“At 11 o’clock in the morning of 19 September 1944 the Germans caused a false air-raid alarm to be given. Immediately afterwards, the police soldiers forcibly entered the police headquarters in Copenhagen as well as the police stations in the city. Some policemen were killed. They acted in the same way throughout the whole country. Most of the policemen on duty were captured. In Copenhagen and in the large cities of the country the prisoners were taken to Germany in ships, which Kaltenbrunner had sent for this purpose, or in box cars. As has already been said before, the treatment to which they were subjected in German concentration camps was horrible beyond description. In the small country towns the policemen were freed.
“At the same time Pancke decreed what he called a state of police emergency. The exact meaning of this expression has never been explained, and even the Germans do not seem to have understood what it meant. In practice, the result was that all police activities, ordinary as well as judicial, were suspended. Maintenance of order and public security was left to the inhabitants themselves.
“During the last 6 months of the occupation, the Danish nation found itself in the unheard-of situation, unknown in other civilized countries, of being deprived of its police force and the possibility to maintain order and public security. This state of affairs might have ended in complete chaos if the respect for the law and the discipline of the population, strengthened by the indignation at this act of violence, had not warded off the most serious consequences.”
Despite the bearing of the Danish population, the absence of the police during these last 6 months of the occupation naturally resulted in a recrudescence of all forms of criminality. You can get an idea of this if you consider—and that detail will suffice—that the premiums of insurance companies had to be raised to 480 percent—it says so in the report—whereas previously they were limited to half of the normal rate. We are justified in considering that the crimes committed under these conditions involved the responsibility of the German authorities who could not fail to foresee and who accepted this state of affairs. We see here further proof of the total indifference of the Germans to the consequences arising from decisions taken by them to suit their ends at the time.
Finally, I should like to conclude this section on Denmark by quoting to the Tribunal a passage from a document which I shall present as Exhibit Number RF-902. This document belongs to the American documentation under the Number 705-PS, but it has not yet been submitted, and I should like to read an extract, one quotation, which seems to me to be interesting. This is a report drawn up in Berlin on 12 January 1943, and concerns a meeting of the SS Committee of the Research Institute for Germanic Regions (Ausschuss der Arbeitsgemeinschaft für den Germanischen Raum). At this meeting there were present 14 personages of the SS. This report contains a special paragraph which concerns Denmark. Other paragraphs of the same document are of interest in connection with the section which will follow this. Therefore, in order to avoid having to refer to this document twice, I shall read the whole of the passages which I should like to submit as evidence. I start on Page 3 of the document, towards the end of the page.
“Norway. In Norway the Minister Fuglesang meanwhile has become the successor to the Minister Lunde, who has been killed in an accident. Despite the promises made by Quisling’s party, Norway may not be expected to furnish an important quota.