In this video, a Swedish woman explains what she thinks is the problem with Greta Thunberg and the present politics of the Swedish society. This video could belong in a few other threads. The speaker would like other nations to learn from the example of Sweden, first in line could of course be other Scandinavian countries. The question is though if anyone will be allowed to learn and act on what they see is happening, before it is too late.
In the video there is a mention of foreign criminals and here the situation in Denmark is that some get expelled, maybe after serving some time, but the statistics clearly show many of those expelled tend to return. A few day ago there was a report that 2000 expelled criminals had been caught back in the country they had been expelled from within the last five years (2014-2019).
In February 2018, a similar question was asked and during the previous five year period of that time (2013-2018) 1574 had been caught violating a sentence that forbid them to come back. Danmark til grin: 1574 udviste kriminelle kom retur
There are example of people going back to their country, changing name, changing id and then moving back. The following example from July 2017 is about criminals from Romania: Udviste kriminelle snyder sig tilbage til Danmark under falsk navn
And some of those that are on the list to be expelled go underground, and the police can not find them. Being criminals they don't live by the standards society expects and this includes being expelled. The following is from September 2017: 202 udviste udlændinge er forsvundet fra politet
Interesting bit here about a Swedish town's (with rare conservative leadership) attempt, via a video advertisement, to attract new, non-migrant (says the article) residents. Context: this web site appears to lean heavily conservative.
Follow-up on my last post. This recent article (Aug 2019) reports on Microsoft's deal to move in to Staffanstorp with a multi-billion-dollar investment. It also says that Staffanstorp is known since the 1970s as a place in which fashionable home builders build show houses and villages. So, I wonder if the town's video ad is tied to trying to retain that business, which, I infer, appeals to wealthier people, as they see the migrant population rising nearby. I've heard it charged in several European video conferences on migration to the EU that the voices loudest in championing migrant immigration are those that simply pack up and move farther and farther away from the centers of migrant population. What Microsoft is planning to do there, beyond the surface appearance, I'm not sure.
There has been so much going on especially in Sweden, but it can be hard to follow up with posting it here. There is also the point that we have already sketched how it is in previous articles and it is just following it's natural trajectory. A couple of articles ought to be here though.
A church in Malmo has a new altarpiece meant to celebrate inclusivity by replacing Adam and Eve in paradise with gay couples in suggestive poses, while depicting the serpent tempting them as a transgender woman. The controversial work of art is...
The obsession of many Western Christian leaders with "inclusivity" has brought sexual politics and its activists into the church, turning off many seeking a simple solution to their faith, not depictions of gay sex on the altar. The decline in...
www.sott.net
The church is an important bearer of a culture if not the most important. So when the church gets infected with the ideology of postmodernist thinking then it is not only the downfall of the church that is likely to ensue but also the country.
A former Islamic imam in Denmark who championed the Islamist cause seems to have changed opinion and has written an article about the problem of the extremists of Islam and how left wing politicians has been pandering to those in order to gain votes, which has only increased the extremists' representation and voice/influence in those parties. It is also clear that they are not interested in the democratic values which the host country likes to live by...at least in word.
Authored by Judith Bergman via The Gatestone Institute,
In a recent survey conducted by the Danish Ministry of Foreigners and Integration (Udlændinge- og Integrationsministeriet), 48% of descendants of non-Western immigrants in Denmark said that they think it should be forbidden to criticize religion,according to Kristeligt Dagblad. Forty-two percent of immigrants who had lived in Denmark for three years agreed with the statement, while only 20% of ethnic Danes agreed with it.
The results of the survey came around the same time that a Danish think-tank, UNITOS -- where Danish politician Naser Khader is a board member -- published a report by former Islamist imam Ahmed Akkari, "The loyalty conflict in the West – why Muslims are hard to integrate."
A few months after Jyllands-Posten's publication of the Mohammed cartoons in 2005, Ahmed Akkari and a group of other Danish imams traveled to the Middle East to stir up local protests, which escalated and resulted in the Mohammed cartoon crisis. Akkari subsequently left the Islamist environment that he had been a part of and in 2014 published a book in Danish about Islamism, My Goodbye to Islamism.
In the new report, Akkari (quoting Aarhus University professor of political science Mehdi Mozzafari) defines Islamism as the "religiously based ideology, which contains a totalitarian interpretation of Islam that seeks to conquer the world." Akkari suggests that traditionalist interpretations of Islam wield a monopoly of power over Muslims. This monopoly prevents them from integrating into Western societies, because it prevents them from thinking and acting freely concerning Islam. Akkari writes:
"Here my point is that Islam has never fully assimilated into any society and that Muslims have never fully adapted into non-Muslim cultures. With an increasing number of Muslims in the West, this will end in conflict.
"Most conflicts result from Islamism's control of the definition of 'what it means to be Muslim'... Many Muslims do not really use the mosques in their daily lives and do not listen... to the imam's advice and guidance. These are Muslims of culture and of background. Although they are many, they are unable to influence understanding or interpretation because cultural Muslims are not legitimate...
"Islamism works against cohesion with the West -- also when it preaches understanding and democracy -- and it produces a counter-pressure that shows itself in terrorism, gangs and politicized groups. It shows itself in cynical speculation of influencing political power, not because it accepts democratic life, but because it thereby attempts to become strong enough to overcome it... "The problem with the Muslim minority in the West... is that it dare not be independent, when it comes to religious issues... because the strong religious and cultural elite governs... and posits itself as self-elected representatives of Muslims".
"As Islamists influence Western Muslim circles, Western political parties engage with them to win more votes, and therefore make unfortunate alliances with forces that really... reject the established system...The dilemma is that by seeking Islamist votes they allow those who wish... Denmark to become Islamized to be strengthened... the same sort of dilemma as if one sought the votes of a neo-Nazi, fascist or Stalinist group".
Akkari blames Islamism for the failure of Muslims to integrate into Western societies.
"Islamism works against integration of Muslims with its active proselytizing and because Islamism with its palette of more or less fanatical and extremist groups creates a tumor in public society".
Akkari stresses that Islamism should not be confused with Islam or Muslims in general. He names Islamist mosques in Denmark as a significant problem that works against integration.
"Many mosques were formed to be a spiritual and religious space for believers, and not as places where violence, hatred and political agendas should dominate. Nevertheless, the leading mosques in Denmark are characterized exactly by a pseudo-Islamic influence under the control of small strong elites of Islamic leaders. In that world, influence, not numbers, counts, and therefore it is not possible to say that Islamism is weak, just because it only exists in one quarter of all mosques, which I estimate".
Akkari writes that the Islamic cultural and religious elite in Denmark, "... Uses its influence over Muslims to negotiate with typically the left-wing... "
"They use the support of the left to strengthen the grip on Muslims' choices. They do so by standing as their representatives (often without having asked them for legitimacy of the representation)... The left supports the positions and representatives of the [Muslim, ed.] elite by helping them to stand for election or to have dialogue and cooperation with them during and after the elections. The left... shows good will for dialogue with the [Muslim, ed.] power elite. They increase their political votes with this relationship and use it actively..."
Akkari writes that up to one quarter of all Muslims in Denmark listen to the agendas of the Islamists in Denmark to some extent and that the latest election proved this, as the number of votes for the far-left Enhedslisten and the center-left Det Radikale Venstre went up significantly in areas with a concentration of Muslims.
According to a report in Jyllands Posten, in the last elections, which took place on June 5, Muslim voters were organized in certain urban areas listed by the government as ghettos. In Gellerup, in western Aarhus, an electoral group was set up, which, in co-operation with a mosque and various other associations, recommended that people vote for the far-left Enhedslisten and the center-left Det Radikale Venstre. As a result, in Gellerup, Det Radikale Venstre went from receiving 5.1% of the vote in 2015, to 34.2% in 2019. The same trend could be seen in other ghetto-areas, such as Vollsmose, Tingbjerg and in Nørrebro, where Enhedslisten was also popular. Both parties have a pro-immigration stance. Det Radikale Venstre, for instance, wants to make it easier for refugees to gain permanent residence in Denmark. The parties gained 8.6% and 6.9% of the votes respectively, corresponding to 16 and 13 seats in parliament. Akkari writes that extremists, "Thrive on laxity and lack of consistency" and that "establishing and supporting official representatives of the Sharia... is a form of legitimization of an alternative justice system..."
"... the identification of special laws for Muslims, such as halal meat at all institutions, special rules for swimming and socializing with other people, special exceptions from current law on divorce, women's rights... etc... will weaken the state's sovereign enforcement of the law. There must be no appeasement when it comes to these cases, because it is about more than respect for a minority. [These concessions] are perceived as a victory for the messages of Islamism, and it will bring more Muslims into a serious dilemma between the norms of Danish society and the norms of the minority community. That dilemma does not serve anyone well – least of all the Muslims themselves. There needs to be clarity... for everyone to function on roughly the same terms in accordance with the Constitution and the prevailing cultural norms".
"...The biggest problem in Western societies today appears to be that they do not have a common understanding of how to deal with these issues. It is largely left to political trends and coalitions that then change direction after every other election... the demographic changes in the West are being taken too lightly as a result of especially the growth of Muslim cultures and the resistance of Muslim cultures to dissolution in the indigenous cultures. Even the United States, which is the forerunner of the melting pot theory, has seen a rise in visible Muslim cultures and where jihadists became visible after the famous and tragic September 11, 2001".
The following from the above article bears repeating for those who might well skip the expanded version:
Akkari writes that extremists, "Thrive on laxity and lack of consistency" and that "establishing and supporting official representatives of the Sharia... is a form of legitimization of an alternative justice system..."
Denmark has increased control of the borders with Sweden which has prompted the Swedish government to call the Danes for Nazies, according to the article below. This just highlight what the woman in the video - which Thorbiorn posted on the 13th of November - said about binary thinking or black and white thinking. If you don't agree with us 100% then you are nazi and a bigot. It is the same mindset of George W. Bush and his "You are either with us or against us". No surprises and it works well for authoritarian followers which the nanny education system after the destruction of the family structure, is happy to 'produce'.
Here is the article about the Danish increased border control with Sweden:
Authored by David Archibald via The American Thinker, The Danes have put extra resources into controlling the country’s links to Sweden because of bombs going off in Denmark due to people coming from Sweden. The people from Sweden are Islamist criminals. The Swedish government reacted to the Danish move by calling the Danes Nazis. Swedish society has changed for the worse, and the Swedish people are aware of what they have lost.
All this is known, but what is interesting is that a former head of the Swedish truck-maker Scania, a Mr. Leif Ostling, has said Sweden is headed for civil war because of the problem of its violent migrants who have no inclination to integrate into Swedish society. As a successful businessman, his views can’t be dismissed as being from some sort of antisocial loon living in his mother’s basement.
This raises the question: how do you have a civil war in this day and age? Having a civil war is aspirational, but is it achievable?
The population of Sweden is now 10.1 million, of which 8% are of the Islamist persuasion. The first question is, who owns the guns, and how many are there?
This site says civilians in Sweden are estimated to hold 2,296,000 guns, legally and illegally, of which about half are rifles. There is a big hunting tradition in Sweden. As of the year 2011, licenced firearms per 100 head of population was 6.5, and registered guns per 100 people was 18.9. So the average gun-owner has three of them.
The Swedish government is thinking along the same lines. They are currently trying to restrict weapons use by hunters. Magazines and ammunition are to be registered with the police and be kept apart from the weapons. The Islamist elements have most of the hand grenades in civilian possession, principally the M75 hand grenade from the former Yugoslavia. Hand grenade attacks in Sweden peaked at 40 in 2016. The Islamists also have more explosives on hand. In the first nine months of 2019, there were 97 explosions in Sweden. Even the BBC has noticed. A litany of horrors could be written about Sweden, with all the murders and rapes and knifings and so on, but just consider that there is an explosion just about every second day.
The defense forces in Sweden have 139,180 firearms, and the police a further 38,000.
