Danish resistance movement
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The Danish Resistance Movement was an underground movement organized to resist the Nazi German occupation of Denmark during World War II. Due to the initially lenient arrangements, in which the Nazi occupation authority allowed the democratic government to stay in power, the resistance movement was slower to develop effective tactics on a wide scale than in some other countries.
By 1943, many Danes 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. 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 were made in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, and people learned that there was sometimes improvised and contingent decision making about the targets, with some morally ambiguous choices.
In popular media[change | change source]
Books[change | change source]
- Lowry, Lois Number The Stars (1989) historical fiction, in English, 1990 Newberry Award winner
Films[change | change source]
- "Miracle at Midnight" (1998), a Disney made-for-TV movie starring Sam Waterson and Mia Farrow, dramatizing a true story of Danish citizens rescuing the Jewish population in Septemer 1943.