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The Fate of the Jews of Denmark

The Germans invaded Denmark on 9 April 1940, in a combined attack against Norway, a few hours later the Danish Government accepted the German ultimatum and surrendered.

At the beginning of 1942 Himmler and Heydrich enlisted the zealous aid of the Foreign Office to get the Nuremberg anti-Jewish laws applied to all Western countries under military occupation.

In Holland, a totally occupied country this pressure could not be resisted, in France a half-occupied country, it was half-resisted. In the case of Denmark a nation which retained its neutrality under German occupation, with a monarchy and constitution both unimpaired.

Here the pressure of Ribbentrop and Himmler was resisted with ninety-five per cent success – almost the only bright spark in a truly dark and depressing tale of murder and misery.

In January 1942 it was reported in the American press that the King of Denmark had threatened to abdicate if the German demand for Nuremberg legislation was pressed.

As a consequence, Rademacher the SS watch-dog over the Diplomatic Corps, advised Cecil von Renthe- Fink, the Reich plenipotentiary in Copenhagen, “to find occasions to point out that it would be prudent for Denmark to prepare in good time for the Final Solution.”
 

But Denmark was not prudent, and in June 1942, when the Germans were pressing for a Danish “Jewish badge” decree, similar to which had been in force in the Reich since September 1941, King Christian was reported to have said that he would be the first Danish citizen to wear the badge.

Himmler now tried to proceed against the Jews in Denmark in the guise of security measures. On 24 September 1942 he ordered Heinrich Muller, the head of the Gestapo, to insert the names of Jews in a list of Danish Communist and resistance leaders whom he proposed to arrest.

No doubt Himmler believed he could rely on the co-operation of Renthe-Fink successor, Karl Werner Best, since Best had once been legal advisor to the Gestapo – but Best who had left the Gestapo to escape the clutches of Heydrich, was now relieved of the worst anxieties of a successful careerist by the death of his enemy.

Moreover, as a Reich plenipotentiary in a quasi-neutral country, Best desired a quiet life above all things, so his report to Ribbentrop on 28 January 1943, was quite daring. Best suggested that, since the proposed measures would certainly create a constitutional crisis in Denmark, the Danes should be asked only to dismiss their Jews from the civil service.

Under Himmler’s prodding Ribbentrop returned to the charge, and on 24 April, Best replied that out of 6,500 Jews in Denmark only 31 were civil servants. Of course, there were the 1,351 refugees from the Reich whom the Danish Government had hitherto protected, but Best suggested that the Danes would not be able to do this any longer if the refugees were given back their German nationality.

Such a step was, however, impossible under the 11th decree supplementing the Reich Law of Citizenship, which could not be retracted in the case of refugees in Denmark without upsetting the whole legal fabric of the deportations from Germany.
 

Read the full story here: http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/nazioccupation/danishjews.html

The Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team

www.HolocaustResearchProject.org