When the Nazis began to impose their will on Denmark, the Danes showed one of of their own.
If there is any truth in reports from Stockholm, the Danes have won a major political and moral victory. The Germans must have suffered a tremendous loss of face in all occupied countries, for they acceded to Danish demands only after their threats to starve and bomb Copenhagen had failed completely to impress the strikers. Fantastic as this failure may seem to a world accustomed to Nazi ruthlessness, it is not entirety inexplicable if one reviews German actions in Denmark during the past ten months.
On August 29 of last year, when the Danes refused to make further concessions to the German will–to surrender Danish saboteurs to the mercy of German courts or to deliver Danish Jews to German executioners–the Nazis proclaimed a state of siege. They disarmed the Danish army after several days’ fighting, dismissed the government, and made the king a virtual prisoner.
At that time everyone expected the Germans would carry out their threat to proclaim Denmark a “protectorate” and let the Gestapo rule it. But they did not. Instead they did their utmost to persuade the Danes to resume the administration of their own affairs. They went to the prisoner-King and asked him to appoint a new Cabinet, even one of his choosing. The King said that was impossible. In the first place, he was a prisoner; his hands were tied. In the second place, since he was a constitutional sovereign, he could not appoint a new government without accepting the resignation of the old–and by preventing the old government from functioning, the Germans had automatically deprived it of the power to resign.
All right, the Germans said, we shall see. They assembled, by force, the, members of the old Cabinet and told them either to resign or to resume their functions. The ministers unanimously refused to do either. This, they said, is a meeting of Cabinet ministers, certainly, but it is not a Cabinet meeting because it has not been summoned in the proper way. The Prime Minister added that he was unable to summon a Cabinet meeting be-cause the Germans prevented him from functioning by their extraordinary measures of August 29.
The Germans went to Parliament. Look here, they said, this is ridiculous. We want to play ball with you, and what does your government do but start a sitdown strike. Get an-other government, and we will be friends. The representatives of Parliament’s five parties declared–unanimously–that Parliament still had full confidence in the old government. It was certainly not their fault that the Germans prevented it from functioning.