“This may be the most important book on nonviolence ever written. It is certainly the best read around. That it is fiction is a fiction, a cover up for the fact that it is true. I couldn’t put it down.” Dr. Walter Wink, noted theologian and winner of several prestigious awards for his books
I read this book, and I recommend others read it, not because of its literary value. I wasn’t, in fact, particularly enamored by the writing style. I still found it hard to put the book down, because the story and the characters were so compelling, and the effect so profoundly inspiring. I had already seen and read enough prior to reading Denmark Rising to know that ordinary citizens rise up to extraordinary circumstances. What this book provides, in addition, is a level of detail that makes the vision of massive nonviolent resistance utterly believable. I couldn’t help wishing that it were even more true than it is, and hoping that, somewhere, someone with enough influence will read this, become inspired, and mount such a principled and comprehensive program. My own intuitive conviction that even war can be met with nonviolence now has a vivid story to back it up. Miki Kashtan, The Fearless Heart blog, Friday January 14, 2011.
“I was savoring Denmark Rising but I have now finished and I write to say that I am quite overwhelmed. I have been in a bit of a trance since I started it…You are extraordinary in your gifts of being able to make a scene come vividly, painfully alive. The characters are palpably real, to be found just down the hall or across the street…I am thankful to you beyond words, for your brilliant book.” Stephen Chinlund, Pastor and author of Prison Transformations: The System, the People Inside and Me. Formerly Chairman of the New York State Commission of Correction.
“Barry Clemson’s historical fiction novel Denmark Rising portrays the spirit and tactics of nonviolent resistance … Denmark Rising is a warm, engaging look into the practical use of nonviolence against an aggressor. It’s a story that lingers long after the book is closed.” Janine Latus, author of the international bestseller If I am Missing or Dead
“Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the birth of a classic. In Denmark Rising Barry Clemson has created a remarkable and action packed story about the power of a non-violent movement used by the Danish against Hitler’s Nazis. Told against the backdrop of World War II, the stories of young and old, scared and brave, Gentile and Jewish, Danish and German blend seamlessly together in a novel that offers an amazing and rich tableau of ordinary people discovering the essence of their moral center or the depth of their depravity.” Sheri Bailey, award winning playwright and CEO of Juneteenth VA
“Barry was an important author for me from long ago, based on his application of systems thinking and cybernetics to management science. I was fascinated to learn that this serious man had written a novel. I expected some good thinking in the book. What I didn’t expect was how good a novel it is. There is a lot of wisdom here, about how people feel, and how they think. Barry moves fluently from an omniscient position into the minds of one character after another, letting the reader see the situation from each of these individual points of view in turn. He even reports on dreams that characters themselves don’t remember having! From a systems perspective the book provides important insight into the systems within systems. A system as nation state, harbors an oppressive, invasive, alien control system, and at the same time a secret, shadow system of resistance. Here Barry shows that systems knowledge turned into conscious strategic nonviolence, can attack the communication channels and requisite variety of oppressive regimes. There is obviously much potential for application of this insight throughout today’s troubled world.” Doug McDavid, Executive Research Consultant with IBM’s Almaden Research Lab
“While Denmark Rising is a work of fiction, it is true to the spirit of the people and the events. Had Denmark offered non-violent resistance to the Germans, it would have occurred just this way.” Frieda Landau, military historian and author of Airborne Rangers
“Outstanding historical authenticity and beautifully detailed emotions of the participants during the occupation of Denmark by the Germans during the world war two era. This is truly a page-turner novel.” Richard L. Earls, author of Timetrap and The Grapevine Hole
“I could hardly put it down. I started yesterday morning and finished in the wee hours today. Your descriptions of the nightmares was so real it seems it must have come from personal experience. It is a good, good book. It is a book of power, real power, spiritual power. Thank you for writing it!” Harold Confer, author of Finding and Creating Saints, and three books of poetry and Director of Ufufuo, Inc., a group of international and interfaith volunteers involved in rebuilding and recovery after natural disasters and domestic terrorism.
“Great read! A nonviolent resistance movement in 1940s Denmark confronts the Nazi invasion force. Surrounded by the horrors of occupation, Barry Clemson tells an uplifting story of a people who refuse to be crushed and who refuse to adopt the violent methods of their oppressors.” Joelle Presby, Naval Officer
“A workable manual for nonviolent resistance cleverly disguised as an entertaining and intriguing novel. A good read that provokes thought about the way the world does business and how we might do it differently.” Richard Hostetter, Master Carpenter and Healer
“Unputdownable. Expect the characters to grab you from the start and drag you into this epic battle of wills. You’ll care about what happens next as much as they do and you won’t be able to help yourself wanting to shout a warning or lend a hand. You’ll feel the intensity of mass co-operation and wonder why people cannot unite so effectively today. Or, after reading this book, perhaps we can?” James Greyson, Founder of BlindSpot and Author
“An enjoyable and thought-provoking look at how Denmark might’ve resisted a German invasion non-violently. Definitely provides food for thought. The historical setting makes for realism and added interest, and the characters keep rolling right along. Thumbs up!” Teresa Csorba, author of Felony Warp
“Denmark Rising is a page turning book from the first through to the last chapter. I read it in record breaking time. Very insightful and very informative.” Rose Earls, Mother and Editor
“Barry Clemson skillfully blends historical facts with fiction to create an intriguing alternative reality for the Nazi occupation of Denmark. It is a valuable read and I highly recommend it.” Deborah Clark Ebel, author of The Forgotten Future: Adolescents in Crisis
“Just so it’s not about WW II. Yes, I’m a readaholic and today this condition betrayed me into violating one of my personal rules. The rule? Here it is…don’t ever again read something about World War II. Long ago I binged on every possible facet of that war. I read everything available from local libraries and bookstores that had anything to do with WWII. Great big boring books full of small print. Novels. All of it. Leaving out no detail however slight.
