Danish resistance movement

Danish Resistance
Part of Occupation of Denmark
Danish resistance fighters battling German soldiers 5 May 1945. Flakhaven, Odense (left), Danish SS soldiers disarmed by resistance fighters in Copenhagen, 1945 (right)
Date Nonviolent resistance: 9 April 1940 – 29 August 1943 Violent resistance: August 29, 1943 – 5 May 1945 Location Denmark Result Liberation of Denmark Landing at Bornholm
Belligerents
Danish resistance groups  Denmark (from 1943)	Occupation Government (until 1943) Germany
Commanders and leaders
Povl Falk-Jensen Various Danish resistance leaders	Leonhard Kaupisch Werner Best Frits Clausen † Christian Frederik von Schalburg †
Units involved
Danish Brigade in Sweden	Schalburg Corps Heer soldiers Gestapo Kriegsmarine Waffen-SS Free Corps Denmark (until 1943)
Casualties and losses
about 380 resistance fighters
600 Danish civilians

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The Danish resistance movements (

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.^{[citation needed][clarification needed]} Several important books and films have been produced on this topic.

Nonviolent resistance: 1940–1943

The "model protectorate"

During the

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

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

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

On 23 April 1940,

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

As the years went by, the number of acts of sabotage and violence grew. In 1943, the number grew dramatically, to the point that the German authorities became dissatisfied with the Danish authorities' handling of the situation. At the end of August, the Germans took over full administration in Denmark, which allowed them to deal with the population as they wished. The Germans raided every police station in Denmark, disarmed, arrested and deported all 2,000 Danish police officers to Germany.^[5] Policing became easier for the Nazis, but more and more people became involved with the movement because they were no longer worried about protecting the Danish government.

In particular, the Danish Freedom Council was set up in September 1943, bringing together the various resistance groups in order to improve their efficiency and resolve. An underground government was established. Allied governments, who had been skeptical about Denmark's commitment to fight Germany, began recognising it as a full ally.^[8]

Due to concerns about prisoners and information held in

In 1943, the movement scored a great success in

By the end of the war, the organized resistance movement in Denmark had scored many successes. It is believed to have killed nearly 400 persons (the top official number is 385) from 1943 through 1945, who were Danish Nazis, informers or collaborators thought to pose a threat to the Resistance, or Danes working for the Gestapo.[14] The rationale behind the executions was discussed, and several accounts by participants said a committee identified targets, but no historic evidence of this system has been found.^[14] In the postwar period, while the killings were criticized, they were also defended by such politicians as Frode Jakobsen and Per Federspiel.

The movement lost slightly more than 850 members

Since the late 20th century, there has been more discussion about the morality of some of the killings carried out by the resistance, sparked by a TV series about the death of Jane Horney, a Danish citizen killed at sea in what Frode Jakobsen defended as an act of war.^[16]

With the 60th anniversary of the end of the war, the issue was re-examined in two new studies: Stefan Emkjar's Stikkerdrab and Peter Ovig Knudsen's Etter drabet, "the first profound approaches into the topic."

Strategic result

The extent to which the Danish resistance played an important strategic role in the war has been the subject of much discussion. Immediately after the war and until about 1970, the vast majority of accounts overrated the degree to which the resistance had been effective in battling against the Germans by acts of sabotage and by providing key intelligence to the Allies. More recently, however, after re-examining the archives, historians concur that, while the resistance provided a firm basis for moral support and paved the way for post-war governments, the strategic effect during the occupation was limited. The Germans did not need to send reinforcements to suppress the movement, and garrisoned the country with a comparatively small number of Wehrmacht troops. The resistance did not enter into active combat. Even the overall importance of Danish intelligence in the context of Ultra is questionable.^[23]

In his history, No Small Achievement: Special Operations Executive and the Danish Resistance 1940-1945 (2002), Knud Jespersen examined the relationship between British Intelligence and the Danish Resistance. He quoted a report from

"caused strain and embarrassment to the enemy...[and a] striking reduction in the flow of troops and stores from Norway [that] undoubtedly had an adverse effect on the reinforcements for the battles East and West of the Rhine."^[24]

Examining the British archives, Jespersen also found a report concluding "that the overall effect of Danish resistance was to restore national pride and political unity."^[24] He agreed that this was the movement's most important contribution to the nation.^[24]

Representation in other media

Books

• 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.

Film

• The Twentieth Century with Walter Cronkite: episode Sabotage. CBS approximately 1960. Black and white.
• 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.
• 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.