Illustration: Postcard from 1945 sold by the Danish resistance to raise money. Text at the top: "Men to be reckoned with". Bottom text: "Thune Jacobsen: It is a priceless good that the administration of justice remains on Danish hands" and below that: "Price: 25 øre. The proceeds of the sale goes to he fight against fascism".

The Danish official most responsible for the persecution of communists during and before WWII was Eigil Thune Jacobsen, first as a senior police official and from 1941 as Minister of Justice.

This is my translation of an article from the independent media Arbejderen about Thune Jacobsen.

Thune Jacobsen – A Zealous Servant of the Nazis

First National Police Commissioner, later Minister of Justice during Denmark’s occupation. Thune Jacobsen was exceptionally diligent in his pursuit of Danish communists. As early as 1928, while heading the criminal investigation department, Jacobsen established an extensive registry of communists.

In his 2016 Constitution Day speech, then-Minister of Justice Søren Pind claimed the ban against the communists enacted on June 22, 1941, had "pushed the limits of the constitution," and thereby tried to explain that Danish politicians, under "extraordinary circumstances," might need to impose bans — that could later be reversed — if it is in the state’s interest.

Forty-two days before the law enabling the arrests took effect, Thune Jacobsen, LL.M. assumed office as Minister of Justice.

Section 2 of The Communist Law, Law No. 349, August 22, banning communist associations and activities, was repealed after the end of the occupation. But that changed nothing for the Danish communists who were murdered in the Stutthof concentration camp or who returned with scars on body and soul.

One of those killed was Harry Valdemar Kiel Jensen, who perished after a brief illness in Stutthof and who, following that day's cremations, became one of those whose ashes were used to fertilize strawberries in the Nazis’ private greenhouses. Another was Arne Sode who was beaten to death by a kapo at age 28. A third was Eske Sørensen who survived the camp and who returned to Denmark only to die from typhus a few days later. The list of victims is long.

From National Commissioner of Police To Minister

The architects behind the internments, imprisonments, and deportations to Stutthof sat in the Christiansborg Palace, where a unanimous parliament on August 22, 1941, passed the Communist Law with retroactive effect from June 22 of the same year. Unanimous because none of the three communist members of parliament were able to attend the session at that time.

One of the three, Martin Nielsen, had been arrested at his home on June 22 and was therefore already interned at the Horserød Camp. Alfred Larsen was also caught the same day but escaped at the Copenhagen Central Train Station and remained underground throughout the occupation and joined the Freedom Council later on. Communist Party chairman Aksel Larsen wasn’t caught and arrested until November 1942.

Already as chief of the criminal investigation department from 1926 Thune Jacobsen began compiling an extensive registry of communists.

At the police's – very thorough – arrest of the communists, prime minister Thorvald Stauning commented: "The things that are demanded from the German side must be done", and then-Minister of Justice, the judge Harald Petersen had no objections.

Nineteen days after the internment of the communists – and 42 days before the passing of the law that made the arrests possible – Thune Jacobsen, LL.M. takes over as Minister of Justice and his tenure had a grim impact on many of the imprisoned communists, who had done nothing illegal but who fell victim to the dirty policies of the collaboration government.

After the end of the occupation Thune Jacobsen attempted to explain his actions using the same "logic" as Søren Pind: That "extraordinary circumstances" can justify legislation and sometimes democracy must compromise with citizens' rights "if it is in the interest of the state". Thune Jacobsen would like to have been charged in an impeachment trial but that didn't happen and in return he wrote his defense "On A Uriah's Post" in 1946.

Registered Communists

Thune Jacobsen – On A Uriah's Post – 1946: "Following the liberation the Communist Law has lapsed and is thus now a thing of the past."

Thune Jacobsen was the responsible minister when the Communist Law was passed on August 22, 1941, but already as chief of the criminal investigation department in Copenhagen from 1926 he began (in 1928) to college an extensive registry of communists and their activities.

He and select employees continued their illegal registrations when he assumed office as National Police Commissioner in 1938. The various entries were based on activities ranging from putting up posters, attending meetings, contributing to Arbejderbladet, standing for local elections, trade union activity, being listed as a Spanish Civil War volunteer, participating in a DKP celebration, and more.