All in all, there are plenty of guns to go round to have a civil war with. This won’t be a brutish affair conducted with knives and sticks.
But how will it play out? A t the moment, the Islamists attack police stations, control no-go areas and enclaves, and are not sufficiently discouraged from these activities by the police. Public opinion is becoming less tolerant of the situation. In terms of the politics, leftists won the last election, in September 2018, and the Social Democrats retained control of the government. Their main opposition is the Sweden Democrats, whom the prime minister has called “an extremist and racist party.” In a recent poll, the Social Democrats are at 22% support, and the Sweden Democrats are more popular at 24%.
A sign of the shift in public opinion is the fact that the leader of the Moderate Party, with 70 out of the 349 seats in the Swedish parliament, has apologized on Facebook to all those who had criticized the country’s immigration policies over the years. The shifting winds of public opinion will encourage a crackdown on the Islamist enclaves, which in turn enrages the Islamists, and they are likely to respond with more attacks on the police and other public institutions.
How we get to civil war is that the government reaction to the escalating violence is likely to lag too far behind events and public opinion. And then an officer in the armed forces will have his wife or daughter killed and lead his unit in taking over the parliament building. Nobody in the police force will stop him, because the police have been taking the brunt of the Islamist violence for decades.
The next phase will be the reaction of the lefties running Germany, France, and the European Union. The yellow vests have been protesting in France for over a year now. Early on, they were surprised to see European Union decals on French armored personnel0carriers. It seems that Macron and Merkel have conspired to create a French-German force to put down insurrections in Europe. To get to Sweden, this force would have to pass through Denmark, and the Danes are likely to stop them. If that fails, any armored column is unlikely to get across the Oresund Bridge that connects Denmark and Malmö in Sweden. The Swedes make good antitank weapons. Yes, you can have a civil war in this day and age. With respect to Sweden, what can’t go on forever won’t. If the state does not maintain its monopoly on violence, the state ceases to exist.
People can have a short memory for trials and tribulations when they have been civilized and comfortable for a while. Across the border in Norway, the Norwegians had a bad time in WW2, with near starvation conditions. So in the 1950s, they built grain storage to last them at least a year, in the manner of Joseph’s advice to the Egyptian pharaoh. Two generations later, all the pain had been forgotten, and the grain silos were converted to student accommodations. The pain of Sweden’s coming civil war won’t be forgotten as quickly.
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It is not certain that a civil war is coming to Sweden of course. Due to the complacent attitude and the lack of adequate policies to deal with this situation as mentioned in the article I posted above from the Imam, then the take over of Sweden could happen through the ballot box in a few years time and an Islamic State could be the consequence with Sharia law and what that entails.
If there would be a civil war, then it is worth to bear in mind that Sweden is a major arms manufacturer:
was the world's sixth-largest export country of weapons and military technology in 2005, but went down to the eight place on the list in 2011. Nevertheless, Sweden remains a major weapons exporter with Swedish weapons being used all around the world. Famous Swedish-produced weapons used worldwide are the AT4 anti-tank rifle, Bofors 40 mmauto cannon, Carl Gustav recoilless rifle and the JAS 39 multirole fighter aircraft.
If Syria is anything to go by, then in case of civil war, one could well imagine that the 'moderate rebels' would go for capturing the arms producing places and then there would be a lot more weapons available, than the above article on civil war mentions.
There has been so much going on especially in Sweden, but it can be hard to follow up with posting it here. There is also the point that we have already sketched how it is in previous articles and it is just following it's natural trajectory. A couple of articles ought to be here though.
The problem wasn’t people fighting with each other; it wasn’t like the Western narrative may have tried to show – as Syrians fighting with each other, or as they call it a “civil war,” which is misleading. The situation was terrorists taking control of areas, and implementing their rules. When you don’t have those terrorists, people will go back to their normal life and live with each other. There was no sectarian war, there was no ethnical war, there was no political war; it was terrorists supported by outside powers, they have money and armaments, and they occupy those areas.
Question 3: Aren’t you afraid that this kind of ideology that took place and, you know, was the basis of everyday life for people for so many years, in some ways can stay in the society and sooner or later will be back?
President Assad: This is one of the main challenges that we’ve been facing. What you’re asking about is very correct. You have two problems. Those areas that were out of the control of government were ruled by two things: chaos, because there is no law, so people – especially the younger generation – know nothing about the state and law and institutions.
The second thing, which is deeply rooted in the minds, is the ideology, the dark ideology, the Wahabi ideology – ISIS or al-Nusra or Ahrar al-Cham, or whatever kind of these Islamist terrorist extremist ideologies.
Now we have started dealing with this reality, because when you liberate an area you have to solve this problem otherwise what’s the meaning of liberating? The first part of the solution is religious, because this ideology is a religious ideology, and the Syrian religious clerics, or let’s say the religious institution in Syria, is making a very strong effort in this regard, and they have succeeded; they succeeded at helping those people understanding the real religion, not the religion that they’ve been taught by al-Nusra or ISIS or other factions.
Question 4: So basically, clerics and mosques are part of this reconciliation process?
President Assad: This is the most important part. The second part is the schools. In schools, you have teachers, you have education, and you have the national curriculum, and this curriculum is very important to change the minds of those young generations. Third, you have the culture, you have the role of arts, intellectuals, and so on. In some areas, it’s still difficult to play that role, so it was much easier for us to start with the religion, second with the schools.
In this moment, in the region, there are turmoil, and there is a certain chaos. One of the other allies of Syria is Iran, and the situation there is getting complicated. Does it have any reflection on the situation in Syria?
President Assad: Definitely, whenever you have chaos, it’s going to be bad for everyone, it’s going to have side-effects and repercussions, especially when there is external interference. If it’s spontaneous, if you talk about demonstrations and people asking for reform or for a better situation economically or any other rights, that’s positive. But when it’s for vandalism and destroying and killing and interfering from outside powers, then no – it’s definitely nothing but negative, nothing but bad, and a danger on everyone in this region.
Question 15: Mr. President, after nine years of war, you are speaking about the mistakes of the others. I would like you to speak about your own mistakes, if any. Is there something you would have done in a different way, and which is the lesson learned that can help your country?
President Assad: Definitely, for when you talk about doing anything, you always find mistakes; this is human nature. But when you talk about political practice, you have two things: you have strategies or big decisions, and you have tactics – or in this context, the implementation. So, our strategic decisions or main decisions were to stand against terrorism, to make reconciliation and to stand against the external meddling in our affairs. Today, after nine years, we still adopt the same policy; we are more adherent to this policy. If we thought it was wrong, we would have changed it; actually no, we don’t think there is anything wrong in this policy. We did our mission; we implemented the constitution by protecting the people. Now, if you talk about mistakes in implementation, of course you have so many mistakes. I think if you want to talk about the mistakes regarding this war, we shouldn’t talk about the decisions taken during the war because the war – or part of it, is a result of something before.
Two things we faced during this war: the first one was extremism. The extremism started in this region in the late 60s and accelerated in the 80s, especially the Wahabi ideology.If you want to talk about mistakes in dealing with this issue: then yes, I will say we were very tolerant of something very dangerous. This is a big mistake we committed over decades; I’m talking about different governments, including myself before this war.
The second one, when you have people who are ready to revolt against the order, to destroy public properties, to commit vandalism and so on, they work against their country, they are ready to go and work for foreign powers – foreign intelligence, they ask for external military interference against their country. So, this is another question: how did we have those? If you ask me how, I would tell you that before the war we had more than 50,000 outlaws that weren’t captured by the police for example; for those outlaws, their natural enemy is the government because they don’t want to go to prison.
In the Scandinavian a loose alliance between criminal, political and religious elements is a possibility.
There is actually many opportunities to follow the developments, blogs, small news sites, social network groups and Twitter.
For instance @ingridcarlqvist has had frequent Tweets where she exposes what she calls female thinking. The problem she sees is not using ones brain or rather the intellectual analytical part of it. She has noticed that women in Sweden often take political decisions based on feelings and no or too little brains, which is a strategy she thinks contributes little to a happy future for the country as a whole.
And translation using translate.yandex
What did I tell you?! Men build communities, women break them down. Either the women get to start using their brains or we get to take the right to vote away from the women.
Quote Tweet
Micke K
@ MickeK69
* 7h
60% of female voters are satisfied with the development of the country
40% of women voters have had enough of reduced welfare, insecurity and crime
Incidentally Carlqvist is in line with many male Islamists, just ask in Saudi Arabia. But who should have thought it only took a little more than a 100 years for some women to begin to be fed up with themselves? What I think she is really asking for is balance and at the moment balance appears to be missing. Maybe Carlqvist will be attacked by feminists, but now that some of the feminists are challenged by transgender identity activists and some Islamists, perhaps trends are changing?
I think that this is one of the things that will be hard to come to terms with in the West until perhaps it is too late. In Syria it was almost too late. Will it be too late for Europe to learn this lesson is an open question. In the current political climate it does not appear as if learning from mistakes of others is a high priority, but that could change.
If one takes Germany in the 1930'ies, then it was possible for astute observers to see what was happening but the consequences of it, only mostly from outside the country itself. The book "Defying Hitler" by Sebastian Haffner comes to mind. He describes the transformation of Germany when Hitler gained power, but he and his colleagues and friends just found it annoying and a bit ridiculous what this guy was doing, never imagining how it slowly slowly could lead to full power. They thought that this Hitler thing, which initially had so little support among Germans, would just die down again and that life would return to normal, but as we know that didn't happen.
“Today my girls came home from school and told me that they were forced to lie on prayer mats and pray in Arabic. The girls had to be in the back of the classroom. Then they would dance to Arabic music and eat Arabic cake. My girls did not even want to be there because they could not understand a word of what the teacher read from the Quran in Arabic”, an angry parent who called himself Markus told Samhällsnytt.
According to Markus, some students brought their own mats. The teacher distributed mats to the students who did not have their own. The pupils would be facing the Kaaba, the centrepiece of the Great Mosque of Mecca.
When confronted by parents, school authorities said it was “role-playing”.
“I was obviously upset to hear that. That the school, at lesson time, chooses to divide the children by gender and put the girls in the back of the classroom is absolutely crazy. As is kneeling on a rug and praying to Mecca. All while a native speaker recites the Quran”, Markus told Samhällsnytt.
According to Markus, kneeling in the face of a “hostile” religion that “oppresses and marginalises girls” contradicts the very idea of school education and sends the wrong kind of message, as is the idea that one gender is somehow more important than the other. By his own admission, Markus wants the school to apologise, explain itself and follow Sweden's laws. He has requested that the headmaster take a time out during the investigation period. Tweet: "Swedish students in grade 5 in Emmaboda were forced to lie on Muslim prayer rugs turned toward Mecca and pray to Allah in Arabic. The headmaster dismisses it as 'role play'".
The incident sparked an outcry on social media, where many found it untenable and interpreted is as a sign of Islamisation.
“Those responsible for this should be dismissed with immediate effect”, one user tweeted.
“Imagine the reverse... Muslim children had been made to partake in Christian or Jewish 'role play'.Then heads would have rolled, and the outrage milieus would have been jangling”, another one said.
Earlier this year, a video of Danish pupils kneeling on the ground and chanting “Allahu Akbar” (“God is great”) under their teacher's supervision sparked outrage in Sweden's neighbouring country. The video was not intended for the public eye and sparked many accusations of “indoctrination”.
At 8.1 per cent of the population, according to a 2017 Pew Research report, Islam is Sweden's largest minority religion.
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The angry parent in the above article wants the school to follow Swedish laws. Yet with a rapidly changing demographics, then soonSwedish laws could reflect something quite different that what we see today. And as mentioned in the previous post then left wing parties are very defending of the mass immigration partly due to virtue signalling but not least in order to get the Muslim votes. With the votes comes more seats in parliament and more influence for these parties. They are also expected to pay the piper so to speak and that means pushing changes that immigrants wish to see and defend the immigrants every time transgressions happen. We see the same dynamic happening in American politics.
