Sunday, 28 February 2010
The Danish Right and the Resistance 1941-45

by Norman Berdichevsky (March 2010)



The first steps at active resistance in occupied Denmark during World War II were taken by a small “Ultra-Rightist” party, often denounced by many observers before the war as “Fascist” and known as “Dansk Samling” (Danish Unity) led by a charismatic founder, Arne Sørensen (1906-1978). This contradicts the established conventional wisdom that the political Left was everywhere in occupied Europe the source of opposition to the Nazis. more>>>

Posted on 02/28/2010 6:01 PM by NER
Comments
1 Mar 2010
Send an emailSeamus

if someone like Glenn Beck or Senator Joe McCarthy in the 1950s is/was an active figure on the political Right, then, ipso-facto, he/she must be an anti-Semite or a potential anti-Semite, or a closet anti-Semite

So I guess that's why McCarthy picked Roy Cohn to be his right-hand man.



9 Jun 2010
Send an emailJ. Junge

"The first steps at active resistance in occupied Denmark during World War II were taken by a small “Ultra-Rightist” party, often denounced by many observers before the war as “Fascist” and known as “Dansk Samling” (Danish Unity) led by a charismatic founder, Arne Sørensen (1906-1978)."

This is simply not true.

First of all, Dansk Samling didn't join the resistance unitl 1943. KOPA (Kommunistiske Partisaner/Communist Partisans) was already established and providing active resistance in 1941. 

Second, Dansk Samling weren't "ultra rightist" (which seems an odd label to use for someone who denounces the false left-right dichotomy); they saw themselves as a centrist party, offerering a "third way" between Liberalism and Socialism. Which probably doesn't make sense to you, since you obviously consider Liberalism a leftist philosophy, unlike the rest of the world, which sees socialism as opposition to liberalism.

But I digress. The point is that while you can possibly be forgiven for being wrong about so much, you  should at least be able to get one paragraph into your article without resorting to outright lies and historical revisionism. For shame.



18 Jun 2010
Norman Berdichevsky

First of all, Dansk Samling didn't join the resistance unitl 1943. KOPA (Kommunistiske Partisaner/Communist Partisans) was already established and providing active resistance in 1941. 

J.Junge uses semantics to deny my claims about Dansk Samling and the Danish Communist Party. He claims that Dansk Samling was not a Far Right Party. Of course it wasn't but it was labeled as such by the entire Political Left in Denmark before the German invasion. That is exactly my point. I wrote exactly that in the article - Dansk Samling WAS indeed a new party seeking a middle way. He confuses the issue further by using the 19th century definition of laissez-faire liberalism in opposition to the modern American use the term which is for increased central government intervention to realize both economic and social equality.

Finally he refuses to take notice that Dansk Samling's leaders although allowed by the occupation authorities to participate in the election of 1943, had criticized the government's policies of cooperation, spoken out against anti-semitism, secretly organized resistance plans on a broad front  and had agitated for active resistance as early as the Springof 1941 when both La Cour and Sorensen were arrested and fined. Dansk Samling's representatives in London had already been in contact with the British SOE for collaboration in organizing resistance and under the name of "Holger Dansker", members of the party in cooperation with Konservativ Ungdom (Youth Organization of the Conservative Party) had carried out sabotage.