Claus Bundgård Christensen

The Danish Volunteers in the Waffen SS and German Warfare at the Eastern Front

A total of 5,500 Danes joined the Waffen SS during the Second World War. They served primarily on the Eastern Front, often fighting under appalling conditions. The article follows the volunteers in action and examines in detail the Frikorps Danmark (Danish Legion), which provided a significant number of anti-Bolshevik, non-Nazi volunteers for the Waffen SS. The article analyses the behaviour of these men and focuses on the issue of ideological commitment. How did they react mentally to the context they operated in, and to the fact that they became more and more alienated in their homeland as the war progressed?

National Identity and Veteran Culture in a Border Region: The Danish Minority in the German Army during the First World War

This article examines whether a distinctive type of war experience developed among the 26,000 soldiers from the Danish minority in Schleswig south of the Dano–German border who were conscripted into the German Army during the First World War. The analysis is focused on how the soldiers voiced their national identity during their encounters with the German Army and the civilian populations in Eastern and Western Europe. Subsequently, it is investigated whether the veteran culture, which developed among the troops from the Danish minority, was marked by a distinct war experience.

The Danish Far Right Goes to War: Danish Fascism and Soldiering in the Waffen SS, 1930–1945

Our objectives in this essay are to demonstrate how fascism and Nazism in the 1930s attracted membership from citizens of even small and relatively stable democratic states such as Denmark. We draw from archival materials that document right-wing activity in Denmark prior to World War II as well as the voluntary enrolment of 6,000 Danes in the Waffen SS during the war. We outline the history of the Danish Nazi movement, Danish participation in Nazi warfare on the Eastern front, the social and psychological profile of the Danish Waffen SS volunteers, and their political schooling and relationship to Nazi ideology. We then conclude with an assessment of the postwar fate of the Danish Waffen SS members and their ideological vision.