Police                                               På dansk                                                          Updated:  17 SEP 2013

Danish police had a difficult role during the occupation 1940-45! Till 29 August 1943 there were growing problems in the cooperation between the Danish
government and the German occupation forces. The police was loyal to the government. On the other hand the Germans did not want to be so hard on the Danes that Danes in great numbers started sabotage or took other actions unpleasant for the Germans. The top priority was to keep Denmark as a quiet country which supplied agricultural products without particular problems, so that the number of German soldiers in Denmark could be as low as possible.

On 12 September 1941 HAM AE300 crashed near Hostrup not far from Vejle. One airman was hard to find. When Philson was found after a great effort from Danish
police and the German Wehrmacht, he was invited by Danish police to a dinner at Daugaard Inn before he was taken to
German POW-Camps!

Webster had got about 300 km from the south of Jutland to Helsingør before he was arrested by Danish police on 20 October 1942. He was handed over to the
German Military Intelligence, which sent a copy of the interrogation report to the Danish Ministry of Justice. He might have become an actor!

Some policemen helped airmen. In May 1943 Donald V. Smith had new identity papers from Danish police officers, see First Airman to Sweden.

On 29 August 1943 the Germans took control over Denmark, as the Danish government did not want to impose death penalty on Danish saboteurs!
However, the police continued their work, now directed by Danish civil servants. There were no ministers, but the ministries carried on.
Most policemen did not want to capture crashed airmen. In a number of cases the police assisted airmen in their escape!

On 19 November 1943 Mecznik was sailed to Sweden. His voyage was planned by Danish police officers in cooperation with their contacts in Sweden.

On 17 April 1944 2 American airmen sailed with  "Svanen" from Bornholm to Sweden. A young policeman and a fisherman carried out the dangerous transport.
On 1 June 1944
Ernst Petersen, Ebbe Hasselholt Jørgensen and others chose to stay in Sweden for the duration of the war. That day they sailed John Whiteman
and 3 other airmen from
B17 42-31619 to Sverige! And then? Read more at Bornholm 1998.

On 21 April 1944 a man near Roskilde called the police, because there were uninvited guests in his nursery. The Danish policemen found out that they were American airmen - and very soon they had Gill and Markowicz taken to Sweden via the resistance movement!

In August 1944 other Danish policemen managed to have 4 airmen sailed across the Sound to Sweden.
In September 1944 2 airmen of
LAN PB436 were helped to Sweden. 2 policemen took them as prisoners across Denmark - see Air crash, escape and rescue.

On 19 September 1944 Danish police was disbanded. See Deportation of Danish police. Of about 10,000 Danish police officers 1,960 were arrested by the Germans
and deported to
Germany! The rest of them went underground and quite a number of them joined the Danish resistance movement. In April 1945 a former policeman,
now a member of the resistance movement, helped
Foster on his way to Sweden.