The "Jewish Question" in Denmark

The events took place during the German occupation of Denmark from April 9, 1940 until May 4, 1945. Germany attacked Denmark in the early morning hours of April 9, 1940.

The Danish government and King Christian X, deciding it was futile to resist, negotiated with the Germans agreeing to export food and industrial products to Germany and securing guarantees that Jews would be treated as all other citizens in Denmark.

Danish politicians formed a new government for the occupation with Thorvald Stauning as Prime Minister and Erik Scavenius as the new minister of foreign affairs. Scavenius was an elderly man, brought out of retirement because he was considered able to handle the Germans - he had served as a foreign minister in the First World War.

Many Danes were ashamed that their country had put up so little resistance, but Scavenius viewed cooperation as an opportunity to retain at least some national sovereignty. Still he blocked German efforts to bring up the "Jewish Question."

A serious crisis developed in 1942 when the king responded coldly to a birthday telegram from Adolf Hitler. Hitler, smarting from the insult, determined to control Denmark with a heavy hand. He demanded that Scavenius, a more malleable official, be promoted to prime minister; and he replaced the German civilian administrator with an official known for his brutality, SS-General Werner Best.

In November of 1942, Best who had risen through the ranks as an ambitious Nazi fundamentalist and mastermind of the Gestapo, arrived in Copenhagen. He was a colorless, cold intellectual anti-Semite who based his anti-Semitism on notions of the "Volk" and had sent thousands to their deaths in France and Poland.


Photo: German tank at the town square of Copenhagen, during the period of martial law August 29 - October 6 1943. (The Museum of Danish Resistance 1940-45.)

Surprisingly, Best no sooner arrived than he adopted a policy of moderation in Denmark. He reasoned Germany should crush biologically inferior peoples, but be flexible towards the Danes, who, as Aryans, were people "of good race."

He worked closely with Georg F. Duckwitz, a German shipping expert and member of the Abwehr, German's military intelligence, who knew Denmark intimately and was friendly with leading Danish politicians. German officials in Denmark and Berlin were constantly debating how to handle occupied countries, often exploring what local populations would tolerate.

Werner Best played the pragmatic card, arguing with officials in Berlin that Danish food supplies to Germany, providing 12 percent of German food needs, would be jeopardized if they targeted Danish Jews.

Best's policy of moderation seemed to work for a few months until the following spring of 1943. He allowed a general election to take place in March, but the Nazi party was roundly defeated; elsewhere Germany faced major losses in North Africa, Russia and Italy.

Danes grew defiant as it became clear that the Allies could win the war. Unrest spread. Massive strikes and a wave of sabotage actions hit the country. Best's efforts to combine democracy and totalitarianism, and to manage Denmark as a "model protectorate" failed.

On August 29, 1943, he declared martial law and demanded the introduction of capital punishment. The Danish government, after cooperating for three years, defiantly stopped functioning but refused to resign formally to prevent Germans from taking over, without violating the Danish constitution. The Danish administration however continued to function.

In a move to save face, Best decided to crack down and launched plans to arrest Jews. On September 8, he sent a telegram to Berlin: "The time has come to turn our attention to the solution of the Jewish question."

Danish Upheaval to Rescue the Jews

When final orders for the raid arrived from Berlin on September 28, Best informed his confidant, Georg Duckwitz, that Jews would be rounded up within two days, on the night between October 1 and 2.

Duckwitz leaked the information to Danish politicians and the news spread like wildfire through friends, business acquaintances, and strangers wanting to help. Ordinary citizens all over the country offered refuge in churches, attics, and country homes, and residences. Complete strangers walked up to Jews on the street to offer keys to their apartment. Medical staff hid more than 1, 000 Jews in Copenhagen hospitals.

On the night of the raid, Germans only found 284 Jews out of almost 8,000 in the population. Still, Danes knew this could be a short-lived victory, for how long could the other thousands hide?

Photo: Danish refugee just arrived in Sweden and a Swedish policeman. (The Museum of Danish Resistance 1940-45)

Danish institutions rose up in protest over the round-up. Hans Fuglsang-Damgaard, the Bishop of Copenhagen, issued a defiant ecumenical letter which was read in almost every church in the nation. After negotiations with Danish leaders such as physicist, Niels Bohr, Sweden announced it would accept refugees.

Fishing boats and other illegal transports began to ferry Jews across the Øresund (the sound separating Denmark and Sweden). In less than a month, almost 700 voyages transported almost 95 percent of the Jewish population to safety.

But some were not so lucky. Some died in transit. Others committed suicide. And 481 Jews were arrested and sent to Theresienstadt, a concentration camp in Czechoslovakia.

Danish officials such as the director of the Foreign Ministry Nils Svenningsen determined to follow up on the captured Danes. They launched negotiations with Werner Best and the SS officer in charge of implementing the Final Solution, Adolf Eichmann, to permit Danish prisoners to receive parcels of food and medicine, and to assure that none would be transported to death camps.

By 1944, as Allied forces gained the upper hand and Danish resistance grew, Germans cracked down on the population. Executions and arrests intensified. While Werner Best was out of the country, Germans arrested the entire Danish police force and shipped them with many saboteurs to concentration camps.

Hitler wanted new terror measures against the increasing sabotage, but behind his back, Swedish officials and Heinrich Himmler struck a deal in the spring of 1945 permitting them to get Scandinavians out of several concentration camps before the war's end.

In March, 1945, a convoy of white buses drove through Europe amidst heavy bombing raids, to pick up prisoners at several concentration camps.

On May 4, 1945, German forces surrendered in Denmark. A month later, Danish exiles began to return. Most found their homes well tended and their belongings untouched. Others had suffered great losses. Although only a few left to go to Israel, many recognized that the occupation had imposed a Jewish identity on them in a country that had always considered them simply Danes.