by Bo Lidegaard
This left the German security police pretty much alone with the responsibility of carrying out both the action itself and the subsequent attempt to stop the escapes. Here the picture is more fragmented, but it is marked by Werner Best’s fundamental belief that the action was completed during the first night. There was no organized or systematic pursuit of the fugitives or any issuing of orders to make a special effort to intercept them. On the contrary, Best makes it explicit in his reports to Berlin that there will be no “manhunt.” Much was therefore left to the initiative of individual commanders. Most took it easy, and, with the exception of Gestapo-Juhl, do not seem to have been eager to catch as many as possible. Conversely, there are also examples of Jews who were tracked down during their flight, captured, and later deported. But the overall impression is one of a halfhearted effort to arrest the refugees who accidentally bumped into the arms of the security police.
Rudolf Mildner and other high-ranking German police and security personnel gave several—and conflicting—explanations, after the war, of why they chose to carry out the raid one night and then almost ostentatiously turn a blind eye to the thousands of refugees flocking to railroad stations and the ports. The explanations are characterized by the prominent Nazis’ need to shed a positive light on their own deeds—and thus carry little credibility. More trustworthy are explanations based on the realities in Denmark as they presented themselves to the occupying authorities in September and October 1943.
The general unrest in August 1943 was still fresh in the collective memory, and from all parts of Danish society the strongest possible warnings were sent that an attack on the Danish Jews would be perceived as a brutal strike against society at large and thus poison the relationship of trust that was being laboriously rebuilt between Werner Best and the permanent secretaries and between Mildner and the Danish police force. All German authorities who had even the slightest feel for the situation in Denmark were well aware that the action crossed a critical line. This resulted in a significant nervousness about new unrest, while those directly responsible, most crucially Best and Mildner, had a strong desire that their Danish partners perceive them as moderate, if possible even as direct opponents of an action that was imposed on them from Berlin.
While Best would soften the blow to maintain peace, order, and good relations with the permanent secretaries, Mildner was interested in the same thing, because his main task was to rebuild a working relationship with the Danish police after the imposition of martial law on August 29. Mildner was aware that this task was possible only if a renewed cooperation with German security authorities was seen to spare Denmark what was worse. If the worst had already occurred, the Danish police would not reenlist in any cooperation.
While the mass flight increased in terms of numbers, Mildner and representatives of the Danish police met to discuss the resumption of police cooperation. Both Nils Svenningsen and the permanent secretary of the Ministry of Justice, Eivind Larsen, participated in these negotiations. According to the Danish historian Henrik Lundtofte, who has studied the Gestapo operations in Denmark during the occupation, the occupying power was deeply dependent on the more than ten thousand Danish police officers cooperating with far fewer German uniformed police forces. The focus of Danish police was ordinary law enforcement, but for the Germans it was especially crucial in relation to the sabotage and political turmoil they feared would be reignited after the Jewish action. In order to create a real stimulus for the reluctant Danish side in the negotiations, Mildner offered a mechanism whereby Danish courts under Danish law could judge the saboteurs whom the Danish police arrested themselves. The alternative was SS conditions based on the Polish and Czech model—a specialty Mildner had personally practiced at his previous post. Thus the Danish negotiators were again caught in the dilemma of rejecting responsibility for the terrible—in this case the Danish police participating in the hunt for Danish resistance fighters—in return for the prospect of being able to avert the even worse: German summary courts, torture, executions, and deportations.16
There is little doubt that this perspective weighed heavily in the Germans’ considerations and that continued cooperation with the Danish authorities was more important to the Nazi leadership than the physical extermination of the Danish Jews. This applied to both Mildner and Best, but both also exercised their authority in a delicate and dangerous balancing act between the intersecting expectations of different branches of the Nazi leadership in Berlin. It may also have occurred to the two men that the judgment they would be facing after the war was lost depended greatly on their behavior in relation to the action against the Danish Jews.
