Cultural Impact
"The Most Incredible Thing" was the first Andersen story published during the Nazi occupation of Denmark during World War II. The introduction to the July 1940 edition suggested Andersen had written the tale in profound anxiety and doubt over the future that "was superseded with an even more profound faith." In 1942, the tale was published in a volume of stories organized by scholars who would later become leaders of the Danish Resistance Movement. In the tale’s final illustration to the 1942 edition, the night watchman is a bearded rabbi who strikes down the brawny semi-naked Aryan destroyer of the clock while a crowd of Danes in contemporary 1940s dress stands by and watches.
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