A Short History of Denmark in the 20th Century by Bo Lidegaard

Author:Bo Lidegaard [Lidegaard, Bo]
Language: dan
Format: epub
Tags: Historie
ISBN: 9788702166316
Publisher: Gyldendal
Published: 2014-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

Settling of Accounts of 1940-45

From 1943 the resistance had requested a juridical purge, and following the liberation some 13,500 persons were sentenced according to two ex post facto laws prohibiting collaboration, including undue profits from economic transactions with the Germans. Capital punishment was introduced, and 46 were executed.

The purge based on the ex post facto laws created a strong controversy all the more so as the politicians and civil servants responsible for the policy of cooperation were neither prosecuted nor sentenced. The tendency was for the minor cases to be concluded first and with the most severe punishment whereas the more serious trials dragged on and eventually were judged more mildly. The vast majority of the cases, totalling some 10,000, related to military service for the Germans, and many volunteers who were sentenced claimed double standards as the governments in 1941 had allowed armed service for the Germans.

Parallel to the legal action a number of trades established their own 'courts of honour' where lawyers, writers, doctors, engineers and others were tried by their peers and in some cases excluded from the association effectively barring them from continued activity within their particular profession.

Overall, the purge did not meet legal standards normally prevailing within the Danish legal system. Yet, it was not part of normality but an instrument to restore it. And it did, ultimately, succeed in avoiding the mob to take the law into its own hands as it provided for an orderly transition from the collapse of the executive branch in the last year of the occupation to the post-war order.

Since the 9th of April, 1940, the politicians responsible for Denmark’s stand during the war have been the subject of harsh criticism. The failure to mount an honourable defence against the invasion, the fact that the politicians decided to base their continued responsibilities on the fiction of sovereignty and neutrality, the policy of ongoing concessions and compromises, the active economic collaboration during the first years of occupation, the acceptance of Danes volunteering to fight along with the Germans on the Eastern Front and for labour duty in Germany, the signing of the Anti-Comintern Pact, the scepticism towards the early armed resistance – and much more have been held against them, both by many of their contemporaries and by critics in subsequent generations.

Little of this criticism has come from abroad. On the contrary, Winston Churchill and other leading Allies expressed understanding for Denmark’s position before, during and after the occupation. Like the Danish politicians they saw no alternative, and as time went by and the Cold War moved into focus, the strong focus of Danish politicians on the subversive aspects of Communist resistance seemed more reasonable. As one comparative history of Europe puts it: 'In Denmark the crime of collaboration was virtually unknown. Yet 374 out of every 100,000 Danes were sentenced to prison in post-war trials. In France, where wartime collaboration was widespread, it was for just that reason punished rather lightly.' (Tony Judt: Postwar, 2005, p. 46)

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