Dan Ch. Christensen, born 1941, reader of history, Dr. Phil. Roskilde University, writing on the history of science and technology. Among his publications are The Modern Project, Technology & Culture in Denmark-Norway 1750-1850, Gyldendal 1996, and essays for The Golden Age ed. by Mogens Bencard, Gyldendal 2000.
During the German occupation of Denmark 1940-1945 nearly three hundred allied aircraft crashed og were shot down over Danish territory or waters. They were crewed by roughly two thousand allied airmen. The Resistance Movement rescued one hundred of these men. Via Sweden, they made the home run and resumed the struggle against Nazi-Germany. Another sixty-eight RAF-pilots were rescued at sea by Danish fishermen and repatriated. But out of a number of approximately three hundred airmen forced to leave their aircraft in parachutes and landing alive about two hundred were apprehended either by Germans or by Danish authorities, sometimes tipped off by law abiding citizens, only to be handed over to the German occupying forces and turned into POW’s. About 1.700 were killed in Danish airspace or waters.
The Danes were involved in the air war when airmen landed alive, and all of a sudden, locals were facing the individual choise of handling them over to the enemy or assisting them on their home run.
This book demonstrates how demanding and how perilous it was for the Resistance Movement to show solidarity with allied flyers.
The Crash
Price: 149 Dkr.