Flemming Helweg-Larsen

Born on St. Croix to the governor of the Danish West Indies, Helweg-Larsen has been described as having an adventurous spirit with "remarkable wordcrafting abilities".[2][3] In the 1930s he traveled to South America, working there for three years as a gaucho.[2] During the same decade, his political interests began to drift into alignment with fascism, though he never joined the National Socialist Workers' Party of Denmark.[3] In the early 1940s he produced a Danish translation of the Ernest Hemingway novella The Torrents of Spring, which was published by Thaning & Appel in 1941 and which was used as the basis for a second Danish translation of the work in 1960.[2]

Following the German occupation of Denmark, Helweg-Larsen joined the Waffen SS, in which he served with a "propaganda unit in the Arnhem area to fire off material at British troops".[4] In 1943, Helweg-Larsen, Søren Kam, and a third Danish man, seized Carl Henrik Clemmensen – a Danish "anti-Nazi newspaper editor" – from his home.[5] Clemmensen's body was later found "riddled with bullets".[5] Following the war, Helweg-Larsen was convicted of the murder and executed by firing squad.[1][5]

While being held in prison during trial, Helweg-Larsen wrote a memoir of his life during the period of 1941 to 1945.[6] It was published by Gyldendal in 2008 under the title Dødsdømt: Flemming Helweg-Larsens beretning ("Death Sentence: Flemming Helweg-Larsen's Account").[6][7] In a review of the book, Berlingske concluded it was well-written and an "exciting reading".[3]