In Stockholm later in 1943 the Danish journalist and opposition figure Erik Seidenfaden analyzed the German authorities’ apparent passivity in their search for the Danish Jews. Even at that stage the astute observer grasped the essential elements:
The times had changed. The easy victories and the war machine’s invincible efficiency belonged to the past.… Hitler’s regents and henchmen began to understand how things were going. Some understood that they would come to reap what they had sowed, and that there was no rescue for them—they might as well play the game to the end. It was they who set the Jewish persecution in motion in Denmark at the eleventh hour. But there were others who believed in at least a personal rescue through the upcoming defeat and collapse, and who sought the safe harbors. It was those men who in Denmark turned a blind eye to the Jewish Danes’ escape. A few years earlier, the same men would have done everything possible to prevent it.
In this way, at this stage of the big war, Denmark came to experience the noticeable symptoms of Nazi Germany’s first metamorphosis. You could say that the civil war began here. On the one hand, the passive surveillance vessels on the coast and the reluctant Wehrmacht. On the other, continued eager Gestapo raiding teams with their Danish aides and homegrown Nazis, who at the last minute would try to implement some of the atrocities from which under the occupation’s peaceful years they had been barred.17
Gestapo-Juhl in Helsingør belonged to the latter category; he conducted himself exactly as those fleeing feared that all German officials would: zealously and without mercy. He did not close his eyes or change his ways. As a result he and his small team had the dubious honor of capturing more than half of the total of 190 Jews who were deported from Denmark to Theresienstadt in the days and weeks following the first deportations on October 2, 1943.18
The Promise of Adolf Eichmann
Although much appeared chaotic and random, not least for those directly affected as they hovered in fear and uncertainty, and although it can be difficult to accept the logic behind the action, there was a kind of method to the madness. What’s more, the occupying power was careful to respect it. Apart from a few “mistakes,” particularly in regard to the raid and the shipment of the first captives, “only” the “pure Jews” were deported from Denmark. However, few of those concerned dared trust the German guarantees. The vast majority, like C. L. David and Valdemar Koppel, chose to flee to Sweden at the earliest opportunity.
In London, after another conversation with Niels Bohr, the Danish minister noted that he was “optimistic about the future of Denmark.” The nuclear physicist said about the action against the Jews that “the Germans raged over the Swedish intervention.” Bohr was aware that at least one ship seemed to have left Copenhagen with Jews on board, and he assumed that it was destined for Poland.19
When Svenningsen, in an conversation with Best on October 9, asked if he could make public his written understanding that only “pure Jews” would be arrested, Best refused. It would be “too embarrassing.” But Svenningsen had already let the word out and now brought up another problem: Arrests were still occurring in the streets. Could that not be changed? First, it harassed everyone “who even appeared to be Jewish,” and then it was a source of unrest. Best was accommodating. It was reprehensible that there were arrests in public places. He would put a stop to it.20
On
the same day Werner Best also received a letter from his former Danish partner and closest confidant, Erik Scavenius, who had not been heard from since he submitted his resignation to the king on August 29. Now Scavenius broke his self-imposed silence in a letter in which he sought to support efforts to at least get the mistakenly deported sent home immediately. He would “not fail to take this opportunity to tell you how strongly I feel that where people of Jewish descent have been arrested by mistake and deported, it be redressed as soon as possible by them being sent back to Denmark.”21
The letter is a unique example of Scavenius emerging from the shadows after August 29. Although his inquiry did not lead to the desired result, it helped build up considerable pressure on the occupying power. Denmark had not written off the deportees. On the contrary, it began to be clear that the Danish deportees could not just disappear without causing sharp reactions with significant implications for future Danish- German interaction. A long period of conflict began. It ended only in the spring of 1945, when the war in Europe entered its final stages.
