Abstract
Seen from the vantage point of 1950 and looking back to the interwar years, Denmark is characterised by a remarkable continuity with regards to the political and economic elites. Five years of German occupation seemed to have generated only insignificant changes in both spheres. Despite the dramatic upheavals of the occupation and the world war outside of Denmark, the political institutions, the leading parties and to a large extent also the principal political personalities of the interwar years remained the same throughout the war and the post-war period. The same goes with regard to the business world. The business organisations, the companies and the elite of businessmen remained largely the same after the war. The article argues that attempts by segments of the Danish resistance to dramatically change the fabric of pre-war society failed because of shrewd manoeuvring by political and business elites and because of lack of public support for far-reaching change.
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Notes
- 1.
Claus Bundgård Christensen, Joachim Lund, Niels Wium Olesen and Jakob Sørensen, Danmark besat: Krig og hverdag 1940–1945, 3. resived edn. (Copenhagen: Informations Forlag, 2009).
- 2.
Since the 1980s, there has been some interest among historians in the Danish transition from occupation to the post-war world. This interest has mainly been concerned with the battle for glory in the summer of liberation 1945 between the politicians and the resistance movement. Ditlev Tamm has written the seminal work on the purges and the judicial retributions (Ditlev Tamm, Retsopgøret efter besættelsen (Copenhagen: Jurist—og Økonomforbundets Forlag, 1984). He incorporated political dimensions in his analysis, but did not—as this author—regard the political power aspirations of the Danish Communist Party as a significant driving force behind the purges. Instead, he saw the driving force as being an urge for national justice and a more emotional drive for revenge. The historian Michael Kjeldsen has analysed the power aspirations of the communists in Michael Kjeldsen, Folkets vilje—landets lov? Om DKPs overgangsprogram og demokrati, Henrik Dethlefsen og Henrik Lundbak (eds.), Fra mellemkrigstid til efterkrigstid (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanums Forlag, 1998), pp. 447–500; so have this author in Niels Wium Olesen, Danmarks befrielse 1945—en mislykket revolution?, Kontur. Tidsskrift for kulturstudier (Aarhus: Institut for Historie og Områdestudier, 2009), pp. 29–44. Since finishing this article, a book on the legal reckoning with large firms, mainly big contractors, was published in 2017, namely Chris Holmsted Larsen, Den folkekære stalinist. En biografi om Carl Madsen, (Copenhage: Gyldendal 2017).
- 3.
This part and the following sections are based on Niels Wium Olesen, ‘The Obsession with Sovereignty : Cohabitation with the Enemy in Denmark 1940–1945’, in John Gilmour and Jill Stephenson (eds.), Hitler’s Scandinavian Legacy (London: Continuum Press 2013), pp. 45–72.
- 4.
Wium Olesen, Danmarks befrielse 1945, pp. 37–39.
- 5.
Hans Kirchhoff, Samarbejde og modstand under besættelsen. En politisk historie (Viborg: Syddansk Universitetsforlag, 2000), p. 56.
- 6.
Wium Olesen, Danmarks befrielsen 1945, pp. 33–34; covers the following citations.
- 7.
Morten Nielsen, Socialdemokratiet og enheden i arbejderbevægelsen 1943–1945 (Copenhagen: Akademisk Forlag, 1978).
- 8.
Morten Møller: Hvem er Nielsen? En fortælling om kommunisten og modstandslederen Børge Houmann (Gylling: Gyldendal), p. 226.
- 9.
Kjeldsen, Folkets vilje—landets lov?, p. 467.
- 10.
Wium Olesen, Danmarks befrielse 1945, pp. 35–36.
- 11.
O.F. Dostrup, Ranumkonventet. Et studium i Modstandsbevægelsens politiske historie 1944–1948 (Aarhus: Forlaget Aros, 1976), pp. 43–47; and Henrik Lundbak, ‘Modstandsbevægelsen i regeringen’, in Henrik Dethlefsen og Henrik Lundbak (eds.), Fra mellemkrigstid til efterkrigstid (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanums Forlag, 1998), p. 512.
- 12.
Dostrup, Ranumkonventet, p. 45.
- 13.
Tamm, Retsopgøret efter besættelsen, pp. 70–72.
- 14.
Henning Poulsen, ‘Opgør om retsopgøret i 1945’, Historie. Ny rk., bd. 15 (Aarhus: Historiske Samlinger, 1985), p. 562.
- 15.
Tamm, Retsopgøret efter besættelsen, pp. 70–72.
- 16.
Bundgård Christensen et al., Danmark besat, pp. 653–656.
- 17.
Bundgård Christensen et al., Danmark besat, p. 647.
- 18.
According to the Danish constitution, calling an election is the prerogative of the Prime Minister. Bundgård Christensen et al., Danmark besat, p. 662.
- 19.
Tamm, Retsopgøret efter besættelsen, pp. 124–126.
- 20.
Tamm, Retsopgøret efter besættelsen, pp. 144–157.
- 21.
Tamm, Retsopgøret efter besættelsen, pp. 548–566.
- 22.
Nielsen, Socialdemokratiet og enheden i arbejderbevægelsen, pp. 118–129.
- 23.
Dostrup, Ranumkonventet, p. 68.
- 24.
Frit Danmark, August 17, 1945.
- 25.
Henrik Lundbak, Danish Unity. A Political party between Fascism and Resistance 1039–1947 (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, 2003), pp. 248–250.
- 26.
Bundgård Christensen et al., Danmark besat, p. 627, p. 661 and p. 713.
- 27.
Bundgård Christensen et al., Danmark besat, pp. 713–716.
- 28.
Tamm, Retsopgøret efter besættelsen, pp. 474.
- 29.
Tamm, Retsopgøret efter besættelsen, pp. 480–482.
- 30.
Tamm, Retsopgøret efter besættelsen, pp. 477–478.
- 31.
Lulu A. Hansen, ‘Besættelse og social identitet Esbjerg 1944–1948’, unpublished PhD thesis, University of Southern Denmark (2010); Tamm, Retsopgøret efter besættelsen, pp. 485–493.
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Olesen, N.W. (2018). Change or Continuity in the Danish Elites? Social Movements and the Transition from War to Peace in Denmark, 1945–1947. In: Berger, S., Boldorf, M. (eds) Social Movements and the Change of Economic Elites in Europe after 1945. Palgrave Studies in the History of Social Movements. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-77197-7_9
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