Transnational Police Networks and the Fight Against Communism in Germany and Denmark, 1933-1940

This article explores the co-operative efforts of the German and Danish police in the surveillance of German Communists who sought refuge in Denmark duing the 1930s. Because of the escalating and violent confrontation levels during World War II, postwar accounts have to a considerable extent regarded the relations between Nazi Germany and its neighboring Scandinavian countries in the 1930s in a conflict rather than a cooperation perspective. While in the prewar period there were fundamental ideological differences between Denmark and Germany, and Danish anxieties about Hitler’s aggressive foreign policy were tangible indeed, there were points of mutual interest as well. During the social turmoils of the 1930s, the governments of both countries were working at strengthening social cohesion through different political schemes. They were also busy fighting political elements that threatened such cohesion. In Denmark measures were taken to protect democracy against subversive efforts of Communists and National Socialists, while in Germany, the Nazi dictatorship was ridding itself of the ‘Marxists’ – Communists, Social Democrats, Union activists etc.; in other words enemies that were considered a major threat to the state and the celebrated Volksgemeinschaft. In this way, in both countries, social engineering came to include the close monitoring of Communist activities.