If the state had not put the communists under protection, the Germans would have arrested them.

• Thune Jacobsen

On February 21, 1947 the communist MPs Martin Nielsen and Robert Mikkelsen handed in evidence of 60,000 registrations of communists to the parliamentary commission set up to investigate whether ministers or others could be held responsible for their conduct in office during the war. But as expected in the post-occupation whitewash, the final conclusion was that mistakes had been made for which nobody could be held responsible.

The parliamentary commission consisted of politicians, tasked with investigating themselves or their former colleagues. The communist Martin Nielsen, himself a Stutthof survivor, resigned from the commission in1947 after a few months of participation with the words "they are pissing all over us."

As explanation of his and the government's collaboration with the occupiers, Thune Jacobsen writes: "If the state had not put the communists under protection, the Germans would have arrested them," which inevitably would have suited the elected representatives, so it had not been Danish politicians and a more than eager Danish police arresting and hunting communists for the duration of the occupation. The latter even went so far that they questioned the children of wanted communists who were playing in yards or parks or spent days staking out residences to see if a fugitive dared return to their family for a short visit.

Thune Jacobsen further states in his own explanation that "I found it hard to understand how the people reacted to the arrests with a strong shock and asked myself whether it was possible under the Constitution? Precedents always have a calming effect, and if the people had known that K. K. Steincke implemented the Internment Act of 1925, whereby individuals who, at the time the law came into effect had been sentenced to imprisonment for moral offences and who, without being criminally insane, but had psychopathic traits, could be sentenced to indefinite intermittent within a year from their release. Nobody considered that law unconstitutional."

The Families' Benefactor?

Thune Jacobsen, On A Uriah's Post, 1946: "Care was provided for the families, such that their circumstances were maintained on par with the help provided to the families of those called up for military service."

For posterity, Thune Jacobsen claimed that he cared for the interned communists and their relatives, which was an outright lie. Posterity have shown that there are hundreds and hundreds of letters and requests from worried parents, wives, children, and friends, and conversely, letters from the internees who were anxious about their families' well-being. The state's interments had deprived nearly all families of their provider.

There was not much help to be found at the welfare offices either. Many of the employees were of the opinion that "the communists had made their bed and now they had to lie in it."

Usually, the Minister of Justice took an unreasonably long time before he looked at the letters and answered them and various requests with the standard response 'cannot be complied with,' often signed by Eivind Larsen, Permanent Secretary for Police in the Ministry of Justice– appointed on June 22, 1941. The same Eivind Larsen was appointed Chief of Police in Copenhagen after the end of the occupation.

There was not much help to be found at the welfare offices either. Many of the employees were of the opinion that "the communists had made their bed and now they had to lie in it," and an absolute minimum of aid was paid out. This this did cover rent, but there was no money left for food or other necessities.

The memoirs of Agnes Nielsen, together with those of other relatives of the internees, paint a consistent picture:

Now, troubles started for those of us who were left behind, many of us alone with children. How were we supposed to survive when our provider had been taken from us? At the time, no one knew how we would be treated. It all took a very long time, and many of the women fell ill, suffered nervous breakdowns, and grew desperate. There were so many tragedies.

In The Interest Of The State

Thune Jacobsen, On A Uriah's Post, 1946: "I could not restrict myself to having the small community of the Horserød Camp in mind and not also the needs of the wider society, which I had to take care of."

On the night between August 28 and 29, 1943, the policy of collaboration collapsed, and the German occupiers took over the Horserød camp. 97 communists managed to escape whole 150, of which seven were women, were delivered to Germany captivity and subsequent stay in the Stutthof concentration camp.

It was the perception of all the internees that the Danish government – and particularly the Minister of Justice– would not allow the communists to be handed over to the Germans. Therefore, they remained in the Horserød Camp, awaiting instructions on how to act if the collaboration between the government and the occupying power were to break down.

They prepared themselves to leave the camp at a moment's notice. They waited and waited, bound by the agreement with the Danish authorities and acutely aware that if they acted on their own, reprisals, collective punishment, possibly transfer to the Vestre Prison, or restrictions on mail and visitation, would become a reality, as had happened in previous cases where others had attempted to escape with varying degrees of success. When the clock struck 11:00 p.m. — on the evening of August 28th — they went to bed fully dressed. During the night, at approximately 2:30 a.m., the Germans arrived.