A special task force introduced in Malmo, Sweden to tackle rising gang violence will be expanded into other cities, the police chief has said, warning that gang members are becoming more ruthlessly violent. Sweden is suffering a jump in...
A special task force introduced in Malmo, Sweden to tackle rising gang violence will be expanded into other cities, the police chief has said, warning that gang members are becoming more ruthlessly violent.
Sweden is suffering a jump in gang-related shootings and bombings; bomb attacks reached a new high in 2019 with over 180 incidents to date. An explosion in Linkoping, southern Sweden injured 20 people in June, while almost 30 blasts have been recorded in Malmo alone this year.
The 'Operation Hoarfrost' task force was introduced in Malmo in November after a 15-year-old was shot dead in what police suspect was part of a drug gang turf war. In June 2018, six men were shot at a Malmo internet cafe in a drive-by gang-related attack; three of the victims died in hospital.
About 40 suspects have been arrested for a range of crimes since Operation Hoarfrost got underway.
Speaking to Ekot radio, police chief Anders Thornberg said gangs were becoming more ruthless and reckless, trying desperately to make and spend money quickly as they know they might not live more than 20 or 30 years.
Younger criminals are keen to make their way up the gang hierarchy faster by pulling off more dangerous and daring crimes in public, he said, including revenge attacks on rivals. The police chief also warned that dozens of children aged between 8 and 14 are suspected of involvement in robberies, and may already be prepared to engage in more violent crimes.
Thornberg said the task force's actions "will be moved around Sweden to the places where we think they are needed," including Stockholm and probably Uppsala.
Speaking of Uppsala, Thornberg said he had seen gang members brazenly gathering in the city center in the afternoon and "behaving inconsiderately" without showing respect for anything.
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Doing more checks, arresting more people may sound good, but without realising with what you are dealing and without having the laws in place to combat it, then it will likely amount to little. If going by past naive efforts such as letting rapists off in courts, trying to reeducate rapists that rape is not allowed in Sweden or short sentences, then one is reminded of the words by Bashar Assad:
If you want to talk about mistakes in dealing with this issue: then yes, I will say we were very tolerant of something very dangerous.
This year, 2020, it is going to be 75 years since the official end of WWII. There are probably going to be a few headlines as a result, and it would be unlikely if Russia is not going to be mentioned. Previous posts in this thread with regard to WWII and the relation with Russia include
I have often wondered why Denmark cooperated so easily with NAZI Germany during ww2, why was there no serious resistance when the occupation took place on April 9, 1940? It turns out the leadership of Copenhagen might have had an experience from the book of history to rely on, making them think twice while German planes were hanging over the capital.
Denmark has been very supportive of the oligarchs in Kiev since the Maidan event a few years back, so why not be more sincere and join Kiev in rehabilitating those who fought the Soviet Union during WW2?
Then there is the economic aspect and when one does not produce quality wood in one's own country then one has to buy it. Again this amounts to virtue signalling, as the wood will have to be produced in other countries. An example of this is also in the use of woodchips for heating. Denmark was...
Then there is the economic aspect and when one does not produce quality wood in one's own country then one has to buy it. Again this amounts to virtue signalling, as the wood will have to be produced in other countries. An example of this is also in the use of woodchips for heating. Denmark was...
cassiopaea.org
Today as I was writing a post as a comment to events in Russia regarding the understanding of Poland and its role or contribution to the events that led to WWII I decided to look at the role played by Danish volunteers.
While there are enthusiasts in Denmark interested in the history of World War 2, there are aspect that are often left out of consideration, below are some drawn from machine translations of Russian texts which again are based on other be they German, Russian, "Yugoslav" Danish, or English
The first is about the battles around Demyansk in present day Western Russia
Meanwhile, from Pskov to support the division "Dead head" the aircraft delivered volunteer corps "Danmark". The involvement of Danish volunteers in the fighting with the Russians was not accidental. Denmark was considered a Nordic country with suitable Aryan ancestry. People from the German occupation was not injured, the monarchy and the Parliament remained intact. The intervention of the Germans in the internal Affairs of the country was reduced to a minimum.
Two weeks after the invasion of 23 April 1940, Himmler ordered to begin recruiting company in Denmark and Norway. Able-bodied volunteers from 17 to 23 years has signed a contract for two years and received German citizenship with all rights and privileges "reyhsdoyche", while maintaining and Danish citizenship.
Anyone who previously served in the Danish army, when joining the ranks of the Waffen-SS retained his military rank and the right to receive a pension. Created Legion received official German designation – the volunteer corps of the SS "Danmark".
It is noteworthy that Danish volunteers were sworn in by the Supreme command of the Wehrmacht, and not a traditional SS oath of loyalty personally to Hitler. Christian Kryssing was the first commander of the unit, despite the fact that he was not a member (or supporter) DNSAP (Danish national socialist workers ' party). It was soon replaced by Christian Frederick von Salburg and completed the preparation of the case. Background Shelburg was born in Ukraine. He was brought up in the Royal cadet corps. After the 1917 revolution the family fled to Denmark. The background Salburg served in the Royal guard. Had to war in 1939-1940 on the side of Finland. Volunteered for the Waffen SS. In the past he headed the youth Department DNSAP. In the summer battles in the East, he was orderly at the headquarters of the SS division "Viking" and commanded a battalion. Since the beginning of February 1942, he became commander of the volunteer corps "Danmark".
[....]
The Danes suffered heavy losses and therefore, 11.30 sturmbannführer albert Letts of Forbeck, to assume command of the volunteer corps, decides to stop the attack. Company of Danes retreat to its original position. During the retreat the commander dies. The Danes in 6 days you lose the second their commander.SS-hauptsturmführer Martinsen assumes command of the Danes. Volunteer corps after leaving positions located West of Vasilevsky in a relatively dry place on the Northern edge of the forest near the highway. Left to the swamp Suchan adjacent to the Danes, the SS company of Ambrosius, and the right razvedochnaya of the SS division "Dead head".
Other troops
[...]
SS actively was against the involvement of Danes in with other troops. However, the Danes were not only in SS.
Marine Guards Kriegsmarine - 1500 volunteers. Received, by the way, 120 euros per week.
Luftwaffe - 8 pilots. Paul Sommer, for example - 6 confirmed victories. Created a security corps of the Luftwaffe and 1200 volunteers.
The Imperial labor service
180 of the Danes.
According to the organization Todt, the NJC and the Legion Speer data are not available. It is only known that on the territory of the Reich voluntarily worked in factories and enterprises 35 000 Danes. Of course, not as slaves-Ostarbeiters, but as foreign experts.
The link leads to a collection of literature and posts, but I could not find the details. In the time before the war there was much unemployment so the numbers above are realistic, besides Danes were employed inside Denmark to build fortifications and the farmers produced food that could feed maybe a million people besides the Danish population. All the extra food went to Germany.
Denmark
In early July 1942, German occupation authorities in Denmark announced the establishment of a national volunteer formations in the Waffen SS. The new unit was called the Volunteer corps "Danmark" (Freikorps Danmark). The corps was formed by volunteers and the Danes of the regiment "NordWest".
By 31 December 1941 the number of housing has reached 1164 people, and about a month has increased by 100 soldiers and officers. On the structure of the Danish case was a reinforced motorized battalion.
In early may 1942, the Danish volunteers arrived on the Eastern front. Volunteer corps "Danmark" took part in the battles of damanskom. In damanskom the boiler body has lost 80% of its composition. In September 1942 the Danish volunteers returned home. But in October all volunteers returned to service. The Danes had served in the area of Nevel, fought in the Great Onion. In April 1943 the Danish volunteers were withdrawn from the front, and on 6 April Volunteer corps "Danmark" ceased to exist.
By the way, commanded the countrymen of the great storyteller himself quite Orthodox Mr. Konstantin Fedorovich Salburg. He commanded for three months, after which hit a mine in damanskom the boiler. (approx. ed.)
It is all in Russian but shows the environment in which the battles of Demyansk took place. They follow the discovery of the bones of 12 soldiers and do a lot of research extending to survivors in both Germany and Russia before they discover that the bones belonged to a volunteer group from Moscow that consisted of people belonging to the educated class. In the film there is one aviation engineer who participated and also one old lady. These people have seen much pain.
Осенью 1943 года 3-й танковый корпус СС был переброшен на Балканы для разоружения итальянских частей и борьбы с югославскими партизанами
warspot.ru
Among history lovers 11-I panzergrenadiere SS division "Nordland" is strongly associated with the service of a large number of the Scandinavian volunteers and the fierce fighting in the besieged Berlin in the spring of 1945. Few people know that the baptism of fire of this division has occurred in Croatia in the autumn of 1943, that in itself is a historical moment: before the tank or panzergrenadiers part of the Waffen SS in the Balkans were not sent.
[...]
In early 1943, reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler decided to collect Western European volunteers in the same compound to form a new SS division from the Dutch and the Scandinavians. Activities on the formation of a new division began in March 1943, with Himmler's plans had changed: the connection was supposed to be purely Scandinavian.
The personnel basis of the new division was staffed by Scandinavians and Germans, the SS regiment "Nordland", which is March 22, 1943 by the order of the Main operations Directorate of the SS were removed from the SS division "Viking". In addition to his formation were involved in the Volunteer corps "Danmark" and SS Volunteer Legion "Norway". Thus, in one link brought virtually all the existing Scandinavian volunteers. In July 1943 the division was given the name "Volunteer panzergrenadiere SS division "Nordland" (SS-Freiwilligen-Panzergrenadiere-Division Nordland). The division commander was appointed brigadeführer SS Fritz von Scholz, who has previously formed the SS regiment "Nordland", was its permanent commander and enjoyed great prestige among the soldiers.
[...]
Norwegian and Danish volunteers were United in the two novopodmoskovnyj "national" panzergrenadiere regiments of the SS, which received the name "Norge" (SS-Panzergrenadier Regiment Norge) and "Danmark".
The backbone of the 1st battalion of the SS regiment "Norge" were 300 veterans of the disbanded Norwegian Legion of the SS. The 2nd battalion was established on the basis of the 2nd battalion of the SS regiment "Nordland", while the former 1st battalion "Nordland" became the 3rd battalion "Norge". In addition to the three battalions in the regiment was established three separate companies: the 13th company of infantry guns, 14 anti-aircraft regiment 16th engineer company. Provided by the States 15th motorcycle company formed was not. The commander of the regiment was assigned to the SS obersturmbannfuhrer Wolfgang Yorhel.
[...]
With the Danes was somewhat more complicated, since disbanded Volunteer corps "Danmark" in fact had the status of an independent Soviet units (in 1941, Denmark joined the "anti-Comintern Pact" and claimed to be an independent part in the war with the USSR), so the news that it disbanded, and the personnel will be included in the ranks of the German SS division, many soldiers of the corps have apprehended in bayonets. Not happy Danes and the news that in addition to them, the shelf will serve the Germans, moreover, the commander of the regiment will also become a German, not a Dane (in the Volunteer corps, all the commanders were Danish). As a consequence, the Danish volunteers insisted on keeping the enclosure as a separate unit.
[....]
In the settlement of the conflict interfered with the commander of the SS division "Viking" SS-obergruppenführer Felix Steiner. He pushed the Danes argument that a relatively small infantry unit in the division will be continuously reassigned to different units, the commanders of which are unlikely to protect her in battle. The Danish Ambassador to Germany Moore, on behalf of the Danish and German governments appealed to the consciousness of the soldiers as "the struggle with Bolshevism is the challenge of Denmark in the framework of the anti-Comintern Pact". However, to completely extinguish the conflict failed: part of the personnel of the corps, including its commander obersturmbannfuhrer SS Knud-the Borgen of Martinsen, resigned and returned home. However, the majority of Danes remained on duty. The commander of the regiment was appointed obersturmbannfuehrer SS Hermenegild von westphalen, and the 32 officer positions are equally divided between Germans and Danes.
[....]
