Occupation of Denmark - Increasing Resistance

Increasing Resistance

As the war dragged on, the Danish population became increasingly hostile to the Germans. Soldiers stationed in Denmark had found most of the population cold and distant from the beginning of the occupation, but their willingness to cooperate had made the relationship workable. The government had attempted to discourage sabotage and violent resistance to the occupation, but by the autumn of 1942 the numbers of violent acts of resistance were increasing steadily to the point that Germany declared Denmark "enemy territory" for the first time. After the battles of Stalingrad and El-Alamein the incidents of resistance, violent and symbolic, increased rapidly.

In March 1943 the Germans allowed a general election to be held. The voter turnout was 89.5%, the highest in any Danish parliamentary election, and 94% cast their ballots for one of the democratic parties behind the cooperation policy while 2.2% voted for the anti-cooperation Dansk Samling. 2.1% voted for the Nazi party, almost corresponding to the 1.8% the party had received in the 1939 elections. The election, discontent, and a growing feeling of optimism that Germany would be defeated led to widespread strikes and civil disturbances in the summer of 1943. The Danish government refused to deal with the situation in a way that would satisfy the Germans, who presented an ultimatum to the government, including the following demands, on 28 August 1943: A ban on people assembling in public, outlawing strikes, the introduction of a curfew, censorship should be conducted with German assistance, special (German military) courts should be introduced, and the death penalty should be introduced in cases of sabotage. In addition, the city of Odense was ordered to pay a fine of 1 million kroner for the death of a German soldier killed in that city and hostages were to be held as security.

The Danish government refused, so on 29 August 1943 the Germans officially dissolved the Danish government and instituted martial law. The Danish cabinet handed in its resignation, although since King Christian never officially accepted it, the government remained functioning de jure until the end of the war, but this is a technicality. In reality—largely due to the initiative of the permanent secretary of the ministry of foreign affairs Nils Svenningsen—all day-to-day business had been handed over to the Permanent Secretaries, each effectively running his own ministry. The Germans ran the rest of the country, and the Danish Parliament did not convene for the remainder of the occupation. As the ministry of foreign affairs was responsible for all negotiations with the Germans, Nils Svenningsen had a leading position in the government.

Anticipating a German attack on the Copenhagen Docks, the Danish navy had instructed its captains to resist any German attempts to assume control over their vessels. The navy managed to scuttle 32 of its larger ships, while Germany succeeded in seizing 14 of the larger and 50 of the smaller vessels. The Germans later succeeded in raising and refitting 15 of the sunken ships. During the scuttling of the Danish fleet, a number of vessels were ordered to attempt an escape to Swedish waters, and 13 vessels succeeded in this attempt, four of which were larger ships. By the autumn of 1944, these ships officially formed a Danish naval flotilla in exile In 1943, Swedish authorities allowed 500 Danish soldiers in Sweden to train themselves as "police troops". By the autumn of 1944, Sweden raised this number to 4,800 and recognized the entire unit as a Danish military brigade in exile. Danish collaboration continued on an administrative level, with the Danish bureaucracy functioning under German command.

After the fall of the government, Denmark was exposed to the full extent of Nazi terror. In October the Germans decided to remove all Jews from Denmark, but thanks to an information leak from German diplomat Georg Ferdinand Duckwitz and swift action by Danish civilians, the vast majority of the Danish Jews were transported to safety in neutral Sweden by means of fishing boats and motorboats. The entire evacuation lasted two months and one man helped ferry more than 1,400 Jews to safety. Sabotage, unencumbered by government opposition, grew greatly in frequency and severity, though it was rarely of very serious concern to the Germans. Nonetheless, the Danish resistance movement had some successes, such as on D-Day when the train network in Denmark was disrupted for days, delaying the arrival of German reinforcements in Normandy. An underground government was established, and the illegal press flourished. Allied governments, who had been skeptical about Denmark's commitment to fight Germany, began recognizing it as a full ally.

The permanent secretary of the ministry of foreign affairs Nils Svenningsen in January 1944 suggested establishment of a Danish camp in order to avoid deportations to Germany. Werner Best accepted this suggestion, but on condition that this camp was built close to the German border. Frøslev Prison Camp was set up in August 1944. The building of the camp was for the sole purpose of keeping Danish Jews and other prisoners within Denmark's borders.

Gestapo had limited trust in the Danish police which had a total 10,000 members. 1,960 of these were arrested and deported to Germany on 19 September 1944.

In September 1943, a variety of resistance groups grouped together in the Danish Freedom Council, which coordinated resistance activities.

A high-profile resister was former government minister John Christmas Møller who fled to England in 1942 and became a widely popular commentator because of his broadcasts to the nation over the BBC.