Danish resistance movement

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.

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 the Nazi 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]

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]

• Carol Matas's 1987 and 1989 novels Lisa and Jesper presented fictionalized accounts of Danish resistance missions.
• Ken Follett's 2002 suspense novel Hornet Flight presents a fictionalized account of early Danish resistance.
• 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]
• Number the Stars (1989), children's historical fiction novel by Lois Lowry, won the Newbery Medal.
• Barry Clemson's alternative history novel, Denmark Rising (2009), imagines a Denmark that implemented a total resistance to the Nazis via strategic nonviolence.
• Povl Falk-Jensen'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.
• H. George Frederickson'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.
• 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.

• The Twentieth Century with Walter Cronkite: episode Sabotage. CBS approximately 1960. Black and white.
• Flame and Citron (Flammen og Citronen) (2008) is a drama film based on two prominent Danish resistance fighters,; it is directed by Ole Christian Madsen.
• Miracle at Midnight (1998), American made-for-TV movie about the rescue of the Jews in Denmark, starring Sam Waterston and Mia Farrow, featuring neighbors helping a family escape to Sweden.
• The Boys from St. Petri, a 1991 Danish drama film.
• The Only Way, A 1970 war drama film about the rescue of the Danish Jews starring Jane Seymour.
• This Life (Hvidstengruppen) (2012) is a Danish drama film based on the activities of the Hvidsten Group.
• With the Right to Kill (Med ret til at dræbe, 2003), is a documentary adapted from the 2001 book by journalist Peter Øvig Knudsen and directed by Morten Henriksen; it explores the liquidation of nearly 400 people by the Resistance during World War II from 1943 through 1945. It won a Robert Award in 2004 for best full-length documentary.
• Omvej til friheden (Detour to freedom), a made-for-TV documentary movie about two Jewish families attempting to flee to neutral Sweden and featuring actual Jewish survivors and members of the Danish resistance.
• Land of Mine, a 2015 Danish film nominated for Oscar for Best Foreign Film, about young German POWs clearing Nazi beach mines. Director: Martin Zandvliet from IMDB.
• Netflix holds distribution rights to a Danish movie The Bombardment, which was first released in October 2021 in Denmark. The film is also known The Shadow in My Eye (Skyggen i mit øje in Danish) and Netflix released the movie in March 2022.

• "Denmark 1943", a song by Fred Small on his album I Will Stand Fast