From the very outset, writing the history of the action against the Danish Jews became part of an ongoing fight that began on the eve of the raid and could have vital—if not fatal—consequences for those directly concerned, including the 472 individuals deported to Theresienstadt. Ever since, this history has been the subject of dispute and wrangling. On October 12, after the preliminary rounds, a long telegram from the German consul in Malmö, the Swedish city on the Sound, just across from Copenhagen, arrived at the Foreign Office in Berlin with a first fairly accurate and blunt description of how over the past ten days some five to six thousand Danish Jews had fled to Sweden. What Berlin had so far heard only in roundabout ways and learned through deduction was now in a telegram framed in no uncertain terms. The German Foreign Ministry kept the explosive report at arm’s length and sent it quietly on to the Reich security police, who were ultimately responsible for the extermination of the Jews.
At the same time the ministry conducted its own investigation of what had caused the failure of the action against the Danish Jews. Over the following days the Berlin authorities slowly began to unravel the prelude to and implementation of the action in Denmark. Telegrams went back and forth between the various authorities concerned, and Best did his best both to maintain the view of a conditional success, which he had begun in the days right after the operation, and to disclaim any responsibility for what had gone wrong, while simultaneously arguing that half Jews and the very old among the deportees be sent home. Best’s reports also reached Goebbels and other hard-liners, who could read that the action in Denmark had led to shock and turmoil in the occupied country and in the rest of Scandinavia.
In a provisional reply to the requests for getting those deported by mistake returned, the office of Ribbentrop declares on October 15 that he agrees with Best because he is “basically in favor of a flexible treatment of the Jewish issue in Denmark.” If Best had the lukewarm support of the foreign minister, Himmler was anything but happy, and a few days later he vetoed an expected promotion of Best.
In the Foreign Office in Berlin the matter became a source of irritation, because the Danish authorities kept on raising the issue of those who were deported by mistake as well as the suggestion to let the young and the old “harmless” detainees return. As time went by it was dawning on the authorities in Berlin that Best had issued not only an oral but also a written promise to the Danes guaranteeing that half Jews and Jews married to non-Jews would not be affected. But upon whose authority had the German plenipotentiary in Denmark issued such a document—and why had Berlin not seen a copy of the October 5 letter now being discreetly circulated by Danish authorities to those who asked?
On October 28 a senior diplomat from the ministry called Best and demanded that he account for what he had actually promised the Danes, who continued to claim that they had concrete commitments to rely on. Best had to confess to having furnished the Danes with the said promises—and in writing.
The reaction from Berlin was not long in coming. Best was called home for immediate consultations. He had to try to explain to the Reich security authorities and to Adolf Eichmann personally how he could have given such promises without a mandate and without informing the competent authority—that is, Eichmann. In a few days it looked as if Best had overplayed his hand and could not get out of the predicament he had brought on by his double games with Danish and German authorities. For reasons that are not clear, it ended up being Adolf Eichmann who traveled to Copenhagen, where on November 2 at Dagmarhus he had long conversations with, among others, Best and Mildner. On the same day Günther Pancke arrived in Copenhagen at Himmler’s initiative to take up the position as the senior SS and police leader in Denmark, side by side with Werner Best and General Hanneken.
Above, the rescue of Scandinavian concentration camp prisoners from the collapsing Reich in the spring of 1945 was a nerve-racking and dramatic humanitarian action, conducted in close collaboration by the Swedish Red Cross and Danish authorities. The key vehicles were the white buses and, of course, the volunteers driving them.
Below, Dr. Adolph Meyer and his close family shortly after their arrival in Sweden. Beside him, from left to right, are Kis Marcus, his daughter; an unidentified Swedish woman; Mayer’s sister-in-law Mary Goldschmidt; and Else Hannover, his daughter and the wife of Knud Hannover, the younger brother of Poul Hannover.
