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DANISH HISTORY

Mystery of guard who was buried with resistance heroes at Danish WWII memorial

A grave has been removed from the Mindelund memorial park for Danes who were active in the World War II resistance movement, after evidence emerged that the person buried there worked as a guard for the occupying Germans.

Published: 6 October 2023 12:27 CEST
Mystery of guard who was buried with resistance heroes at Danish WWII memorial
Memorial stones at Denmark's Mindelunden, photographed in 2021. Photo: Liselotte Sabroe/Ritzau Scanpix

The grave of Karl Edvard Nielsen stood for decades alongside people considered heroes of Denmark’s WWII resistance movement at Mindelund, a memorial cemetery for people who participated in the resistance against the German occupation from 1940-1945.

New information has proven that Nielsen, far from being part of the resistance movement, was a guard for occupying Nazi Germany.

The Danish Ministry of Ecclesiastical Affairs has therefore decided to remove the grave in question, Mindelund said in an update on its website.

The decision comes after the publication of a book, Den falske løjtnant (“The False Lieutenant”) by author Martin Q. Magnussen, which questioned Nielsen’s status as a resistance fighter.

The book states that he was accidentally executed by the Gestapo, the Nazi secret police, and that his wife claimed compensation from the German authorities.

Magnussen said the decision to remove the gravestone had been the correct one.

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“It’s completely crazy but it’s the right decision even though it’s controversial,” Magnussen said.

“You can’t have a person who was a sabotage guard next to ‘Flammen’ and ‘Citronen’,” he said, referencing the code names of Denmark’s most famous resistance operatives.

Mindelunden is located in the suburb of Hellerup near Copenhagen and is visited by many on May 4th, the day Danes mark liberation from the German occupation at the end of WW2.

The location has a bloody history, having been used by the German occupying forces to execute and bury captured resistance fighters. After the war, it was turned into a memorial for people who died in the Danish resistance.

The information collected by Magnussen for his book has been reviewed by the National Museum of Denmark.

The museum could not document Nielsen’s involvement with the resistance and evidence suggests that Magnussen’s conclusion is correct, according to Mindelunden.

“The stone will be removed in any case, but we don’t know yet whether anything more will happen,” the memorial’s manager Anna Wagn told broadsheet newspaper Weekendavisen.

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DANISH HISTORY

Climate catastrophe 1,500 years ago in Denmark ‘may have led to rye bread’

Denmark was badly hit by the volcanic winter of 536AD, with the resulting crop failures pushing the country's inhabitants to grow more reliable rye, research studies from the National Museum of Denmark have found.

Published: 19 September 2024 16:44 CEST
Climate catastrophe 1,500 years ago in Denmark 'may have led to rye bread'

Until now, it has been uncertain the extent to which Denmark was affected by the Late Antique Little Ice Age, a period of extreme cold and darkness between 536AD and 560AD, thought to have been caused by a series of major volcanic eruptions.  

But a new research study from the National Museum of Denmark, published in the Journal of Archaeological Science, has shown that the impact was massive, perhaps wiping out a large part of the population. The researchers studied the annual growth rings in more than 100 pieces of oak from the 6th century and found that for three years, between 539AD and 541 AD, there was barely any growth at all. 

“Many have speculated about it, but for the first time we can now demonstrate that perhaps the greatest climate disaster in human history affected Denmark – catastrophically,” Morten Fischer Mortensen, senior researcher at the National Museum, said in a press release. “If trees could not grow, nothing would have grown in the fields and in a society where everyone lived off agriculture, this must have had disastrous consequences.” 

A portion of oak showing the rings for the years 536AD to 540AD. Photo: Jonas Jensen Møsgaard/National Museum of Denmark press release

He said this picture was backed up by parallel studies the museum is carrying out, which indicate a drastic decline in grain production, abandoned areas, and forests spreading into the former fields. 

Another recent study from the National Museum shows how agriculture changed to counter the harsher weather conditions, with a greater variety of crops grown to increase food security, including rye, which requires less sun than other cereals. 

“One can speculate whether the rye bread originates from this period, because historically rye has always been used for just that: bread. It’s an interesting thought that our love for rye bread might have been born out of a climate crisis, ” Mortensen said.

There has also been speculation that the climate catastrophe might be the origin of the Norse myth of the Fimbul winter, three years of darkness thought to herald the arrival of Ragnarok, the Viking apocalypse. 

“Such myths may well be pure imagination, but they may also contain an echo of truth from a distant past,” Mortensen said. “Several people have speculated whether the Fimbul winter refers back to the climate disaster in the 6th century, and now we can ascertain that there is a great match with what we can demonstrate scientifically. “

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