“And then, one day I was over it. Since then I’m allergic to any more. Readaholic that I am, if you set before me a volume on the subject of, for example, Hitler’s Juden frage, I’d yawn and look away. I’ve been through that topic. And beyond.
“Then came this afternoon. Here, waiting untouched, was a book given me as a birthday gift. Denmark Rising by Barry Clemson. To my surprise, I read it. It’s a good story, absorbing stuff. Lydia told me I’d find it interesting and I did. I made the kids play upstairs so I could read undisturbed.
“Colonial Place is a neighborhood where it’s impossible to shoot off a cannon in any direction without hitting an author. Barry Clemson is one of those. I knew that he was writing a book about the war. Then I knew that his book was finished, and…I read it. The whole thing. Without stopping. That, right there, tells you a lot. You say, “Oh, baloney. You’d read anything.” To which I reply, “Anything but a book about WWII.”Joanna Jenkins, in her blog “I Saw That”, 16 January, 2010
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The following review is by Dr. J Harold Ellens
I remember vividly hearing Gabriel Heater, the radio newscaster who kept us apprized, blow by blow, every evening at 6:00 PM, of the progress of WW II. From the dark days of the German Blitzkrieg against the Low Countries and France, to Pearl Harbor and the dominance of the Pacific by the Japanese his voice rang out in every American home. He gave us information, courage, and hope from the beginning to the end of that definitive war, from May 1939 until September 1945. I remember the anguish we felt when the sweep of the Nazi war machine shut out the lights of freedom and independence in the nations of Scandanavia. Particularly poignant is the memory of the flood of the German Wehrmacht into Denmark on the 9th of April 1940.
I am immensely grateful, therefore, to Barry Clemson for his psychologically crafted historical novel, Denmark Rising. Here is the story of a stalwart people who would not be provoked to violence while refusing to bow to murderous abuse as their nation was crushed with the hammer of German invasion. Frieda Landau, the military historian who wrote Airborne Rangers declared that this historical novel depicts the spirit of the people of Denmark in those dread days, and if Denmark had prepared to offer non-violent resistance to the Germans, they would have done it just as Clemson says. While Landau apprizes us that Clemson’s book is fiction, it is impossible to remember that, as one turns the first page and beyond. I could not put it down, and I still believe every page. The characters are vivid, three-dimensional, and real. They are people you and I know on the street, at work, and in church. They are the folks next door. They are us.
The Nazi occupation of Denmark was called Operation Weserübung. From April 1940 to May 1945 they manipulated, abused, and exploited the small country, rich in the resources the Germans needed. Nonetheless, every day they were there was a pyrrhic enterprise for them. The Danes were viewed by the Germans as effete and cowardly because they did not marshal an aggressive defense against the onslaught and a violent resistance to the occupation. However, the consistent, sturdy, passive-aggressive resistance raised from the grassroots of the citizenry made it continually impossible for the Germans to turn their exploitation of the country into a profit until very late in the war, when all was really lost for the Germans anyway. Throughout the occupation the resistance of the Danish people cost the Germans more than they could squeeze from Denmark.
Unlike most other nations dominated by German occupation, Danish institutions and government continued to function simply by refusing to acknowledge that the Germans were there or had any right to be there. The king remained in the country, and when the Germans demanded that he hand over the Jews, he said, “No” and the people backed him. Clemson depicts this incredible story in utter detail, narrating how the individual Danish persons acted in their homes, communities, and work to frustrate and nullify the efforts of the occupying forces to impose their power upon the people. Consequently, at every turn the Germans were prevented from achieving the outcomes they intended in the acquisition of food, weapons, military logistics, spare parts, forced labor, and fuel.
Danish passive-aggressive resistance was surprisingly uniform throughout the country, and enormously creative at the individual, corporate, and institutional level. This facet of that unique phase of Danish history is described in graphic pictures of daily life and the spiritual power of a country which took a unified stand against evil and would not back down or cave in. The resistance cost many lives, arbitrarily murdered by the Germans, but had the citizens been unwilling to accept that attrition, and marshaled an active resistance, that would have increased the death rate a hundredfold.
Generally speaking, Clemson’s exquisitely narrated heroic diorama reflects the Danish memory celebrated every year since 1945. There is a shadow side to the story, of course, since it is a human story of human courage and frailty. The Prime Minister of Denmark, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, said in 2003, on the 60th anniversary of the fatal turn in 1943, when the German suppression of the Danes become most severe. He pointed out that in the end, the official stance of the Danish government was to collaborate with the Nazis, under the increasing pressure and loss of life. This collaboration, even if a cover for the covert resistance of the “underground”, was “morally unjustifiable,” he insisted. It was the people from the grassroots that carried off the resistance effectively. It had taken 60 years for an official Dane to finally pronounce this condemnation of the Danish leadership during WW II.
So the story in history is the usual mixed bag of humanness. The story in Clemson’s wonderful page-turner novel is the one we never hear in the media or read in the history books. It is a clever, heroic, underground narrative of the soul of real ordinary people like you and me, subjected to extreme challenges of life and death, who rise to the ideal levels of raw courage, genuine care of each other, and untrammeled dedication to ideal values at all cost. Harold B Confer, author of Finding and Creating Saints, said, “It is a good, good book. It is a book of power, real power, spiritual power.” It is a psychological report on simple humanness that every Jew, Palestinian, Muslim, and responsible Christian should read and take to heart. War bestializes every thing and every one it touches, but as Walter Wink has explained so well for us, non-violent courage is hard to kill because it is the power of the divine spirit in the human soul.
Sell your bed and buy it!
Tom Hastings has a review of Denmark Rising here
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