Despite a distinct Scandinavian character of the SS division "Nordland", it quickly became clear that the Scandinavian volunteers is not sufficient to fully staff the two "national" regiments. The lack of personnel made up for the active involvement of German reyhsdoyche (citizens of Germany) and Volksdeutsche from Eastern Europe. As a result, by the end of 1943, the SS regiment "Danmark" 40% consisted of Danes (1280 people), 25% reyhsdoyche (800) and 35% of Romanian Volksdeutsche (1120). The total strength of the regiment was about 3,200 people. Worse things were in the SS regiment "Norge". The Norwegians there were only 810 people (data for December 1943), all the other soldiers were Germans. As for the other parts of the division (tank battalion SS "Hermann von Salza", artillery regiment, reconnaissance battalion and other provided by state parts), then the vast majority are staffed Volksdeutsche.
[....]
В сентябре 1943 года, после разоружения итальянцев, противником дивизии СС «Нордланд» стали части Народно-освободительной армии Югославии
warspot.ru
[....]
However, the greatest test at the end of November fell to the 24th SS regiment "Danmark".
The Danes are defending Clay
SS regiment "Danmark" were stationed in the area Petrinja and Clay, where he was engaged in combat training, security and patrolling the area. Hardest hit was the 1st battalion of the regiment, stationed in Glina village with a population of 2,300 people. Despite its small size, surrounded by hills, the town was an important crossing point communications. In addition, he was a reference point, from which he made raids on the guerrillas occupied the regions Bania and Kordun. So the Clay was an important target for guerrilla groups, and the surrounding area operated units of the 7th division Briscoe AVNOJ. However, the retention of control over this item remained an important challenge for the Croatian authorities and allied German troops.
Passenger car SS regiment "Danmark" in Croatia. As a tactical sign on the car bearing the image of the Danish flag.
kriegsberichter-archive.com
[....]
All necessary information was received on the following day (22 November) from seven captured Danish soldiers. On interrogation, the prisoners told about the size of their mouth, their deployment and armament, falsely stating that they, together with the Danes are the Romanians (actually meant Romanian Volksdeutsche). According to the testimony of prisoners, the morale in the garrison was low, especially among the "Romanians" who panicked at the first fire. It is interesting that this data about low morale was extrapolated and the Danes: in one of the intelligence reports of the national liberation army from 23 Nov 1943 it was claimed that Danish soldiers in Clay "have a low fighting spirit". However, subsequent events showed that the allegations of low morale of the Germans and the Danes in the Clay are not true.
The Danes also told that the SS division "Nordland" preparing to ship "Latvia" (actually it was Estonia), and that the Clay should be replaced Cossack units. The greatest interest among guerrilla commanders has caused the information about the reinforcements that came from Petrini in the form of two tanks and two additional artillery pieces (in fact, no reinforcements were not).
During interrogation, a tragic incident occurred. The guerrillas badly searched the prisoners, and one of them was able to give them a hand grenade. When he was brought for questioning to the headquarters battalion, Dane pulled the pin. The explosion killed him, the Commissioner of the battalion and wounded the battalion commander and two other guerrillas. The fate of the remaining prisoners of information is not possible, they were executed.
[...]
One of the dead on 22 November was a Danish SS unterscharführer Christensen. Along with four soldiers he was surrounded and blew themselves up two hand grenades. With him died four other Danes and a few surrounding them partisans. This episode became known throughout the corps as Steiner issued a special order, which stated:
[...]
В конце ноября 1943 года датские добровольцы войск СС вели жестокие бои с партизанами в Хорватии
warspot.ru
The results
Not yet fully formed 3rd SS Panzer corps was sent to the Balkans with a dual purpose: to strengthen the German presence in the region with the looming problems with the Italians and continue personnel training in conditions as close to combat.
Scandinavian personnel housing news that they have to serve in Croatia, joy is not caused. Most protested the Norwegians, some of whom even requested a transfer, and the commander of the 1st battalion "Norge" of Pinson was dismissed because he refused to follow orders in the anti-guerrilla struggle. However, military discipline prevailed, and both the Scandinavian regiment fared well in battle. The high morale of the Danish volunteers show how two well-known case of suicide bombing with grenades when capture and interrogation, and the stubborn defense of Clays from more than three times superior enemy forces.
During his stay in the Balkans division of the SS "Nordland" irrevocably lost six officers. Besides the aforementioned, Donald, Lund, Reader and Jensen, 26 Oct died untersturmfuhrer SS Alfred Martin Quack and Kai Holm Thomsen of the 9th company of the SS regiment "Danmark". The total loss of the division was about 250 people, more than half of them — forever.
After leaving Croatia, 11th panzergrenadiere SS division "Nordland" was sent to the Eastern front, where he participated in the battles against the red army in 1944-1945. His way of fighting the division was finished in Berlin on 2 may 1945, at the time, few people remembered that the first battles of this compound adopted in the Balkans.
The former General Secretary of NATO and former Danish PM Anders Fogh Rasmussen who later became advisor to Petr Poroshenko who became president of Ukrainian after the Maidan in 2014 had a great-great-grand father that tried his luck in the Russian Empire before the Russian Revolution and the formation of the Sovjet Union. This great-great-grandfather was one of about 2000 people who immigrated to Russia. Many lost much money and property as a result of the revolution or even before. Perhaps the fate of this great-great-grandfather has helped to shape the opinion about Russia in the mind of Anders Fogh Rasmussen. I had heard the claim an ancestor of the former NATO General Secretary had emigrated to Russia, but had been unable to substantiate the claim. Incidentally there was this article in Berlingske from 2005 which is a review of a book by Ole Sohn and which had an interesting story to tell.
In the book entitled "I will be home soon", he tells the fascinating story of the farming family Schiøtz, who emigrated from North Jutland to Siberia in 1910.
In the same period, as tens of thousands of danes sought their luck in America, traveled the 2,000 danes - one of them was in fact the Danish prime minister Anders Rasmussen denied great-great-grandfather, Ole Sohn found out - to Russia. It was not romantic revolution tourists, but liberal-minded farmers, dairy farmers and traders who dreamed of getting their own feet under their own feet.
The Schiøtz family was one of those families. After a failed business venture with peat digging back in North Jutland, the family travelled to Siberia in 1910, where the father Viggo was to purchase cattle and pigs for a Danish-owned slaughterhouse, Brüel & Thøgersen. The hopes were great,but business was bad, and in 1912 the family had to leave Russia - without Poul.
Deep in archives
Ole Sohn has been working on the book for 11 years. He's got bl.a. dug in the archives of the KGB in Moscow, with the Russian communist party and the Russian ministry of foreign affairs.
I'LL BE HOME SOON
A farming family from North Jutland emigrated to Siberia in 1910 to create a new life. The father worked for a Danish-owned abattoir in Kurgan. But after a short while, one accident after another hit the family. In deep poverty, the family had to give up life in Russia and return home. Unfortunately, they could not afford to bring their 15-year-old son Poul, so he was left as a servant at a Russian estate. From here, the family lost contact with him. Eight years later, he resurfaced as a Red Army officer. In the intervening years, he had been whirled into the Russian revolution and civil war, met Lenin, Trotsky and Khrushchev, seen death in the eyes several times, and he was married with a Russian woman. The family's dramatic and quite extraordinary life and fate of the from the 1890s to 1952 is laid bare, like the lecture also gives an insight in the Danish emigration to the Tsar-time Russia.
Stranded
The book is both a family saga and a mirror of time just before and after the revolution of 1917 and up to the mid-50s.
"It is an extraordinary story of a Danish peasant son who, under completely grotesque circumstances, is left in a foreign country. The fate of the family is both a piece of Danish and Russian history. Mr Poul Schiøtz was accidentally found in some of the central areas of Soviet history," says Ole Sohn.
After the family had left Poul in Moscow, he worked for a period on the Danish-controlled estate, but times were bad and therefore he was resigned before agreed. He didn't want to go back to Denmark and take a job at another estate, and then he got a job at the Donbass mines, which became an important part of the revolution.
"Some of the toughest battles between the white - the bourgeois - and the red took place in the Donbass provinces, and Poul participated in several of the decisive battle," says Ole Sohn.
The extremely poor conditions and exploitation of workers, as Paul experienced both on country estates and in the mines, got him to take an interest in the revolutionary work.
In 1916, in the middle of the First World War, Poul Schiøtz took part in a mining strike, and only because he was a foreigner did he save his life. He was imprisoned, and while he was behind bars, his 700 colleagues were rushed to the front to punish the strike, where they all died. Poul was not released until after they had been dispatched and saved his life.
The spy from Aalborg
Then, under his new Russian name Pavel Viktorovitch Shetz, took part in the revolution on the side of the Red Guard. Among other things he was involved in the planning and execution of the assassination of the lieutenant who sent the 700 miners to the front. He became a member of the Communist Party and, due to organizational skills, leadership and labour, he gained more trust in the party and the state apparatus. For instance he worked for the checka and the GPU-the secret police for state security, which was the forerunner of the later KGB. During Stalin's purges he was imprisoned and tortured, but at the trial he was miraculously acquitted.
"Poul Schiøtz's life was so wrapped up in Stalin. I have not in any way tried to glorify his life, but written what I have found. I knew for instance not that he worked for the forerunner of the KGB," says Ole Sohn.
His book also talks about the private life of Poul Schiøtz - he was for instance for a time married to a Russian Comtesse - and about his widely dispersed correspondence with his family in Denmark. For a long time thought his parents that the son had perished during the First world War, but in 1922 he sent a letter to the newspaper Politiken, which found the family in Aalborg. The following year, his mother, Nancy, visited him in Moscow and Vladivostok, where he lived with his wife. Well, you know, the reunion was affectionate, and it's very eloquently described in the book. It was the last time mother and son saw each other. Poul died in 1952 in the Lithuanian Baltic Sea city of Klaipeda, where he was head of the Soviet fishing fleet. Eight years later, his mother died in Svendborg.
The point is that this connection with Russia before the revolution undoubtedly also resulted in a lot of trade and business between Russia and Denmark (Marriages back then among the elite was always about trade and alliances). When the communist revolution happened, a number of Danes likely lost much investment and livelihood if not their lives. The brutal murder of the Russian Tzar just symbolized the big traumatic wound in relations between Denmark and the new rulers in 1917. So when Nazi Germany were going to war against Russia some 24 years later, then it might not be so surprising that a number of Danes signed up to go and fight on the side of Nazi Germany. They may or may not all have had Nazi sympathies, but they had a common enemy, which then was communism.
[....]
And there was the story about one of the prime movers of the Danish National Socialists, Christian Frederik von Schalburg who had been an officer with the Royal Guard of the King. The English Wiki has:
Christian Frederik von Schalburg was born in Zmeinogorsk, Tomskaja Gubernija, Russian Empire (now Altai Krai, Russia) as the oldest of three children to August Theodor Schalburg and wife Helene Schalburg.[3][4] His father was born 1879 in Nyborg, Denmark[3][4][7] and his mother Elena Vasiljevna née Starizki von Siemianowska was born 1882 in Ukraine[4] (possibly Poltava[3]) out of a Russian noble family. Still a boy von Schalburg received a military education in the Tsar's cadet corps and lived in Russia until the October Revolution of 1917 when he fled with his family to Denmark. These dramatic events caused him to long for Russia and to hate communists.[8]
What is perhaps slightly remarkable is that he was married in the Russian Orthodox Church and his son was also baptized there even though his wife was a German baroness from Wilhelmshafen.
Regarding the historic relation between Denmark and Russia and before that the Soviet Union, one question is how many fought the Soviet Union, and how of them died as a result. Below I mainly work around the case of the Danish participation on the Eastern Front though other Scandinavian countries are also mentioned. After having gone through the links and documents it seems the impact of the Danish war effort was more in favour of the German forces than the allied. After WW2, Denmark was counted as an allied, but words aside? Since then Denmark has been very eager to support the NATO campaigns and war effort in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Iraq which is actually a bit ironic in the sense that these actions could be seen as more in line with the efforts on the Eastern Front in WW2, since these more recent wars have been fought mainly at the behest of the US.
