretningen om de danske kz-fanger". ISBN 87-7692-014-3
  • Jørgen Kieler: Danish resistance against National Socialism. A contemporary witness reports on the history of the Danish resistance movement from 1940 to 1945. Offizin-Verlag, Hannover 2011.
  • Robin Reilly (2002): Sixth Floor: The Danish Resistance Movement and the RAF Raid on Gestapo Headquarters (The RAF Air Raid on Gestapo Headquarters ), ISBN 978-0-304-36159-5
  • Jerry Voorhis: Germany and Denmark: 1940-1945 , Scandinavian Studies 44: 2, 1972.
  • Steffen Werther: Danish volunteers in the Waffen SS. Berlin 2004, ISBN 3-86573-036-1

Web links

Footnotes

  1. ↑ a b H. M. Lunding: Stemplet fortroligt. 3. Edition. Gyldendal , 1970, pp. 68-72.
  2. ^ Following the liberation of Denmark, Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery described the intelligence gathered in Denmark as "second to none".
  3. ^ Bjørn Pedersen: Jubel og glæde. October 28, 2005, accessed September 14, 2009 (Danish).
  4. ^ Klaus Velschow: The Shell House Attack. Archived from the original on April 24, 2005 ; accessed on September 14, 2009 .
  5. ^ Basil Embry : Mission Completed, Methuen, London, 1957
  6. ↑ Henrik Ahlmann: The Franske Skole: RAF's angreb på Shellhuset 21. marts 1945. En kortlægning af Katastrofen på Frederiksberg og Vesterbro . 2005, ISBN 87-990654-0-1 .
  7. ↑ Jerry Voorhis: Germany and Denmark: 1940-1945 . In: Scandinavian Studies , 44, 2, 1972, p. 183.
  8. ↑ October 1943: The Danish Jews - Rescue from Extermination . Royal Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Museum of the Danish Resistance 1940–1945, Copenhagen 1993.
  9. ^ The German occupation regime in Denmark. In: LeMO. German Historical Museum , accessed on September 14, 2009 .
  10. ↑ The Museum of Danish Resistance 1940-1945. Archived from the original on July 19, 2011 ; accessed on September 14, 2009 .
  11. ^ Entry of the Danish resistance. In: Yad Vashem . Retrieved September 14, 2009 .
  12. ^ Karl Christian Lammers : The punishment of German war crimes in Denmark. Legal basis and prosecution of German war criminals 1946–1950. Archived from the original on August 14, 2011 ; Retrieved September 14, 2009 .