A terrible nightmare called World War II ended 50 years ago. The Nordic countries reacted in five different ways that are debated to this day. Here is some of the background that we tend
not to remember and a few of the pictures that are very hard to forget.

IN THE NORDIC COUNTRIES

Although Iceland was occupied throughout WWII it probably fared better than the other Nordic countries.

When the Germans took Denmark in 1940, British troops moved in to forestall the rumored German plans of turning Iceland into a base for the purpose of harassing the vital seaborne trade between Britain and the US.

Iceland with a population of 130 000 did not have an army, nor did it have any compulsory military service.

Iceland had been an independent state since 1918 in a union with Denmark. England guaranteed Iceland's independence, but the Danish king could no longer function as Iceland's head of state. The Allting Icelandic Parliament took over and in 1944 Iceland left the union with Denmark.
In July 1941, a US Marine brigade of 4 000 men took over the occupation of Iceland from the British so that the 20 000 Brits could help the war-effort elsewhere. Eventually there were almost as many Americans as there were Icelanders on the island.

Although the German Luftwaffe did bomb Iceland, it was spared any heavy fighting. Iceland did make big news when a German weather ship was seized off its coast in 1941 and documents about the German "Enigma" master coding machine were found on board, giving the Allied forces a major break.

Iceland declared its independence formally in June 1944 and the US withdrew its troops in 1947.
The country received some Marshall help after the war and the US remained on the island managing the gigantic Keflavik airport until 1956.

August 1939 the Soviet Union and Germany concluded a nonaggression pact with a secret protocol that assigned Finland, the Baltic countries and the eastern parts of Poland to the Soviet Union.

The Soviets began their assault by demanding a naval base on Finnish territory and other land concessions. The Finns were united in their resistance against Soviet border demands and were already mobilized when the Soviet Union invaded their country on November 30, 1939 with a nasty air attack on Helsinki.

Marshall C.G.E. Mannerheim was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Finnish defense forces that utilized the severe weather, rugged terrain and a tactic of encirclement of the Soviet troops to halt their offensive. Initially the Finns were able to destroy several division-sized Soviet units and capture large quantities of weapons and ammunition.

The world recognized the bravery of the Finns in the "Winter War" and England and France pledged to aid with troops and many Swedes volunteered their services, but when the Soviet Union changed its tactic by deploying up to a' million men, Finland had to agree to a cease-fire.

The Winter War extracted a heavy toll: 21 396 died, 1 434 disappeared, 43 557 soldiers were wounded and eventually 420 000 Karelians had to be repatriated from the area seceded to the Soviet Union. Peace came in midmarch 1940.

When Germany attacked the Soviet Union in June 1941, Finland quickly recaptured the territories it had lost in the Winter War. This time Finland could face a Russian force of 114 000 men in Karelia with a force of 280 000. The Finnish army had occupied most of the Finnish-speaking Karelia by the end of 1941. Now followed an unexpectedly long period of trench warfare until the Soviet Union launched a massive offensive in June 1944. In September, Finland agreed to an armistice with the Soviet Union and hostilities came to an end. The armistice terms which were eventually confirmed at the Paris Peace Treaty were very harsh. Finland lost even more of its territory and had to pay 300 million dollars in war repatriation to the Soviet Union.

Finland was also forced to take up arms for the third time in five years, this time against the German troops remaining in Lapland. It was not until April 1945 that Finnish territory was
free from German troops. Most of Lapland had been destroyed and Finland had lost another 4 000 men.

Although Finland was never officially allied with Germany, the two countries collaborated in the war against the Soviet Union. Finland had aspirations of a "Great Finland" including all of of the Finnish-speaking Karelia but it never joined the siege on Leningrad and refused to participate in the German attempt to cut the Murmansk railroad.

For a two-month period during the war when Finland was dependent on Germany for military supplies and food, the country also signed the political "Ribbentrop Agreement" with Germany. At no time though did Finland identify with the National Socialist ideology.

The Finns did not forget that when the Soviet Union attacked their country at the start of the "Winter War", several democratic countries had pledged to do almost anything to help, but in the end little aid came through and Finland had to learn to rely on its own resources.

Then when Finland attacked the Soviet Union to take back what it had lost, England and the United States that had never come to the country's aid earlier, proceeded to cut all diplomatic ties.

In the final analysis Finland defended its territory and held onto its own version of a more subjective neutrality. It avoided the fate of the Baltic states and Poland to become part of the Soviet Union but it did pay a very heavy price.