As I was watching an interview in Russian with a historian and author, Igor Pyhalov, he presented the participation of the European nations on the side of Hitler against the Sovjet Union. The video was Разведопрос: Игорь Пыхалов про гитлеровский евросоюз, часть первая Igar Pyhalov mentions that Denmark had 36 dead and wounded as a result of the move by Germany to occupy Denmark on April 9, 1940.
Regarding the German war effort, Pyhalov claims that 200 Danes and 300 Norwegians joined SS Division Viking already in 1940. This number rose later after operation Barbarossa was launched against the Soviet Union in June 1941.
The author is puzzled by the fact that more people were more ready to die for Germany than for their own country. I tried to look up the the SS Division Viking, that Pyhalov mentioned: 5-я танковая дивизия СС «Викинг» — Википедия says it was established in 1940 on Nov 20th.
SS Division Viking has a very, very low profile on the Danish Wiki! Moving on, the Norwegian Wiki is much richer and mentions approximately 800 Norwegians were involved at one stage or another and explains that next to 2.SS-Panzer-Division Das Reich it was the most famous and infamous due to:
War crimes
Part of Wiking division soldiers take 9. July 1941 part 600 jewish massacre in Lvov in retaliation for the regiment commander in death.[2]
The division's soldiers murdered hundreds of jews Zloczowin castle in July 1941 the first days of Ukrainian volunteers with. The massacre stopped 295. infantry division, lieutenant colonel Helmuth Groscurth. 9. July 1941, the troops participated in the murder of the jews was Lvivissä in retaliation, the SS-Infanterie-Regiment Westland commander Hilmar Wäckerlen death. Adolf Storms was brought to court in 2009 on charges of 58 Hungarian jewish forced laborer for murder in Austria 29. in march 1945, but he died before sentencing.[1]
Einsatzgruppen D, einsatz commando 11 was moving division involved in 1942. It had at its disposal a mobile gas chamber undesirable persons, eliminated.[1]
The division involved also had the ahnenerbe to hear Dr. Herbert Jankuhnin led by the Sonderkommando janku steps, who collected art objects from the black sea region.[1]
4. The forest Division commander Karl Eglseer as well as the slovakian generals Gustav Malár and Jozef Turanec, who serve at the same time Miusjoen area in April 1942, criticized the Wiking soldiers indiscipline and widespread looting.[1]
Wiking-the division's units were involved in the Warsaw uprising in a bloody suppression. The rebels and the rebels held were executed and their hiding civilians were gathered together and shot. Wiking, and a few other SS division's soldiers also raped and firing indiscriminately on civilians.[3]
The Swedish Wiki mentions that 260 people participated and possibly up to 500.
The English Wiki mentions that 430 Finns participated but did not renew their two year contract, and they were replaced by Estonians
The Finish Wiki mentions that 1400 Finns participated. This Wiki has a list of some of the criminal activities, mainly revenge killing, killing of Jews and looting.
The Portugese Wiki describes details about the location of major battle
The German Wiki has a list of all the groups and includes some of the war crimes.
The Russian Wiki claims only 1000 or 10 % of the 11000 man large division were foreigners. a Danish source claims 90 % were Germans adn the rest volunteers. The Russian Wiki gives a list of those who received high military honours like the Knights cross. Most appear to be German, but there are also a few others.
In the video interviews with Pyhalov he explains the circumstances surrounding the various European countries in WW2 not only Denmark and Norway. 0:16 Why had not emphasized the participation of the European countries Hitler coalition? 4:00 members of the coalition: Finland 5:55 Norway 27:55 Denmark 35:49 the Netherlands 46:56 Belgium 56:15 France 1:08:48 Austria
In part two other countries are mentioned:
The timing of the issue: 0:20 About different swastikas. 3:48 the Participation of Slovakia in the Second world war. 23:33 Croatia's Participation on the German side. 31:50 the Participation of Hungary in the Second world war. 48:16 The participation of Romania in world war II. 1:16:01 Spain. 1:12:08 Italy. 1:15:02 Bulgaria. 1:18:10 Poland. 1:22:41 Neutral States: Sweden and Switzerland.
I tried to look up some to these countries on the Wiki and while a number of 500,000 is mentioned for Poland Pyhalov. Poland does not even enter on the list of countries contributing to ther German forces in most Wikis, perhaps because it did not exist as a country at the time.
The English Wiki is rather non specific in general.
From April 1940 forward, Himmler began recruiting men for the Waffen-SS from among the West and Northern European people of Norway and the Low Countries.[1] In 1941, the SS-Viking Division composed of Flemish, Dutch, Danish, and Norwegian volunteers was formed and placed under German command.[2] Shortly thereafter, Waffen-SS troops were added from Latvia, Estonia, and elsewhere.[3]
The Danish volunteers were led by Christian Frederik von Schalburg as "Freikorps Danmark". The 1,000-strong Freikorps fought as a reinforced infantry battalion of the SS Division Totenkopf in the Battle of Demyansk, where Schalburg fell on June 2, 1942. In May 1943 the Freikorps was disbanded.
From the Danish volunteers of the disbanded Freikorps and from the Wiking Division the SS-Panzer-Grenadier-Regiment 24 "Danmark" of the new SS-Division Nordland was formed. It was used in autumn 1943, the partisan fighting in Croatia, where it participated in the burning of villages and mass shootings. In the Courland cauldron at the end of 1944, the Danes suffered heavy losses. At the end of April 1945, the remnants of the regiment were ordered to Berlin and grouped into a battle group, which was destroyed during the fighting in the city.
7800 Danes served in the Wehrmacht and the Waffen-SS, for the most part, in the Division "Nordland", of which 3980 fell.[12] about 2000 of these were members of the German ethnic group Nordschleswig.[13]
Sources for the above is:
12. Europa unterm Hakenkreuz. Die Okkupationspolitik des deutschen Faschismus 1938–1945. Band 8: Analysen, Quellen, Register.Hüthig Verlagsgemeinschaft, 1996, S. 166.
13. ↑Rolf-Dieter Müller: An der Seite der Wehrmacht. Hitlers ausländische Helfer beim ‚Kreuzzug gegen den Bolschewismus‘ 1941–1945. München 2007, S. 144–148.
Pyhalov mentions in his first video that among Norwegians 101 were taken prisoners of war and among Danes 427. He concludes that while most preferred to stay at home, if one compares the action for Hitler with the resistance against then the action for Hitler was the predominant. In the Video this is around minute 32 to 34.
In a Danish publication, Danske krigsfanger i sovjetiske lejre under og efter 2. verdenskrig Kildemateriale fra russiske arkiver Af Sigurd Rambusch I found the number of Danish POW in the Sovjet Union following WW2 to have been 700! Of these 200 were from the German minority in Southern Jutland. In this document they say that the number 700 is an approximation considering the complexity of the material and question. They also say it was about 10 % of the Free Corps Denmark and those who went to the Eastern Front .
The Russian Wiki about foreign assistance to Germany gives the groups and the number for several countries For Denmark it mentions 11,000 for Norway 6,000, but the sources are not rich, so it is hard to say how reliable they are.
Danske østfrontfrivillige under Holocaust – overblik mentions that 3300 were put in prison after war for active participation in the war. If one adds 3300 imprisoned to the 3980 fallen that the German source claims plus the 700 that ended up as POW and were not prosecuted in Denmark when they returned, then one reaches a number of close to 8000 people which is also close to the 7800 the German source mentioned as the number of participants. Another German Wiki claims only 1750 lost their lives, but relying on Danish sources, while it still claims that 3300 went to prison after the war and mentioned the figure of 6000 as the total number of participants.
Knowing what losses the Eastern Front Soldier suffered, what other losses were there and these are the ones that are usually remembered. Denmark in World War II - Wikipedia has:
About 380 members of the resistance were killed during the war, they are commemorated in Ryvangen Memorial Park. Roughly 900 Danish civilians were killed in a variety of ways: either by being caught in air raids, killed during civil disturbances, or in reprisal killings, the so-called "clearing"-murders. 39 Danish soldiers were killed or injured during the invasion, and four were killed on 29 August 1943 when the Germans dissolved the Danish government. Some sources estimate that about 360 Danes died in concentration camps. The largest groups of fatalities were amongst Danish merchant sailors, who continued to operate throughout the war, most falling victim to submarines. 1,850 sailors died. Just over 100 soldiers died as part of Allied forces.
Approximately 6,000 Danes were sent to concentration camps during World War II,[42] of whom about 600 (10%) died. In comparison with other countries this is a relatively low mortality rate in the concentration camps.
If one add this up one gets 3650-4050. The losses on the Eastern Front range from 1750 -2000 (Danish figures) to 3980 (German figures) add to this the losses they caused among the people they fought or mistreated and one can begin to estimate what the balance was which is a needed consideration when confronted with the perspective the Russian historian lays out.
During the WW2 the people who directly fought on the Eastern Front were not very popular among all groups of the Danish population, at least the ones that came back for vacation had to face numerous physical conflicts.
In september 1942, 850 soldiers from Frikorps Denmark arrived in Copenhagen. It was Danes who had volunteered for the Nazi Germany war against the Soviet Union. After fierce battles on the eastern front, they had now been given a month's leave back home in Denmark, and it should be celebrated with a propaganda march through the city streets. However, if the free corps people had expected an enthusiastic welcome, they would be disappointed. Even though there were happy spectators at the beginning of the march, there were scolding at them everywhere. And when the free corps people visited their homes around Denmark, they got into numerous fights with other Danes. The vast majority of the population saw them and other countrymen in German service as traitors.
The occupiers saw the free Corps as German soldiers and attacked them as an attack on Germany. The targets therefore created serious political problems for the Danish government.
The above article says the vast majority, but actually there was no serious resistance until later in the Autumn of 1942 and only from the Communist Party that had been forbidden. Moreover those that joined had been given leave and promised by the Government they would not be persecuted later (But as we have seen the survivors were put in prison when the politicians had to wash their laundry). In fact more widespread sabotage only began in 1943: according to Danish resistance movement - Wikipedia
One researcher wrote according to the Wiki about the reception of the East Front soldiers in 1942:
Historian Bo Lidegaard notes: "The relationship between the population and the corps was freezing cold, and legionnaires on leave time and again came into fights, with civilians meeting the corps' volunteers with massive contempt."
Ater WW II, in spite of prison and prohibitions there have been some that have wanted to commemorate the battles and losses of the Eastern Front including the ideals of National Socialism. Twice they have tried to make a monument in concrete and twice these have been blown up with explosives shortly after. [Source]
As I was watching an interview in Russian with a historian and author, Igor Pyhalov, he presented the participation of the European nations on the side of Hitler against the Sovjet Union. The video was Разведопрос: Игорь Пыхалов про гитлеровский евросоюз, часть первая
Around minute 26-28, Igor Pyhalov claims that the children from relations between Norwegian women and German men were considered mentally deficient and sent to homes. I could not confirm it was as bad and wide spread as he claimed, but the situation was not pleasant, and below are some links and excerpts about the situation in Norway and Denmark. Here is what he says:
26: 55 After Germany lost the war, the Norwegian
27: 01 the authorities have decided that all the children are from these marriages 27: 07 are mentally deficient by definition, so 27: 10 they should be placed in the appropriate institution, 27: 14 and I understand that under this distribution was of the order of 27: 17 15 thousand babies, including, in my opinion, the soloist of the group 27: 23 "ABBA"' [...] 27: 24 she had narrowly escaped that fate, because she was simply 27:27 taken to Sweden. 27: 28 I. e. here is a situation where people are quite timid 27: 35 they treated the occupiers when they needed to be treated 27: 39 fight for the freedom of their country, and then vented 27: 42 their fear on women and children, but I don't count, 27: 47 that it was a worthy act. 27: 48 But this is the situation with this country.
