Codename R 34 - D 7

Today is V-Day in Denmark. This is the day that the Germans Troops in Northern Germany, Denmark and several other countries surrendered to Montgomery.

Just 300 metres from our house is the Memorial to the Fallen Resistance Fighters - Mindelunden. At this spot the Gestapo and their Danish helpers, the Schalburg Korps, executed several hundred resistance fighters and buried them without any ceremony...

When I was young we used to come here every year with my maternal Grandfather, Gerald Salicath, and my mother and her husband and listen to the student choirs and watch the Territorial Army remember and show respect to the fallen. I haven't been there to celebrate for maybe more than 15 years. We were there this evening - Cloti for the first time. It was a beautiful spring evening with lots of people - both young and old...I was quite impressed that their were so many of our own generation..it's important to remember...

We walked along the wall with names and birthdays and deathdays and it struck me that most died during the last 1 1/2 years of the war...As I've written earlier Denmark was not considered an ally till very late in the war due to a policy of collaboration with the germans. This was a fact that always was something that brought shame on my grandfather and he spoke of it often and I guess that his skepticism of authorities lies in the fact that the politicians that supported that policy of collaboration returned to their chairs in Folketinget after the war.

My grandfather turns out to have had codename D 7 under the R 34 in the British Secret Intelligence Service organization in Denmark and is mentioned in two books that I know of and seems to have been a veteran in as much that he was already active from 1941. The author to one of the books Hans Christian Berg said he thought he may have been a part of SIS already before the war (in Denmark?).

My paternal grandfather, Tadeusz Olszowski, had already been in active service for more than 1 1/2 years before the germans came to Denmark. He had to leave my grandmother and my uncle and father to fend for themselves for the next 6 years.

After ensuring the Polish merchant fleet didn't fall into german hands he went to France with the Polish Army and escaped via Dieppe - after two years in Scotland he was sent to work as an Intelligence Officer in Malmø.

Anyway - the perspective of having "Norwegian Conditions" in Denmark instead of Collaboration (like Vichy) would invariably have required more german soldiers stationed here leaving other places, like Poland, with fewer enemy soldiers in their backyard.

So - the prosperity and peace we are currently enjoying need to be protected. The EU is a good forum to ensure that the peace is held. Let's get Denmark to take part a a full member - now, please...

Nic