By September 1 the Danish legation in Stockholm had already declared that it would undertake all costs in connection with the Danish refugees in Sweden, making it explicit that this social guarantee included also stateless refugees coming through Denmark. With the mass exodus in October these costs exploded, and the Swedish government intervened with credits. By the end of the war, these credits amounted to some 30 million kroner. Another credit was opened to finance and equip the Danish Brigade, set up with Danish volunteers, the accumulated costs amounting to 25 million kroner by the end of the war. Though Denmark offered to cover these costs after her liberation, the Swedish government in 1945 decided not to reclaim the 50 million kroner spent on refugees from Denmark.
Royal Library (above)
Private family collection (below)
What we know about the conversation at Dagmarhus that afternoon comes partly from a short telegram from Best of November 3 with a brief summary of the conclusions sent to the German Foreign Office, and partly from a more detailed report the ministry sent Best on November 5 after Eichmann returned and after follow-up discussions in Berlin with the German Red Cross.
Best’s summary if astonishing. In almost all respects he had apparently succeeded in convincing Eichmann of his views:
1) Jews older than 60 shall henceforth not be detained and deported.
2) Half-Jews and Jews living in mixed marriage who have been detained and deported shall be released and returned to Denmark.
3) All Jews deported from Denmark shall remain in Theresienstadt and be visited by representatives of the Danish Central administration and Danish Red Cross as soon as possible.
What’s more, Eichmann confirmed his decisions in a classified document to the Foreign Office, which was then forwarded to Best:
RSHA SS-Obersturmbannführer Eichmann has approved implementation of proposals.… However, proposal 1 is to be understood as follows: Jews older than 60 shall henceforth not be detained and deported. Those already deported remain where they are. Regarding Half-Jews and Jews living in mixed marriage, mentioned in proposal 2, individual examination will be actuated, and a release and recirculation to Denmark is only to take place if irreproachably determined that in fact Half-Jews or Jews in mixed marriage. With respect to proposal 3: RSH principally willing to let Jews living in Theresienstadt and having been deported from Denmark be visited by representatives of Danish Central Administration and Red Cross. Visits before spring 1944 however undesirable. Furthermore, Jews in Theresienstadt will be allowed to communicate with Denmark, whereas consignments of food parcels t
o Jews from Denmark are initially undesired.22
These commitments provided a platform for the continuation of the very exceptional treatment of the Danish Jews. The struggle over the following eighteen months to keep Adolf Eichmann firmly to his November assurances was no less dramatic than the process surrounding the escape of the Jews. Danish authorities fought an uphill battle for the Danish detainees in Theresienstadt and other German concentration camps, and from the last weeks of 1944 convoys were sent to some of the camps to rescue Danish detainees. When Germany’s protracted collapse reached a critical phase in the first months of 1945, these efforts were combined with those of others who were working to bring the Danish and Norwegian prisoners home from the German concentration camps before it was too late. These efforts succeeded to a great extent when a dramatic operation led by the head of the Swedish Red Cross, Count Folke Bernadotte, who had managed in the first months of 1945 to negotiate with Heinrich Himmler and other senior Nazi officials the release of thousands of Scandinavian prisoners out of German camps—including 423 of the 472 Danish Jews who were originally interned in Theresienstadt.23
The Nazi Hesitation
What ultimately stopped the extermination of Jews on Danish soil was the expressed and entrenched Danish opposition to the project. This, together with our insight into the cynical trade-off between the different policy objectives that were guiding the leading Nazis in respect to the occupation of Denmark and action against the Danish Jews, opens a troubling perspective: Those responsible shrank back when they faced a clear choice between pursuing their overarching interest in Denmark or persecuting the Danish Jews. The many protests from high and low, from church and business, from politicians and state secretaries, confirmed what Best and his people had long known and told Berlin: There was a deeply rooted aversion in the Danish population to the idea of introducing special laws or measures against the Jews. Since 1933 the Danish government had forcefully rejected any attempt to create a divide between the Danes based on descent. Rather, those who attacked democracy had been excluded from the national “us,” while the leading politicians succeeded in equating the nation with the values its social order rested on. This adherence to humanism had become a bulwark supported by a very solid majority of Danes.