Regarding the singer from ABBA:
The Norwegian Wiki says:
Lyngstad was born out of wedlock in Bjørkåsen outside the village of Ballangen, in Ballangen municipality south of Narvik in Norway 15. november 1945 and received the name Anni-Frid Synni Lyngstad[4]. Her mother, 19-year-old Synni Lyngstad (19. June 1926-28. september 1947), was Norwegian and his father, Alfred Haase (born 1919), was a married German sergeant.[5] when she was two years old, her grandmother took her grandchild to Sweden, because the small family feared abuse from the Norwegian population. Synni Lyngstad stayed in southern Norway for some time, but was reunited with her mother and daughter in Sweden. However, she died of kidney failure, 21 years old, in 1947, and Anni-Frid grew up with her grandmother in Eskilstuna in Sweden.[5] first 16 years old she applied for and was granted Swedish citizenship.
The Danish Wiki claims the death of the mother was a suicide , but it is the only one that claims this, however I have to admit that sudden death of kidney failure at the age of 21 must be very very very rare, so ....
Anni-Frid-Synni 'Frida' Lyngstad, now Princess Anni-Frid Reuss von Plauen (born 15. november 1945), Swedish singer of Norwegian and German origin. Known as one of the four members of the band ABBA.
Anni-Frid Lyngstad was born in Ballangen in Norway, the father Alfred Haase was a German soldier, and she grew up with her grandmother in Eskilstuna in Sweden. Anni- "Saltwater" Lyngstads mother committed suicide when Anni was little, because people looked down on young girls who had children with a German. Anni-Frid Lyngstad got her first job as a jazz singer at 13 and then formed her own band, Anni-Frid Four.
Ved Anden Verdenskrigs afslutning deporterede den norske stat mange af de såkaldte "tyskertøser". 14.000 andre blev placeret i 40 lejre rundt om i Norge
www.kristeligt-dagblad.dk
Norway severely punished "German girls"
Helle Aarnes has written a book about German girls in Norway. -
17. July 2010, 1: 00
At the end of the Second World War, the Norwegian state deported many of the so-called "German girls". 14 000 others were placed in 40 camps around NorwayI.
In a Germany bombed to pieces, a distraught Norwegian woman in 1947 is looking for food with her underage child. 24-year-old Else Gabler had been deprived of her Norwegian nationality and deported to Germany by Norway. She was one of up to 100,000 others. She was "German girl." When the Second World War ended in Europe, revenge came against the followers.
The report on Else Gabler is in the book "The German Girls – the stories we were not told". It was written by the Norwegian journalist, Helle Aarnes, who interviewed some of the women.
To this day, the question of Norwegian girls who, during the war, had relations with German soldiers remains an extremely sensitive issue. Annes estimates that between 50,000 and 100,000 Norwegian girls may have had close contact with Germans during the war. Many were put in detention camps after the war. Others were deported to Germany by means of a according to Aarnes illegal regulation, which at the same time depriving women of their Norwegian citizenship. According to Aarnes, the "German girls" were the only group in Norwegian society that was punished in this way.
And even though the women were not deported, their persecution did not stop when they were released from the camps. Marginalised by their families, many of the women stayed in the late 1940s with farmers who treated them badly. It was the farmers, who during the war had sold their products to the German army with good profits, but without being punished for it.
No Norwegian woman has been convicted of having had contact with the enemy. After the war, they were shaved, humiliated and interned, but they were never brought before a judge.
Aarne's book on German Girls has given her the highest price in Norwegian journalism, but at the same time she has been criticised for revealing what the Norwegian authorities did to women.
And although over 60 years have passed since the end of the war, the Norwegian National Archives believe that the fate of women should preferably remain a secret.
Totaling 14,000 Norwegian women were put in camps, but when media researcher and journalist Lena Christin Kalle wanted to make a documentary about the women, it was stopped. The National Archives, which have all the information about what happened in the camps, have refused to disclose information on grounds of confidentiality.
After the war, 40 camps were set up for women who had had love affairs with Germans. The largest camp was home to a total of 1100 women. Even today, you can see some of the buildings in which they were held without trial or conviction.
Lena Christin Kalle has sought access to the documents and complained, but it has helped. She's been turned down by a number of lawsuits. The national archives refers to, that this is sensitive information and that many of the women of today are dead and that their families might not have had the knowledge of their past.
Now Kalle put its project on ice while she continues the attempt to get access to the material.
"It cannot be right that the state, in the name of confidentiality, should stop research into the abuses committed by the Norwegian state," says Lena Christin Kalle./ ritzau / TT
Det er stort at høre undskyldning fra statsministeren, siger mand, hvis mor blev frataget sit statsborgerskab.
nyheder.tv2.dk
Ritzau German girls in Norway get an apology 70 years after the war
It's a big deal to hear an apology from the prime minister, says man whose mother was deprived of his citizenship.
The so-called tyskerpiger in Norway, who were subjected to abuse because of their relationship to German soldiers during the occupation, has received an official apology - 70 years after.
The apology has been made by the country's Prime Minister, Erna Solberg.- We say sorry for the way in which the Norwegian authorities treated the girls and women who had relationships with germans during the Second world War.
- It has taken time, according to the Solberg apology, which was made at an event in the government's representative residence on Wednesday.
As a framework for the excuse, had the Norwegian government chosen selection of the 70th anniversary of the UN declaration of human rights.
Solberg also found that the treatment that the women received, was a breach of the rule of law, fundamental principles, that no citizen should be punished without judgment or be judged without the law.
Removed from Citizenship and sent out of the country
Many of those affected grew old and died without ever having the courage to complain about the treatment they received.
Among the invited guests at the special event in Oslo was the 72-year-old Reidar Gabler, who as an infant was sent to Germany along with his mother Else after the war.
- It's great to hear this apology from the Prime Minister, Gabler says to the NTB.
- The worst thing was that my own children, who were also called German kids and Nazis, Gabler says.
His mother was deprived of her citizenship, as were other women who married German soldiers.
She tried several times in vain to get permission to return to her country.
Today she is buried in Berlin next to her husband, Erich. Norway's apology came exactly 73 years after the couple got married.
Thousands of victims
No one knows exactly how many women were abused, but an estimate of 40 000 to 50 000.
There are between 10,000 and 12,000 Norwegian-German children registered from the period.According to Director Guri Hjeltnes, by Senter for studies on Holocaust and outlook for life (HL-senteret), the women were arrested, interned, expelled and deprived of their nationality.
They were also subjected to the people's Court on the street, which included cutting off their hair.
Many lost their jobs after they were accused of behaving dishonestly and marrying the enemy.
When one reads the above it is as if the subject is new, however already 12 years before the first article a book was published in Norway. that gave rise to three article in Danish or Norwegian:
But already in 1998 a book came out that gives several detail
Så mange som 14.000 norske kvinner kan ha blitt satt i fengsel eller internert uten lovhjemmel etter siste krig. Dette kommer fram i den nye boken til førstearkivar Kåre Olsen ved Riksarkivet.
Under annen verdenskrig hadde flere tusen norske kvinner et forhold til tyske menn. Mange av disse kvinnene ble etter krigen utsatt for en brutal behandling ‒ på gata, men også av myndighetene.
www.norgeshistorie.no
The German Wiki and Norwegian Wikis are detailed: Tyskertøs – WikipediaTyskerjente – Wikipedia
One can learn in the above articles that there were special programs that were that had a flavour of breeding programs, but nothing as extensive or unregulated as todays programmes where one man via the activity of fertility clinics can be a gene donor to hundreds if not thousands of children.
The above Wikis from Germany and Norway mention that the Danish police already in September 1940 had cases of girls being shaved by force. This was the first kind of resistance. However the year 1940 is not mentioned in the much shorter Danish Wiki which however covers subjects not mentioned in the others. Tyskertøs - Wikipedia, den frie encyklopædi has a link to an article which reveals a greater underlying complexity. No doubt some the soldiers were irresponsible, but some of the girls were too, but perhaps it also shows something about the society and its ambivalence. I'm thinking of this research result:
Ny forskning viser, at danske piger helt ned til 12-årsalderen havde sex med tyske soldater under 2. verdenskrig.
www.dr.dk
05. JULY 2006 08.00 / updated 05. JULY 2006 08.35 NOTE: ARTICLE IS MORE THAN 30 DAYS OLD
[...]
New research shows that girls as young as 12 years of age had sexual relations with German soldiers who stayed in occupied Denmark under 2. world war.
100 child welfare reports from the social services in Esbjerg are the background to the result and the scientist behind is astonished at what her studies have shown.
- I'm surprised a lot of underage girls had sexual relations with German soldiers. In fact, over half the girls had a relationship with one or more soldiers, historian Lulu Anne Hansen says to Ritzau.
Hated German girls
Girls who had relations with German soldiers during the war were commonly called "German girls."
In addition to being young, German girls were also unpopular with the rest of the population. They were often shaved bald and put on the stage, while obscenities were shouted like "box mattress" at them.
- Tyskertøserne was violently hated at the time, and this group of young women formed the root of many of the frustrations, because the girls flirted so visible in the streets. There was almost a culture of German soldiers among many young girls, according to Lulu Anne Hansen.
The historian, through her research, does not believe that the young girls from Esbjerg acted as prostitutes and had sex to make money. 'Cause it looks like the girls came from the middle class.
It is estimated that there were about 50 000 German girls in Denmark under 2. world war.
Igor Pyhalov does not think it is right to take the aggression out on the weaker people like woman and children instead of on the real subject, the occupants. In the above case it appears as if the 12 year olds and young women were harrassed while the adults who caused the issues were not. If we add this observation to that of the previous post where the Danes in greater numbers would risk their lives outside their own country than risking it inside their own country, what is the explanation? Or is it more correct to say there are two explanations; with regard to the young girls those who harrassed them lacked courage to attack the misbehaving German soldiers, as well as the patience to educate the girls, and as far as aggressing outside the country against the Soviet Union rather than inside against the occupants, perhaps they considered National Socialism a much lesser evil than Communism? This question also requires an answer, and might well be provided below, at least the answer the National Socialists would like to project and promote.
The first few posters are from Плакаты иностранных добровольческих формирований СС. Пропаганда Третьего Рейха. История пропаганды
Of these the next is Norwegian and reads "Front against Bolshevism - Where do you stand today?"
There are more posters from Norway, many have a national call. It is about Norway. The Danish have also something about ideals and values.
The next reminds the Danes that the their flag allegedly fell over Estonia in 1219. Top: "Narva 1219 - A symbol 1944." Below: "Also today Front against the East! Sign up for the Danish Regiment in Waffen SS." Note that this was in 1944, when most people were aware things had turned.
The next one reads: "We fight for the Freedom and Culture of Europe - Fight in Waffen SS" By the way this slogan sounds familiar, doesn't it?
The following says: "The Danger is approaching Denmark - Danish Volunteers fight in Waffen SS against Bolshevism"
Several of the above have a indicated images or words associated with Europe and these should be kept in mind for a little longer, but first there are two that are more like appeals to the young men. Of these the first reads: "Comrade come along - protect your home against Bolshevism, fight with SS Division Viking"
The next says "Smash Bolshevism - Join Free Corps Denmark"
Now we come back to the maps and this one is from France and with a European perspective:
Propaganda in the Mail
In the propagandist postcards, Lauder saw the skills of artists emerge in ways that he hadn’t in the images of Miami Beach hotels. He often found himself poring over cards that Nazis created and disseminated to spread their ideology.
In one reproduced in the MFA’s new book, an abstracted mass of two-toned, green soldiers marches under a row of flags, including a Nazi and a French flag. The caption of the card, issued around 1942 by the puppet Vichy government, reads in French, “Europe marches against Bolshevism.” It accompanied an anti-Communist exhibit in the French hall Salle Wagram.
