This page is for criticism, discussion, and questions about Denmark Rising. My hope is that it will also be helpful for those who want to use Denmark Rising in a teaching situation.
1. The novel has some of the German soldiers helping the Danes at various points. This seems pretty unrealistic? The examples of Germans soldiers helping the Danes were all taken from actual historical records. All of these examples actually happened. George Duckwitz’s critical role in warning the Jews and General Best’s puzzling behavior in making sure the Jews knew about the impending arrests are also well documented. Further, the German army was unbelievably inept in two respects: they couldn’t seem to catch any of the 7,500 Jews who were smuggled into Sweden over six month and they couldn’t seem to catch the thousands of smugglers who kept Copenhagen from starving during the blockade of the city. Given the efficiency of the German army, it seems highly likely that most of the Wehrmacht didn’t want to catch the Jews or the smugglers. The case studies on nonviolent campaigns are full of examples of occupying armies becoming so sympathetic to nonviolent resisters that they become essentially useless in trying to suppress the resistance. This is a major difference between nonviolent campaigns and violent resistance.
2. Danish nonviolence only worked because America, Britain, and Russia did their fighting for them. Otherwise Hitler would have ground them to dust? There are two quite different answers to this point. A winning general is not criticized because his winning strategy would not have worked in different circumstances. Similarly, it makes no sense to criticize a nonviolent campaign by saying their winning tactics would not have worked if the circumstances had been different. The proper response to this criticism is to say “Of course. If the situation had been different, we would have used different strategies and different tactics.” There is a deeper question here, however, something like this: Could nonviolence beat Hitler without anyone resorting to armies and large scale violence? My short answer to this is that key officers, including some at the very top, were .trying to assassinate Hitler from very early in the war. Many of the top brass knew about the assassination plots and did nothing to stop them. These top generals and admirals, most of whom detested Hitler, did nothing to help the anti-Hitler conspiracies on the grounds that one could not kill the leader of the country during war-time. Had Germany not been at war, it is very likely that the German Army would have removed Hitler.