Speech by Major Lars Eluf Pedersen TRNM Updated:
10 MAY 2015
on 4th of May 2015 at the Memorial stone
in Grønhøj, see photo.
4th of May Speech 2015
Grønhøj Kro
(translated by LEP)Learn from the past Live in the present Work for the future On the 4 of May 1945 Denmark was liberated after 5 years of German occupation. For those who participated in the liberation and their families this event does not seem long ago. The sacrifice, the sufferings they endured and the determination they showed cannot be described. And yet some people have tried to put this into words. Torben Jørgensen has written a book called “De aldrig hædrede” (Those never honored). The book is a collection of diary entries written by the Danish soldiers who took part in the battle on 9 April 1940 in South Jutland. I will take the liberty of reading a translated version of the deputy commander sergeant Bröcher-Frederiksen’s description of the battle at Lundtoftebjerg. “We were alerted at 4.13 in the morning, and seven minutes later the last vehicle had left the camp (Søgård). Now we drove as fast as we could to the position at Lundtoftebjerg, about 5 km south of the camp. When we came to the farm, we heard heavy engine noise – it turned out to be about 50 enemy aircraft that passed us to the east. The canons were now placed into positon – one by the road – about 200 West of here and the light machine gun to the east of the road. There was no time to dig for cover. Almost immediately after the weapon had been placed, a German column appeared in the morning mist, about 700 m away. They were four motorcycles with sidecars, two tanks and a further six to eight vehicles, which were hard to identify in the mist. The commander of the platoon; sergeant Bundgaard continues; “I was standing in the middle of the road when the Germans fired the first round. I shouted.” Shoot – God dammit!” I was, as you can imagine, a bit upset. The first German tank was hit immediately, the second was on fire and then we hit three of their motorbikes. The machine guns finished off two of the German machine gunners who tried to crawl into shooting range of us. The gunner on one of the canons, Hansen, was wounded in his left arm. He just said; “I’m hit!” and crawled back. I wanted to attend to his wound, but he said; “There is no time for that now!” Private Jens Dalum replaced the wounded gunner. When one of his bullets glanced off against a German tank, he drily remarked; “It ain’t cardboard boxes they are driving.” At that point, we were under fire from both German machine guns and a couple of canons. Behind us the German shells has lit up a hen house at the farm - so we were practically cloaked in smoke. The Germans now sent both tanks and foot soldiers out to the East and to the West of the road to bypass us. When I saw that, I withdrew with the wounded soldier and one of the canons – and ordered the rest to hold the position for another five minutes. Thanks to the smoke from the hen house, they got out just before the German pincers closed behind them. For most people the Liberation happened a long time ago – it is history. How can an event - like the Liberation affect us? – We are a new generation in another time and society? Are there any similarities in today’s society to the events back then? Back then, the Germans were the Danish enemy; during the Cold War the Soviet Union was the enemy and today the threat against the Danish society is global terrorism. The extremists - who try to draw attention to their particular cause by committing acts so meaningless, cruel and misanthropic that they are sure to get full media coverage. During WW2, you would claim that Germany was the enemy – and that Germany represented a regime based on the ideology of Nazism - where diverging opinions were not allowed. Everything was put in order – “Ordnung muss Sein”. Minorities like communists, Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals and many, many more represented people who - in the eyes of the system - were a threat to society. Therefore, they were eliminated. The Germans tried to implement this strategy in the occupied countries. This attitude together with Germany’s attempt to force this attitude on the Danes was what we fought against. For most Danes the ordinary German was not the enemy, but he represented a system that we could not accept. The same thing could probably be said about the Soviet Union during the Cold War. The Soviet Union represented a system that submitted the individual to strict control and conformity at the cost of the individual freedom in all sorts of ways. The system WAS the state – at the cost of individual rights. During the Cold War most Danes shared the opinion that the respect for diversity and for the individual was so important that we entered an alliance whose purpose was to defend ourselves against the system that the Soviet Union represented. Today terrorism - is the means used by extremists to draw attention to a cause or to enforce a new system of government. The extremists do not represent large groups. Usually, they only make up a tiny fraction of the population. Fortunately, Denmark has so far only experienced a single act of terrorism connected to international terrorism. However, there are profitable targets of terrorism in this country. With these three examples, an objective analysis could indicate that in recent time Denmark and the Danes have never defended ourselves against someone, but rather defended ourselves against something; which means our society and our way of life. This is the way we react - when someone try to enforce a system or ideologies on us which we cannot accept. We defend ourselves through dialogue. Sometimes we see that parts of the society find that the dialogue does not work - the arguments become harsher, harder and the ways of expression get physical. Despite large tolerance and understanding, we experience that the diversity in the society becomes a problem – that the distance between the left and right in the Danish society is very big. The American president Abraham Lincoln made a speech on the 19 November 1863 at the dedication of the Soldiers' National Cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania after one of the largest battles in the American Civil War. To this day, this speech is second to none with its message of acceptance and tolerance among the citizens in a nation. “Years ago, our fathers brought forth upon this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that ‘’all men are created equal ‘’. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived, and so dedicated, can long endure. We have met here on one of the great battlefield of that War. We have come to dedicate a portion of it, as a final resting place for those who died here, so that the nation might live (...) and that the government of the people by the people for the people shall not perish from the earth.” I believe that the reason we are gathered her today to celebrate the Liberation is the attitude to and the wish to cherish the freedom which we have fought for - for many generations. At the same time we should also remember the people from other nations who fought for and died for the fight for freedom during the Occupation of Denmark. Their sacrifices together with the Danish resistance made the difference, which means that we can be here today and enjoy the freedom in Denmark; a freedom which is almost unique in the world. This is still worth defending and fighting for! THANK YOU! By |