(French caption). Color lithograph on card stock. Leonard A. Lauder Postcard Archive. Promised gift of Leonard A. Lauder. Courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
Ръководството на НАТО поддържа увеличаването на военното присъствие на САЩ в Европа, счита, че това мотивира европейските съюзници сами да предприемат по-големи усилия във военната сфера, заяви в сряда генералният секретар на алианса Йенс Столтенберг През януари 2017 година САЩ официално...
В условиях новых угроз Россия должна наращивать боевой потенциал армии и расширять свое военное присутствие за рубежом.
www.rosinform.ru
The one below is actually an old one, but there is modern Russian commentary. At the top it reads "Crusade against Bolshevism."
The French text reads: "The Great Crusade, The French Volunteer Legion against Bolshevism."
The Russian text reads: "They gathered French collaborators to go against the Soviet Union. Now they prepare a crusade against Putin. Poor memory."
When I read about the National Socialist Christian Frederik von Schalburg, which I mentioned in the previous post, it said that he fought in Finland at the time of the German occupation of Denmark and that he was disappointed the Danish army did offered the Germans almost not resistance when they entered Denmark. This reaction might give us an idea that the attack on the Soviet Union also could serve to divert the aggression inside the occupied countries toward an outer enemy. Some of the energy of the young people was channelled somewhere else. Are we seeing something similar today?
In this post there are some reflections about the war crimes committed by the participants on the Eastern Front, the situation in Denmark during the occupation and especially how the judicial system worked in Denmark at the end of the war and was modified to fit the situation.
The Finish Wiki mentions that 1400 Finns participated. This Wiki has a list of some of the criminal activities, mainly revenge killing, killing of Jews and looting.
If one add this up one gets 3650-4050. The losses on the Eastern Front range from 1750 -2000 (Danish figures) to 3980 (German figures) add to this the losses they caused among the people they fought or mistreated and one can begin to estimate what the balance was which is a needed consideration when confronted with the perspective the Russian historian lays out.
There is a website Folkedrab.dk ("Folkedrab" means genocide in English) that has collected much about the activity of the units in which Danish East Front Soldiers participated. While there is little proof when it comes to the individual level it does provide some evidence on the collective level. It is in Danish and prepared in a format suitable for pupils and students. The purpose is to educate about what genocide is, what acts characterize genocide and to give examples from history. Below I will try to machine translate some points from the different pages:
Godt 6.000 danske frivillige gjorde tjeneste i Waffen-SS og Frikorps Danmark under 2. Verdenskrig. Danskerne var med i hårde kampe ved Østfronten og på Balkan, og cirka 2.000 omkom. Også danske frivillige begik krigs- og folkedrabsforbrydelser i de tysk-besatte områder og i KZ-lejrene – og de...
folkedrab.dk
Danish Eastern Front volunteers under the Holocaust-overview
Some 6 000 Danish volunteers served in Waffen-SS and Frikorps Denmark under 2. World war. The Danes fought hard on the Eastern Front and in the Balkans, and around 2,000 people died. Danish volunteers also committed war and genocide crimes in the German-occupied territories and in the camps-most of whom were not punished for it.
On the above site there is a Google Map with point and for each a description of its relevance to the activities of the East Front Volunteers. It has been attached to the post.
As a result of the occupation there was established a ”national unity government” with the support of all parties except the Nazis and the Communist party.
The government of coalition believed that the best way to protect the population and ensure the greatest possible Danish self-determination was by working with the occupying power. That is why many compromises were made with the German occupying power. However, the unity government was firm on three points. It wouldn't.:
1. introduce racial law and thus open to Jewish persecution
2. reintroduce the death penalty, which had been abolished in 1933
3. let Denmark go to war on the German side
The only one they ended up really sticking with both during and after was point 1. After WW2, the 2. point was temporarily reintroduced to take care of the cases the Government deemed was treason and regarding point three, they were ambiguous, which became a point of contention after the war, as we can see from the following: In one book: På den forkerte side: De danske landssvigere efter befrielsen by Soren Billeschou Christiansen and Rasmus Hyllested where the title approximately means "On the wrong side: The fate of the Danes who had committed treason after the liberation from the Nazi forces in 1945" There is a passage from Erik Lærum who was a Norwegian who grew up and made military career in Denmark before taking leave from the military and joining the volunteers. If we translate his viewpoint, as it is expressed in the quote in the above book, it reads:
Today, I would like to ask whether the Danish government means anything with the country's joining the north atlantic pact [NATO], or whether it is something, it is forced to, and later is going to run from, leaving behind some naive sizes in trouble as a punishment, because they didn't have the mind to figure out the trick? For people who have tried to be put under indictment for laws that didn't exist when they were violated, who have tried to be penalized for having followed a path, which the government had opened up for and recommended, and who have tried to be dismissed, although they had the government's promise of re-employment after the war, it is natural to ask this question, if a promise from a Danish government is worth anything whatsoever?
For various reviews of this book ses: Kristeligt DagbladInformation or Dengang
The last page has some points about the dilemmas faced for the individual:
Where did the line go?
For was Germany a friend or an enemy? You work with the Germans for the first three years. I guess it wasn't all coercion. It sure was a line dance to work with them. But what was realpolitik? And what was symbolic policy? Where was the line in cooperation?
Moral support from Scavenius
Scavenius gave the Germans moral support in their advance in Europe. And the Danish government agreed to suspend diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union. They also accepted the internment of leading communists on the 22nd. June 1941, after the German attack on the Soviet Union.
The left, which was attached to the DKP, fought an extraordinarily courageous resistance – after 22. June 1941. Until then, they had for a few years, by being allies of the Nazis, by virtue of the Hitler – Stalin Pact of 23. august 1939.
90% backed up
How can historians speak of growing dissatisfaction with the policy of cooperation between politicians when 90% gave their vote on the 23rd. March 1943? Yes, and 95% of them voted. of the parties that had "collaborated" with the Germans.
Was this collaboration?
Danish companies exported food products of such a calibre that they gradually covered 10% of the total. of German consumption.
Was this enterprise?
[...]
Many Danes in Germany
100,000 Danes worked for a shorter or longer time in Germany. The reason for this was under pressure from unemployment funds and municipal administrations. The Danes were also assigned to work for the Germans here in Denmark by the unemployment insurance funds.
The Germans made sure that unemployment fell when the major civil works were started on the west coast of Jutland.
State radio used as propaganda
In 1941 the Danish government accepted a voluntary Danish military unit which could be deployed on the Eastern Front. Most of the members of Free Corps Denmark went to Germany and were taught by the Waffen SS. After the occupation, these members were punished. Even the state radio opened the propaganda of the Free Corps.
The blind eye
Even before the occupation many Danish people had signed up to foreign war services. This was perfectly legal.
A total of 6 000 Danes participated in German war service. About 2,000 fell in the war.
Under the legislation, it was not permitted to conduct a business campaign on Danish soil. The German minority did. The Danish government turned a blind eye.
The Danish women's dealings with German soldiers led to a strong hatred. The women betrayed morale, said The Resistance and imprisoned many of them.
[...]
After the war, 600 Danes were convicted of turning in countrymen to the occupying power.
The informers were the most hated. The resistance solved the problem by liquidating 400 Danes who they believed were informers.
The history books forget also, that the secretary of transportation, Elgaard from the Left suggested that there should be introduced the death penalty for the Danish railway saboteurs, as this took an upswing in 1943.
[...]
Prime minister Buhl called in 1942 for the public to pass on information on sabotage plans to the authorities.
Arrests, live on radio.
In the last few years of war, the Resistance had used illegal magazines to proclaim people who collaborated with the Germans. They had to pay cash after the liberation. A few hours after the liberation, the arrest began. People came together to mock the country traitors. Such arrests were reported in the state radio with Gunnar Now (A well know sports commentator) the enthusiastic voice of Hansen. Everyone now gave the impression that they had helped to fight the Germans.
Central index
By the end of 1944, The Resistance had begun to create a central file of people possibly guilty of treason. With this file, it was easy for the resistance to assemble the traitors in detention camps all over the country.
But also clues from neighbors and other random information led to arrests. But it often led to rash arrests.
Half the 40,000 people arrested had to be released within hours. Others had to wait months.
Judgements
Of the 21 800 people arrested by The Resistance, 2/3 had to be released without further ado. But they wouldn't acknowledge these mistakes. Therefore, a loose-leaf system was introduced.:
-a white certificate meant that a groundless charge had been brought
-the green certificate was given to the so-called German girls. It would stress the morally reprehensible behaviour of dealing with a German soldier.
-a red certificate was given to those who may have been guilty but where the evidence was missing.
These certificates were very damning, and more to the detriment than for the good.
Well, they did come up with the idea of setting up a complaint board. But with about 21,000 wrongful arrests, 1,500 complaints didn't seem to be many. Only 700 were vindicated, and only a few damages were paid.
The people demanded severe punishment
The final judicial report was to deal with the date from 9. april 1940, the Resistance thought. The politicians disagreed. They considered that the law should apply from the end of the cooperation policy on 29 august 1943.
But the resistance pushed through their will. This meant that legislation had to be passed retroactively. The people demanded severe punishment. Worst of all, it had to be for the workers of HIPO, the conscripts and the German girls.
And another thing that seemed very hard was that now the authorities had the opportunity to confiscate the assets of the convicted.
After the german occupation of Denmark had ended in 1945, the Danish resistance movement and the Danish citizens were eager to punish the traitors in the society, in particular the Nazis and their sympathizers. Therefore, in the aftermath of the war, extraordinary tribunals were established to prosecute and convict the perpetrators. The tribunal of civil servants constituted one of those. The employees of the state had long been instructed to follow the guideline of cooperation with the occupying power, at the same time show complete national support. Civil servants were after the occupation under suspicion for being cooperative or thwart against danish interests.
In the next paragraph "retsopgøret" means "legal proceedings" and "uværdig national optræden" meant "unworthy national conduct".
The very reason to prosecute people for their opinions and remarks was the historical context of“retsopgøret”. Despite the fact that the danish resistance movement denied it, prosecuting people for their beliefs constituted a violation of the constitution. The tribunals interpretation of the term “uværdig national optræden” is essential for the comprehensive understanding of the term. The danish resistance movement clearly had a great influence in that. An ongoing dilemma was that having dual nationality, it brought you under the radar for prosecution, but again could be the reason for reducing the sentence. At last the tribunal is comparable to the laws of the collaborationist, although the tribunal of civil servants differed from one major element, which is that the term “uværdig national optræden” gave the opportunity to punish out of trifles.
Overgreb og drab på sovjetiske soldater, der havde overgivet sig, var almindelig tysk praksis på østfronten. I tilintetgørelseskrigen mod Sovjet så nazisterne stort på folkerettens bestemmelser om krigsfangers behandling. Også danske SS- og Frikorpssoldater deltog i forbrydelserne.
folkedrab.dk
” Not Comrade": crimes against Soviet prisoners of war
Abuse and killing of soviet soldiers who had surrendered, was a common German practice on the eastern front. In the war against the Soviets, the Nazis ignored the provisions of international law on the treatment of prisoners of war. Danish SS and Free Corps soldiers also participated in the crimes.
De tyske styrker begik massive forbrydelser imod civilbefolkningen i de besatte sovjetområder. De danske østfrontfrivillige var med til at bekæmpe partisaner, udplyndre bønder, drive tvangsarbejdere sammen og udslette hele landsbyer.
folkedrab.dk
Danish participation in crimes against the Soviet civilian population
The German forces committed massive crimes against the civilian population in the occupied Soviet areas. The Danish Eastern Front volunteers helped to combat partisans, pillage farmers, drive forced labour together and wipe out entire villages.
Danske østfrontfrivillige medvirkede i folkedrabet på jøderne på lige fod med tyske soldater og kollaboratører fra andre lande. SS-Division Wiking, hvor flere hundrede danske østfrontfrivillige gjorde tjeneste, begik i 1941 en række massakrer på jøder.
folkedrab.dk
Western Ukraine massacres
Danish East Front Volunteers participated in the genocide of the Jews on an equal footing with German soldiers and collaborators from other countries. In 1941, the SS Division Wiking, in which several hundred Danish Eastern Front volunteers served, committed a series of massacres of Jews.
