Hans Hertel
Danish cultural life during the occupation: Shelter, greenhouse, pocket of resistance, ashtray industry
Due to the special Danish occupation conditions, compared to other nations under Nazi rule, in spite of censorship, restrictions and persecution, the arts and media were able to pursue a relatively free course, benefiting from the isolation and the demand for cultural goods. Hertel analyses how German propaganda and domestic cultural collaborationism were countered by three currents: an early patriotic revival, a more conscious "immune defence" and an open cultural mobilization and resistance, mostly via underground press. He also explores how, in the words of the French critic Tzvetan Todorov, "context became text", i.e. how the reception of classical arts as well as of "American" jazz and youth culture was influenced by the political situation 1940-1945.

Niels Wium Olesen
"Completely correct and dignified Behaviour": Politics, social control and the public sphere during the occupation of Denmark 1940-45
In order to secure the survival of the Danish state and society during the Second World War, extensive social control was exercised by the Danish government, political parties and civil society. The social control supported national unity and set the limits for what was acceptable and unacceptable behaviour in the public sphere.

Nora Simonhjell
Writing from the chair of the torturer
The Norwegian author Gaute Heivoll's novel Himmelarkivet (The Archive in Heaven), is both a documentary novel and a reflection on the creative writing process itself. In January 1945, Louis Hogganvik was arrested by Gestapo. He was tortured, and eventually committed suicide. Hogganvik's destiny has been silenced both in the family history and in the local community, until Heivoll wrote his novel. At one point he is back in the torture chamber, and sits in the same chair as the man in charge of the torture. How does this physical imitation influence the contemporary young author's narrative strategies?

Stefan Iversen
Doctor in German concentration camps. Camp narratives in the collective memory of Second World War in Denmark
Based on a reading of narrative structures in Paul Thygesen's testimony Læge i tyske koncentrationslejre (Doctor in German concentration camps) Stefan Iversen discusses the roles played by Danish narratives from German concentration camps in the Danish collective memory of the Second World War. His main argument is that while Denmark has deliberately joined a transnational memory of Holocaust for the last decade, this transnational commemoration runs the risk of further accelerating an already apparent eradication of the memory of Danish camp narratives – narratives that due to the special circumstances of the deportations from Denmark call for specific approaches in order not to be forgotten.

Puk Elmstrøm Nielsen
Sing-along 1940
In 1940, during the first summer of the German occupation, Denmark experienced a surge of nationalism. This manifested itself in several well attended meetings, alsang [sing-alongs], where the Danes expressed their national feelings in group song. Puk Elmstrøm Nielsen analyses the songs and describes how alsang became a manifestation of the idea of a national community in which the people was not divided by social, cultural or economic interests. Nielsen also discusses to what extent alsang was anti-German.

Linda Maria Koldau
The sound of war, the music of war
Linda Maria Koldau shows how the aural dimension of warfare shapes the experience and memory of war. In Danish reflections on the day of the German invasion (exemplified by passages from literature and film), this is primarily represented by the drone of the German airforce, which has become an aural symbol for the occupation and thus for war coming to Denmark.

Martin Ejsing Christensen
Hal Koch's Jeg anklager Rigsdagen: A post Second World War debate set in perspective
In his 1947 book Jeg anklager Rigsdagen (I accuse the Parliament), the Danish theologian and public commentator Hal Koch vehemently condemned the treatment of the so-called collaborators in the aftermath of the German occupation of Denmark. Today Hal Koch's moral condemnation and its presupposed historical analysis have been lauded by several historians as the moral and historical truth about the "Retsopgør": the transitional justice of the postwar period. Martin Ejsing Christensen examines this received view by placing Hal Koch's book in its contemporary setting through an analysis of newspaper reviews of the book. Combined with existing knowledge about the political conditions in Denmark immediately after the Second World War, this leads to the conclusion that Hal Koch's and today's moral condemnation of the "Retsopgør" fails to take into account some of the political circumstances of the time. As a consequence, this moral condemnation may be seen as a symptom of a more generally moralizing attitude today towards the Second World War in Danish history.

Published 2011-07-22