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Abstract

John T. Lauridsen: Hot work.Changes in attitudes in the Copenhagen press between 1941 and 1943 The position of the Danish press and the behaviour of the Foreign Ministry’s presscentre during the German occupation have only been examined sporadically and inadequately.This is illustrated taking outset in Politiken’s crime correspondent, VilhelmBergstrom’s diary and articles recording two court cases involving communists in 1941and 1943. The legal proceedings in both cases were commissioned and orchestratedby the German occupation forces, using Danish courtrooms as the backdrop. In 1941,the Foreign Ministry’s press centre called on newspapers to write about the case, but in1943 the head of the centre remained silent while the drama unfolded as the Germanswanted. There was also a clear difference between the press coverage in 1941 and 1943.In 1941, the majority of the press coverage was about an international terrorist storycentred on communism as the villain, and there was no lack of violent outcomes innewspaper leaders. None of them cast a thought for the mindless contribution theywere making to the occupying forces’ anti-communist propaganda. The backdrop forthis was widespread anti-communism in Denmark.The situation had changed in 1943. It dawned on journalists that they had servedthe interests of the occupying forces in their coverage of a brutal murder committedby communists in 1936, and they wrote their reports on the 1943 case with this inmind. They were more restrained, even though the murder story in itself was juicystuff in peaceful Denmark. As one of the journalists noted, it was time to think aboutthe future, with the advance of the USSR after the German defeat at Stalingrad, thepolitical landscape could change very quickly, so it was a bad idea to have been a meremouthpiece for the occupying forces. Reflection had taken over.