Figure 1.--Here the Frikorps Denmark is departing from Hellerup Station in Copenhagen to join the Germans on the Eastern Front. Notice recruits AND the familiy nembers giving the NAZI salute. The photograph is undated but looks like summer 1942. The Danish Government did not oppose the recruiment of these volunteer forces. It was one way of getting rid of Danish NAZIs. Many never returned from vicious fighting on the Eastern Front.

Several pro-NAZI parties organized in Denmark. This was not because there was a lot of NAZI sentiment, but because there was no one individual leader who emerged to dominate the movement. The largest party was the Nationalsocialistiske Arbejderparti (DNSAP, National Socialist Workers’ Party of Denmark) was the Danish NAZI Party with no pretense of local origins. The party was organized after the stunning NAZI success in the German Reichstag elections (1930). The DNSAP mimiked Hitler's NAZIs, using both the swastika as the Party symbol and and the German NAZI. They set up para-military units which they called the SA. They even translated the Horst Wessel song as a Party anthemn. The DNSAP adopted the NAZIs virulent antisemitic. Cay Lembcke helped found the Party, but proved unable to gain even minimal support. Frits Clausen replaced him (1933). Clausen was a physcian from North Schleswig where he concentrated his activities. The support for the DNSAP was largely located there, in large part because of the German ethnic population located there. The party won nearly 2 oercent of the vote and three seats in the Folketing (parliament) (1939). Clausen and the DNSAP supported the German invasion (April 1940). He expected to be rewarded with control of the Danish Government. German Plenipoteniary Renthe-Fink considered the possibility, but decided that cooperation with the elected Danish government was the more prudent course, at least until Germany had won the war. The DNSAP received some financial and political support from Germany, but not political power. The DNSAP was not evem included in the wartime coalition government (1940-43). As Germany allowed the Danish Government considerable autonomy, it did not interfere when the Government rrested 350 Danish Nazis who were demonstrating (December 1940). The DNSAP's youth movement was the National Socialistiske Ungdom (NSU). After the NAZI invasion of the Soviet Union, the Danish Government allowed a volunteer force to be recruited. The DNSAP was responsible for organizong a Waffen SS and Frikorps Danmark. The DNSAP participated in the elections permitted by the Germans (March 1943), but Clausem and the Danish NAZIs managed to garmer only 2 percent of the vote in the parliamentary election. A crestfallen Clausen decided to join the campaign against the Soviet and joined a Waffen-SS medical unit. Service in the East was aay that NAZI loyalists in the occupied countries established their credentials. Clausen in a druken stupor forced himself upon nurses in a field hispital in Minsk. Himmler transferred him to an asylum in Würzburg. After the Germans seized control of the Danish Government (August 1943), the position improved slightly, but the most important collabirationist group became the Schalburg Corps, modeled on the SS with black uniforms. They numbered about 1,000 men. [Thomsen] The Danish Goveenment dissolved the DNSAP after lineratiin by the British (May 1945).

Created: 4:07 AM 11/1/2009
Last updated: 4:07 AM 11/1/2009