DENMARK

On April 9, 1940 Germany occupied Denmark without facing any real resistance. King Christian and the Danish government told the Danes to remain calm and "discreet" towards the occupation for the good of Denmark.

Shortly afterwards the whole antiaircraft defense system was handed over to the Germans for whom it became an important weapon in the defense of Hamburg. Even more important for the Germans was Aalborg airport that, with the help of Danish workers, was completed in three months to become the most strategic airport in northern Europe. According to some historians this airport was the main reason for -the occupation of Denmark.

Winston Churchill called Denmark "Hitler's tame canary" but later on he had to concede that the intelligence gathering of the Danish resistance "was second to none". It carried out a lot of sabotage activities without any outside help. It was able to direct Allied bomb raids on targets such as the Gestapo headquarters in Odense, Aarhus and Copenhagen. In 1943 the underground Danska Frihedsrådet became the real government of the country and was so regarded by the Allies.

The two first years of the occupation were relatively calm, with a reluctant collaboration between the Danish government and the German authorities.

With time the resistance movement grew and there was more widespread sabotage of the Riffel arms industry and rail transportation, sometimes coordinated with bomb raids by the British RAF. The Danish priest Kaj Munk became more and more outspoken against the Germans and was savagely killed.

When the terror of the German-Danish Schalbourg command did not stop the resistance, the German army occupied the Royal Palace and all official buildings. At this point part of the Danish fleet fled to Sweden, while several naval ships were sunk by their crews.

By October 1943 the Gestapo started deporting Danish Jews, but through the heroism of the Danes, almost all were rescued and escaped by fishing boats to Sweden.

When the Danish-German Brondum gang set fire to the Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen, the Danes were incensed and this resulted in the largest strike "Folkestrejken" ever of the Danish people. There were barricades and street fights where 97 Danes were killed and 600 injured by the Germans. Now the Danes showed their resolve through such actions as always ringing their bike bells when they passed a German parade. Public gatherings were forbidden but song gatherings with as many as 700 000 participants singing Danish patriotic songs became more and more common.

The occupation took a definite turn when the RAF precision bombed the Gestapo headquarters in Copenhagen rescuing the resistance men imprisoned there but sadly hitting the French School with 109 casualties.

On May 4, 1945 the Germans capitulated while the hunt for collaborators and "tyskepigerne" girls intensified. Many were shot point blank if they resisted the least. 40 000 suspects were rounded up but most were let go by the country that survived the German occupation better than any other.
The administrators and politicians who had been the real collaborators from day one of the German occupation were never brought to justice in the "Retsopgoret" trials that ensued.. On the contrary, they were praised as the saviours of the nation.

During this special year there has been much debate in Denmark whether or not the Danes accepted the occupation by the Germans too easily.

When Queen Margrethe spoke May 5 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the end of WWII, she reminded the Danes that they had had it much easier than others but that also in Denmark there were the abused and deported.

"Without them there would be nothing to remember with pride and happiness".

NORWAY

As soon as the Germans had run over Denmark, they started an invasion of Norway. It came as a total surprise as the German flottila heading north was generally assumed to be on its way to the North Atlantic. The British who had planned to lay mines in Norwegian territorial waters and stop the Germans shipping Swedish iron ore from the icefree port of Narvik were also taken by surprise.

German warships came under fire when they entered the Oslo fjord on the evening of April 8, 1941 by Norwegian shore batteries armed with 28 caliber guns made by Krupp in 1892. The newest German cruiser Blucher was hit and sank along with thel 000 men aboard. There is still a small oil slick where it sank.

The sinking of Blucher and the severe damage to the pocket battleship Lugzov gave the Royal family, the Cabinet and Parliament time to escape from Oslo.

By the next morning the Germans had succeeded in taking the airport and the people of Oslo woke up to column after column of singing Germans marching into the capital accompanied by a military band. Within 48 hours the Germans had succeeded in seizing all the main ports in Norway with only 9 000 men.

King Haakon and his government had escaped to Hamar, 70 miles inland, from where the King broadcast the order for total mobilization from a low-power local radio station. When the Norwegian major and Nazi-sympathizer Vidkun Quisling proclaimed himself as head of the government and ordered all resistance to Germany to cease over national radio, King Haakon told the members of the cabinet and parliament to make up their minds about which side they were on. He said however that he would abdicate if they gave in.

