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| A wooden headpost carved
by the Vikings. |
| Courtesy Universitetets
Oldsaksamling |
From about 9000 to 4000 B.C., Denmark and England
were part of the same land mass. Then the oceans
rose so high that not only did England float away,
Denmark itself was inundated and became the 406
islands it is now.
It is fitting that a state that now trades in knowledge
and expertise should use the life of one of its
great intellectuals as the seminal point of its
existence. Saxo Grammaticus, 1160-1208, wrote Gesta
Danorum (The Deeds of the Danes), which was a history
of Denmark from earliest times to his own age. The
Danes were mightily impressed, and Gesta Danorum
has been the touchstone for every book of Danish
history since then.
Bo Lidegaard, author and historian, explains why
this book is so vital. “It is very important
for a state to have a history which leads up to
its present formation. Saxo is the one historian
that gathered together all the old myths and legends
into a coherent history, one that leads to the fact
that Denmark is there, the rulers are the legitimate
rulers and this is how we got to where we are.”
With Saxo Grammaticus, legend ended and history
began.
Denmark has always been a country extremely dependent
on its exchanges with the world. It is outreaching
as a trading and commercial nation, and that has
always had two aspects. The desire and the necessity
to reach out, “despite the fear that the people
we are trading with, who always tend to be bigger
and stronger, will swallow us,” Lidegaard says.
“So there has been a very deliberate policy
of a balancing the influence. Whenever we get too
close to one side, you see this tendency for caution.”
The reign of Christian IV (1588-1648), Denmark’s
sole larger-than-life monarch, consolidated the
patch of squabbling fiefdoms under the power of
the Danish Crown, and Copenhagen began to come into
its own. From that point onwards, Denmark was a
country, not a vague collection of islands.
The Danes are certainly not cowards, but their
Viking days have taught them that far more can come
from peaceful trading than plunder. They have had
a huge fleet and even had an empire of sorts. They
had colonies in India, the Caribbean and Africa,
and there was even a Danish East India company.
They were the dominant power in Scandinavia. “We
were controlling the opening of the Baltic, had
both sides of the Oreseund and had therefore control
over all shipments from the Baltic." This was
huge revenue for the fledgling crown. They have
lost that, bit by bit, “through four centuries
of wars, which we have never been very good at,"
Lidegaard says.
Denmark has had several wars with Sweden. But they
are countries of brotherhood. “We speak (almost)
the same language,” says Lidegaard. “The
way we have constructed society since the middle
19th century is very similar. We have political
structures and values that are very alike. Today
Sweden is a big brother, with a different economic
structure. They aim for big industries, we have
big agriculture. We have niche (industries) and
they make cars.”
In World War I, Denmark was neutral, but, in the
words of Bertel Haarder, minister of European affairs,
it was “at the cost of our independence. We
had to accept it when the Germans said ‘you
have to place mines in your straits to keep the
British out.’ We did so.
The legend of Denmark in World War II
The way the story goes, the Nazis occupied Denmark
and instructed all the Jews to wear yellow stars
of David on their arm. The king went on the radio
saying that he was going to wear one and that he
expected all loyal Danes to do the same. Knowing
the Danes, it’s believable. Alas, it didn’t
happen. Nobody in Denmark wore a yellow star at
all.
Denmark, watching the Wehrmacht roll through the
rest of the world, chose a very particular course.
They opted not to match metal with Hitler. Instead,
they drove a very cunning bargain. “We established
a system by which we accepted that the Germans controlled
the country but on the condition that we had total
liberty to run it, which meant that parliament,
the police -- the whole civil administration remained
in force. So what they got was a peaceful occupation.
They didn’t have to force the labor out of
the country or tie up their troops. What we got
was Danish legislation, which made clear from the
outset that no laws would be passed against the
Jews. That meant that the Holocaust was not pursued.”
In Aug. 1943, however, after two years of relentless
Nazi pressure, the government resigned. The Germans
had commanded them to introduce Jewish laws, and
the Danes could not in good conscience carry them
out. The Germans, even the SS, realized that if
they kept this up it would no longer be possible
for the Danes to work with them. Danes have the
stuff of collaboration, but there are certain points
beyond which you cannot push them. This was clearly
one of them.
So the Germans actually warned the Jews, and two
days later Denmark’s 7,000 Jews vanished. First
into society, hiding with Danish friends. Then they
fled to neutral Sweden. The Nazis found 400, who
were all shipped to Theresienstadt, the safest concentration
camp there was, and allowed to have Red Cross packages.
Almost all of them survived.
There were resistance groups, saboteurs, and all
the rest. But “this system of collaboration
between Danish and German governments kept even
the Holocaust away.”
Postwar Denmark
Denmark has participated in every attempt at peace
and fair trade that the world has come up with.
It is a founding member of the UN, an early member
of NATO, the EC and the EU. Their economy has been
largely prosperous. Politically, it has always been
cautious, gradual, and consensus-based.
Denmark had a natural alliance with the West during
the Cold War, but, in the words of Bo Lidegaard,
they “always kept a distance but also would
never be on unfriendly terms. During the Cold War
we see Denmark being very firmly within the Western
camp, in all our shared values and history, made
us a very devoted member of NATO. But at the same
time we were eager not to create a more hostile
environment with the Soviets. We have very strong
ties with the United States for our security, but
never got into any ‘evil empire’ talk.
We stayed correct.” This is a balancing act
they have been doing for a thousand years.
Lately, as of Nov. 2001, Denmark has shifted to
the right. The Social Democrats, who have been running
the show almost without interruption since World
War II, had the mandate to take care of the people.
Now, they have done their job and the people are
taken care of, and they’re middle class and
they feel that they can better take care of themselves.
The Social Democrats were a classic victim of their
own success.
As for the Fogh Rasmussen government, its most
important domestic agenda is to lower taxes. David
Kaufman, a prominent financier, says, “In the
last 25 years, Denmark went too far in a socialistic
direction. Now, like the rest of Europe, we have
gone back. We reached a stage where people do not
want to pay so many taxes, and there’s a surge
back to protect the individual’s right.”
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