Punishment for crimes in KZ camps - mostly abroad
Some 6,000 Danes served in Free Corps Denmark and the Waffen-SS. Of this approximately 1 500 came from the German minority. It is estimated that around 2,000 people died and even more were injured. Several hundred of the wounded were transferred, after recovering, to guard duty in the SS concentration camps. From lawsuits and investigations after the war, there is evidence that at least 99 of the Danish SS-men did service in concentration camps and other nazi camps. Several were convicted of horrific violent crimes against prisoners, mostly in foreign courts.
From the Eastern Front to the terrorist Corps in Denmark
Even during the occupation, a large number of eastern volunteers returned to Denmark and became the bedrock of Hipo (Hilfspolizei), the Schalburg Corps, the summer Corps and other German terrorist groups.
In Denmark saw the Danish Nazis, the collaborators and East Front Volunteers a high degree of isolation, particularly after 1943, when cooperation government had ceased to function, and the resistance was emerging as a force, as more and more people listened to. The Nazis were regarded as traitors and scum of the general public. Isolation may have helped to reinforce the brutality of former Eastern volunteers in the fight against the resistance and against the Danish People. However, part of the explanation lies also in the excesses of the Eastern Front and the school in the SS.
Written by Therkel Stræde, associate professor in contemporary history at the University of Southern denmark in Odense, and along with Dennis Larsen, author of the book A school in the violence, in cooperation with DIIS, 2016
There are several Wikis about war crimes during WWII They present different views and it is helpful to use a translation machine: The German page is: Verbrechen der Wehrmacht – Wikipedia see also
In the article Not all murders the author mentions that while in Norway there were 82 killings by the resistance movement in Denmark it was around 400 and possibly more. In Denmark during the war there were both resistance and contra resistance: One page has collected some resources: Referencer
Some of the assassination were based on shake grounds and often investigations into the motives were covered up. If they were not outright war crimes, some were for all practical purposes crimes excused with being committed in a state of war.
Lige efter krigen så man de østfrontfrivillige som landsforrædere, men i deres egne øjne var de idealister, der havde kæmpet en hård, men retfærdig kamp imod kommunismen. Drab på jøder, partisaner og krigsfanger blev ikke efterforsket, og som tiden gik, blev synet på de frivillige mildere. Selv...
folkedrab.dk
Post-war East Front volunteers
Just after the war so the East Front volunteers as traitors, but in their own eyes they were idealists who had fought a hard, but fair fight against Communism. The killing of Jews, partisans and prisoners of war were not investigated, and as time went on, was the sight of the volunteer milder. Even they kept quiet about the crimes of war and genocide in which they had witnessed and participated.
Despite a ban on recruiting soldiers for foreign armies, the Danish authorities looked through their fingers in recruiting Waffen-SS during the occupation. In fact, Free Corps Denmark was given official assent to enlistment in the hope of preventing the Germans from demanding the compulsory assignment of Danish soldiers to the Eastern Front. When the Nazis in 1941 created the Free Corps Denmark, promised to the Danish authorities, even officers, who volunteered to Free Corps that they could resume their Danish military career, when they returned home from the German eastern front.
What is still missing are a few more words about the impact on the Soviet response to the German attack where I found some posters and more reflections on the impact of the events in 1940ies on todays politics in Europe.
What is still missing are a few more words about the impact on the Soviet response to the German attack where I found some posters and more reflections on the impact of the events in 1940ies on todays politics in Europe.
Let us see how they fared by examining five case histories: Waffen-SS veterans in; Germany, Norway, Denmark, Holland, and Flanders. What happened in the decades following 1945?
The Blue Mountain celebration
Der Freiwillige dedicated several pages (and photographs) to the 1995 Blue Mountain event, representing the earth itself as saturated with momentous sacrifice. The authors, who had, it appeared, been present both at the original battle and at the commemorative ceremony, opened with a description of the site during the battle. Exploding grenades had caused tremendous physical scars—the area had looked like a moonscape. ‘Not a single blade of green grass was to be found anywhere, and the once-wooded hills were now completely bare, pocked with a dense network of grenade and bomb craters. Every inch of earth had been turned over several times.’ Yet despite the raging bombardment, ‘the spirit of the European volunteers was unbroken’. The 3rd SS Panzer Corps—‘Germans and Danes, Estonians and Norwegians, Swedes and Flemish, Dutch and Swiss, Finns and Wallonians’—had, in fact, managed to defeat a much larger contingent of the Russians, although suffering, in the process, great casualties of their own. 47
Today, the article continues, fifty years later, Estonian veterans ‘met there again’ with veterans from other countries. A description of the ceremony follows. The meeting was inaugurated by a local politician. A ‘simple cross-beam cross’ was blessed by the parish priest. Representatives from each veterans’ group held speeches before laying wreaths at the foot of the cross. The authors take care to detail how the veterans are acknowledged by the Estonian state. Although sensitive negotiations between Russia and Estonia (the article explains) kept Estonian President Lennart Meri and Head of Government Mart Laar from attending as planned, Meri sent a letter and Laar conveyed his greetings, which were read aloud by the commanding general of the Estonian Defence Forces and the Estonian
minister of defence, respectively. The general’s speech, it seems, mentioned the battlefield’s symbolic significance for Estonia and the memory of the Estonian soldiers who had died there (with courage, contempt of death, and deep love of their homeland). Waffen-SS veterans were also quite vocal. Kurt Meyer, chair of the Kameradenwerk Korps Steiner, gave a lengthy speech, one which firmly incorporated the Waffen-SS veterans into both the Estonian fight for freedom and the veterans’ European narrative. He told of
the dear comrades of the Viking/Narva Battalion and the former 20th Division, who together with us, for each other, fought against Bolshevism for the freedom of your homelands, your Fatherlands and the freedom of all of Europe . . . hearty greetings
from your old companions in arms, your comrades from Germany, Austria, from Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Denmark, from the Low Countries, from Flanders, Wallonia, France, South Tyrol, and Hungary.48
From all parts of Europe, Meyer maintained, volunteers were ready to fight, to suffer, and to die for ‘their homelands, for their Fatherlands, for a free Europe’. They had lost the battle; ‘your homeland fell’ under the power of the Soviet Union. ‘But now’ there was joy at meeting, again, ‘in your lovely homeland’, the Estonians who had worn the same uniform and iron helmet, honouring together ‘our fallen and dead’. Their current generations should acknowledge their sacrifice. ‘We know, however, also, that we can bequeath freedom and peace, now, to our children and grandchildren.’ For one thing was clear:
Dear comrades, today we must remember that without the courageous engagement of the German divisions and the European volunteers, it would not have been possible to stop the Russians at Berlin, at the Oder, and the Elbe. they would have—were it not for these soldierly efforts—rammed through to the Rhine, to the Seine, to the Atlantic. then there would no longer have existed any space in which the ideals of freedom and anti-Soviet forces could have formed and gathered themselves. 49
There was more Europe than Estonia here. The European Waffen-SS was, indeed, relatively uninterested in the heroic story of Estonia’s national survival. Rather, Narva was considered yet another European Thermopylae. The myth was repeated time and time again, by both the veterans and their supporters: the only reason that all of Europe had not been taken over by Communists was the self-sacrificing endurance of these ‘First Europeans’ 50
47 Valtin and Manscher, ‘50 Jahre danach . . . ’, Der Freiwillige, July 1995.
48 Ibid
49 Ibid.
50 On this, see, e.g., Henrik Ostendorf, ‘Veteranentreffen der europäischen Freiwilligen in Estland,
Ein Reisebericht vom 28. Juli – 2. August 2011’, Ein Fähnlein, First edition, January 2012, 6ff.
Demyansk [The point most to the right]
description: In the summer of 1942, Free Corps Denmark was flown into the so-called Demjansk boiler, where a major German force was surrounded on the north eastern front.
The 2th. June, the Corps was involved in violent battles involving 21 casualties and a large number of wounded.
Among the fallen were the former leader of the Danish Nazi youth movement, commander Christian Frederik Schalburg. He was extremely popular with the soldiers, especially the most fanatical Nazis.
During and after the fighting, the free Corps men murdered a number of Red Army soldiers, even though they had surrendered.
For at least a week after the commander's death, Free Corps Denmark practised to assassinate every soldier of the Red Army who surrendered during the fighting.
Velikiye Luki [Lower right spot]
description
Here, in december 1942, Frikorps Denmark participated in the German attempt to avert a major Soviet offensive.
Lomonosov [Next Saint Petersburg]
In German: Oranienbaum
From december 1943 took part in the SS-Division Nordland with a greater number of Danish volunteers in the failed German attempt to prevent a soviet offensive. Since 1941, the Red Army had kept an area around Tsar Castle Oranienbaum (rus). Mr Lomonosov) and now attacked south into the Baltic.
Narva [Between Tallinn and Saint Petersburg]
Between February and July 1944, the SS Division was Northland with Regiment Denmark under constant Soviet pressure on the city and the river Narva.
Kurzeme
description [To the left in the first map]
German: Kurland
In the region between Riga and Klaipeda, Regiment Denmark participated in the German attempt in the autumn of 1944 to avert the continuing Soviet advance.
Page 350 there is a connection to the continuation
Passing on the torch: youth and rituals of the dead the Waffen-SS veterans’ associations have, in fact, passed from those whom the veterans term the ‘generation of experience’ to those who are their ‘followers’. the cause had long attracted younger supporters. these are a motley band—ranging from the veterans’ own families to people obsessively caught up with and idolizing the Waffen-SS’s place in World War II history. As a fecund source of publications, pilgrimages, and re-enactments, those who fetishize the Waffen-SS and World War II are surprisingly influential (something which, incidentally, indicates the prominence of ‘heroic’ masculinity in both local and national social memory).62 Finally, of course, there is the most unpleasant contingent: activists and admirers from far-right and neo-Nazi groups
Sometimes I have wondered why the Baltic States and Ukraine have been so easily taken in with the memories of Waffen-SS. From Ukraine one example is the Azov Battalion.
Most soldiers of Azov are followers of a Ukrainian nationalist type of Rodnovery (Slavic Native Faith), wherefrom they derive some of their symbolism (such as a variation of the swastika symbol kolovrat). They have also established Rodnover shrines for their religious rites, including one in Mariupol dedicated to Perun.[72][73][74][unreliable source] German ZDF television showed images of Azov fighters wearing helmets with swastika symbols and "the SS runes of Hitler's infamous black-uniformed elite corps".[75] Due to the use of such symbols, Azov has been considered to have connections with neo-Nazism, with members wearing neo-Nazi and SS symbols and regalia and expressing Neo-Nazi views.[76][77]
The 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (1st Galician) is today honored by many Ukrainian nationalists.[58] Since 2010 every year on April 28 a march is held to celebrate the foundation of the division.[59] In addition streets were named after the division in Ivano-Frankivsk (Ukrains`koi Dyvizii Street) and Ternopil (Soldiers Division "Galicia" Street).[60] A monument commemorating those who served in the division exists in the Canadian city of Oakville.[61]
In view of these finding, I now understand more clearly why the new groups persists. There have been pockets of people who an idea alive. That some of this coincides with NATO politics might explain some of the political support and possibly funding. We don't know how these SS inspired groups will work out in the future, what the individuals will decide for themselves. Just because something begins in one way does not mean it will end that way. What is perhaps even more interesting is that at this moment new collectives with entrenched memories of war most likely have been formed in groups of radical Muslims from Europe that went to Syria to fight as well as in some of the refugees who arrive with plenty of military experience. How this will work out in Europe including Scandinavia is to be seen. On the surface of things, it would seem that SS types and radical Islamists would have little in common, but maybe that is exactly what is intended?
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In February 2018, a similar question was asked and during the previous five year period of that time (2013-2018) 1574 had been caught violating a sentence that forbid them to come back. Danmark til grin: 1574 udviste kriminelle kom retur