For 62 days the Norwegian resistance put up a heroic fight against the superiorly trained and equipped

German troops. Norwegian forces took the brunt of the fighting although they were aided by British and French troops. The British navy managed to sink ten German destroyers in battles near Trondheim where German troops had to retreat into the mountains. The Norwegian forces lost 853 men while the Germans lost between five and six thousand.

King Haakon, Crown Prince Olav and the Cabinet were constantly hounded by German fighter planes and bombers. From Hamar they escaped to Elverum and later on with the help of the British navy to Tromso above the Arctic Circle. Eventually they had to escape to London where they led the country in exile. In 1942 Quisling was rewarded by the Germans and was installed as their puppet Prime Minister replacing their own Governor Josef Terboven. The people of Oslo marked their protest by remaining indoors staying out of the way of Quisling's Hird Guard stormtroopers. The Nazis had few supporters among the Norwegians with the exception of some dissenters like the author and Nobel prize winner Knut Hamsun. All the clergy, for instance, demonstrated their unhappiness by handing in their resignation.

When Norway was liberated, Josef Terboven committed suicide but Vidkun Quisling was apprehended, charged for treason and hanged. His name will forever be synonymous with collaborator.

The Norwegian resistance became well-known through the movie "Heroes of Telemark" that detailed how the "Kompani Linge" halted the German production of heavy water that was essential in the production of an atomic bomb. The heroes hid out in an isolated mountain camp above the tree line and then attacked the Vemork factory that produced ammonia for fertilizer used in the production of heavy water. The successful attack set the Germans back half a year and when they eventually were ready to send the heavy water to Germany by ferry, the resistance men managed to attack and sink the vessel.

The Commander for the 327 393 well equipped German troops in Norway had promised to "fight to the death" even if Germany was defeated elsewhere. Franz Bohme was one of Hitler's oldest friends and the Allieds feared that he was creating a "fortress" in Northern Norway where he was gathering the remainder of the German fleet and some of its elite soldiers. Already in October 1944 Hitler had given an order that all the 50 000 Norwegians living in the area would have to move south.

Luckily the Germans assembled, disarmed themselves and accepted defeat even before the Allies arrived. The US 99th battalion that arrived. in Oslo on May 29, 1945 assisted in the disarming of the occupation forces that were shipped back to Germany. On June 7 King Haakon returned to a free Norway.

Norway has always been praised by historians for the brave stance it took against the Germans, despite its small and sparse population. There has been just one small blemish in this praise during this Jubilee year when records, that have been secret until now, have revealed that it was not the Germans but the Norwegians who seized Jewish property.

SWEDEN

Sweden has been spared the horrors © of war since 1814. It was neutral in the First and Second World Wars. Yet to this day it is being discussed whether or not Sweden did go too far in appeasing Nazi Germany during WWII.

The fact remains that Sweden saw no difficulty in exporting its iron rich ore and ball bearings that were of such vital importance to the Wehrmacht and it only agreed to the Allied's demands of cut-backs after the German defeat in Stalingrad.

After Germany occupied Norway, Sweden allowed qualified transportation of German soldiers through the country. When Germany began its attack on the Soviet Union in June 1941, the Swedish government allowed General Engelbrecht to pass through with his division from Norway to Finland. It is now estimated that as many as 2 140 000 Germans were allowed to transit through Sweden during WWII, not counting some other transports and Luftwaffe planes violating Swedish air space.

In the Liberal newspaper Göteborg's IIandels- och Sjöfartstidning in Gothenburg, editor Torgny Segerstedt was consistent in his criticisms of the Nazis, but his Stockholm colleagues in Aftonbladet and Stockholms-Tidningen defended German actions.

The Swedish press undertook a sort of self-imposed censorship to avoid irritating Germany and so did most of the leading citizens. Sweden's archbishop Erling Eidem learned about the Nazi's "final solution" for the Jews in 1942, but chose not to speak out about it.

Sweden was however able to provide various kinds of aid during the war to its Nordic neighbors and others thanks to its neutrality.

Many Swedes enlisted as volunteers in Finland, Norwegian soldiers were trained in Sweden, 7 000 Danish Jews were evacuated to Sweden and several thousand Jews were saved in Hungary by Raoul Wallenberg and his helpers. Count Folke Bernadotte, a nephew ,of King Gustav V, saved 20 937 Jews from German concentration camps with his white Red Cross buses. He was later killed trying to negotiate peace in Palestine.

Scandinavian Press, Issue 3, 1995