Erik Engheim
1 min readSep 13, 2021

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There was plenty of traitors in Norway, but that was also the case all over Europe. Most nations are ashamed to admit how big Fascism was. Even in the US there was massive Nazi rallies in the 30s.

While I don’t want to belittle the Danish effort in saving their Jewish population, it is wort noting that the situation was entirely different. Danish authorities choose collaboration with Nazi Germany unlike Norwegian authorities. It was a propaganda victory for the Nazis. They wanted to use Denmark as a showcase and thus Nazi authorities in Denmark were reluctant to push the Jewish question, and risk their “model” occupation looking bad.

Thus Nazis in Denmark deliberately sabotaged their own “effort” to arrest Danish Jews.

This shows two things. There was Nazis in countries occupied but there was also Germans not eager to carry out Nazi policies. No country is a monolith. We should not label whole countries as either good guys or bad guys.

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Erik Engheim
Erik Engheim

Written by Erik Engheim

Geek dad, living in Oslo, Norway with passion for UX, Julia programming, science, teaching, reading and writing.

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