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Headed by Claus Bryld, professor of modern history at Roskilde University, they want the archive - subject to an 80-year rule - opened so that the truth can be gauged. Denmark was occupied by the Germans from April 1940 until May 1945 and for much of the time King Christian X and a string of coalition governments ran the country "as usual", ceding only military power to the occupiers. In Britain and elsewhere Denmark's wartime record has traditionally been portrayed in a positive light, but Prof Bryld says much of its industry and agriculture collaborated with the Nazis for the sake of the money, and 12,000 Danes fought in a regiment against the Russians. He said: "I'm not talking about printing all 200,000 or 300,000 names, but historians and the public should have access to them. ”Big business figures may be compromised by its release and there may be revealing information in the files on the royal family. "There were very intimate relations between leading German officials and leading Danish ones. They made no political considerations. "They traded with the Germans as if they were normal people. A moral perspective was totally absent." |
The truth about Dutch collaboration with the Nazis is very different from what is commonly known outside the country. The Dutch authorities sent the Jews on their first steps to their extermination on German orders; the Germans required very few of their own people for this. Dutch policemen arrested the Jews. The policemen were well aware of the criminal character of their acts; it is the role of the police to arrest suspected criminals, not innocent citizens or babies. |