| Judicial Reckoning
| | The girls, who dated Germans or the fieldmatresses, as they were called, was easy to spot and some of the first to experience the anger. In many towns they were taken through the streets and were publicly humilitated. However, there was not any legal basis for punishing them, just because they had been fascinated by German soldiers. |
The girls, who dated Germans or the fieldmatresses, as they were called, was easy to spot and some of the first to experience the anger. In many towns they were taken through the streets and were publicly humilitated. However, there was not any legal basis for punishing them, just because they had been fascinated by German soldiers.
On the morning of liberation, Saturday May 5th at 8 AM people, who had collaborated with the Germans were hunted. I every town the resistance movement established local arrest groups, which in the course of a couple of weeks handed over the prisoners to the returning ordinary police. In the county of Frederiksborg the resistance movement arrested more than 800 people:
Hillerød: 115
Helsinge: 28
Hørsholm: 300
Frederiksværk: 70
Gilleleje: 32
Elsinore: 228
The fieldmatresses publicly humilated | 
Undignified Behaviour |
The Fight Against Vigilantism
The Liberation Council had warned against vigilantism from the revengeful population, which is why a great deal of the arrests was to protect the accused. In Elsinore 68 people had been arrested on the evening of the 5th May. They were taken to the former Gestapo headquarters, Wisborg, Sveahus and Libanon. In the excited atmosphere many mistakes were made and the way these arrests took place and the subsequent internment have been discussed ever since.
Road Control | 
Road Control | 
The Henchmen for the Germans in Wisborg |
The Judicial Reckoning in Elsinore
Of the 228 arrested in Elsinore from May 5th to May13th 96 were released, while 136 were to be prosecuted. The local newspapers had a lot to write about in these dramatic days and in Helsingør Dagblad there was also room for the personal views of the journalists.
Dropped Charges, But Also Severe Sentences
Most of the arrested had their charges dropped in the course of the coming year. Others were given severe sentences, however they almost never served the full time.
One general tendency was that the earlier the sentences were handed out, the more severe they were. Simple and uncomplicated cases, which could be dealt with quickly, were punished harder than financial cases, which drew out for years. In other words: It was more often than not the small fish, which were handed the toughest sentences, while the “big fish” were let off.
The four main categories
The arrested can roughly be divided into four main categories:
- “Field mattresses”, i.e. girls/women, who had kept company with the Germans
- Informers: People, who had denounced resisters to the police
- Collaborationists: People, who had traded with or manufactured for the Germans
- Collaborators: Danish members of terror gangs, or others, who collaborated of sympathized with the occupation power.
The Field Mattresses
The category “Field Mattresses” constituted around two thirds of the arrested and examples of interrogations provides a picture of the judicial treatment of these women. The legal point of reference was that it was not illegal in itself to keep company with the Germans. The government and its officials did that too!
Informer Activities
Informing was a very serious charge, which in many cases, proved to be doubtful or without foundation. The resistance movement had gotten rid of many of the worst informers during the war, but here were some left. Some of these were executed, but not al of them, among them the informer Grethe Bartram from Århus (born 1924), who had been sentenced to death on September 4th 1947 for having informed on his father and brother.
Informer | 
Informer |
Collaborationists
Collaborationism mainly includes people, who cooperated with the Germans for economic reasons. These cases were very complicated. The collaborationists law from August 1945 complicated the cases further by legalizing the economic transactions, which had taken place by “order or direction” from the authorities or the big trade organisations.
This resulted in paradoxical situation like the one with a washerwoman in Esbjerg was sentenced for having washed for the Germans, while the large firm of contractors, Wright, Thomsen and Kjær, who had built airfields for the Germans, went unpunished. Of the total collaborationist turnover of 3.396 million kroner only 318 were confiscated.
The Collaborators
Collaborator is a vague term, which includes people with a political and ideological sympathy for the Germans and Nazism, who for instance served the Germans. Examples of local cases in Frederiksborg County range from banal cases to first-rate collaborators.
The hateful atmosphere perhaps mostly affected “the small fish”, but also more prominent people. In Elsinore for instance, the town´s pride, an internationally well-known woman swimmer, who went to Sweden after the charges against her were dropped.
The Schalburg Corps had stayed in Hellebækgård and Count Schimmelmann had entered German service immediately. He died in 1942, but after the war the estate was confiscated.
Terror Gangs and Death Sentences
In the course of 1944 the Germans established a number of terror gangs, which also were active in Frederiksborg County with killings and bombings against houses and trains.
The terror gangs consisted of both Germans and Danes. Many Danes from these gangs were sentenced to death and executed, but it was not possible to sentence the German gang members to death.
In the Supreme Court sentences relating to the Elsinore area some of the member of the Brøndum gang was sentenced to death and executed for having murdered the chairman of the houseowners´ association, Snog Kristensen, in Skotterup and the sculptor Otto Bülow in Elsinore. In a transcript from the Supreme Court sentence you can read their confessions and the result of the psychiatric assessment of the mental condition.
Henning Brøndum | 
The Brøndum Gang | 
The Brøndum Gang | 
The Brøndum Gang |
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 | | Large | The Brøndum Gang takes a coffee break between interrogations |
| Small | Large | Henning Brøndum is interrogated in July 1945 |
| Small | Large | Kaj Bothilsen Nielsen is interrogated in July 1945 |
The Engagement in Asserbo
Another infamous group, the Lorentzen group, who had tortured and killed a number of Danes, were defeated after a shoot out in a summer cottage area in Asserbo. Three of them were killed in this action and a large number of them were sentenced to death in the following trial. Denmark had abolished the death penalty several years prior to the occupation. This has raised moral and judicial issues: Is it possible to introduce the retrospective death penalty in a democracy?
Armoured Car Attack in Asserbo | 
The Result of the Attack | 
The Car Returns | 
The Lorentzen Gang | 
The Lorentzen Gang |
“The Angel of Mercy” |
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