After the liberation, we are faced with the returned communists' grievances over what they had to endure.

• Thune Jacobsen

A single phone call from Minister of Justice Thune Jacobsen could have prevented this. But apparently the Minister of Justice did not think he could restrict himself to having the internees in mind, and furthermore he had also promised the Germans only to release internees with German approval in each case.

At the same time he would put himself in harm's way and additionally the future administrative and legislative governance of the state would be in danger. The same governance he himself aspired to become part of, which he also became.

The paradox inherent in the government's arrest and pursuit of communists on June 22, 1941, "to protect them from German captivity and under Danish guard", was defended by the Minister of Justice a few years later with the explanation that "the purpose of the imprisonments was not only to protect the communists but also to protect the Danish state."

A Zealous Servant

Thune Jacobsen, On A Uriah's Post, 1946: "After the liberation, we are faced with the returned communists' grievances over what they had to endure, and it might be argued that their removal to Germany could not be regarded as the immediate consequence of the camp's takeover by German hands. In fact it only happened a month later. By the way, the communists were not alone in completely undeservedly being subjected to the sufferings of German captivity. I am reminding of the 2,000 policemen who were taken to Buchenwald and of which 84 perished. No one is more willing than I to admit that this law placed great hardships and sufferings on the communists and their relatives, but I object to being singled out as the target for these unreasoned hostile sentiments. The Communist Law served German, but also Danish interests."

That Thune Jacobsen collaborated extensively with the occupiers to keep an eye on the communists even before June 22 1941 goes unmentioned, just as his "defense" doesn't mention the extensive registration he had launched long before the occupation and which was used by Danish police against the communists.

To shed light on these aspects of Thune Jacobsen's activities we must turn to other sources, such as an internal police report on the Danish police's collaboration with the Gestapo dated March 14 1941. An excerpt:

"In accordance with an agreement reached between Vice Police President Kanstein and National Police Commissioner Thune Jacobsen, the National Police Commissioner directed a written inquiry to the head of the German security police, SS-Gruppenführer R. Heydrich, on February 24, 1941. In this request the National Police Commissioner inquired whether the SS-Gruppenführer would be willing to receive Police Director von Magnus and see to it that he could have the opportunity to discuss with relevant authorities that part of the potential communist activity in and outside Germany which might be known to the German police, and which it could currently be of interest for Danish police to gain knowledge of. The fact that the National Police Commissioner has currently deemed it necessary to take initiative in this matter is due, among other things, to the assumption that among the approximately 30,000 Danes currently working in Germany, there must be a number who have communist leanings. This is already evident from the criminal convictions (of Danes sentenced in Germany) concerning Danes, which are reported here by the Danish consular authorities. However, this nevertheless leaves it uncertain here whether they are isolated actions or systematically planned by Danish or other organizations and are thus only part of a greater whole. In this regard it would be valuable to have any potential German information made available."

Later, we can read in the minutes from the meeting in Germany:

"At the request of the National Police Commissioner, I (Von Magnus) undertook an official trip to Berlin from March 17-20, 1941, to discuss various matters concerning communist activity with the relevant German police authorities. In response to the letter of February 24, 1941, from the National Police Commissioner to the head of the German security police, SS-Gruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich, in which the National Police Commissioner had inquired whether the Gruppenführer would receive me for a discussion of the aforementioned matters, notification was given by telephone on March 12, 1941, by Dr. Fest of Der Beauftragte für Fragen der inneren Verwaltung (The Plenipotentiary for Internal Administration) that I could be given the opportunity at any time to conduct the desired negotiations in Berlin.

On the 17th, 19th, 20th, and 21st of March, I subsequently conducted the desired negotiations at the Reich Security Main Office, Prinz-Albrecht-Straße, Berlin, with: SS-Obersturmführer, Criminal Commissar, Hermann Span; SS-Sturmbannführer, Criminal Director, I.M. Vogt; and Brigadeführer Müller; and on March 21, 1941, discussed with SS-Gruppenführer Heydrich the question of communist legal and illegal work, as well as what efforts could be made in this regard from the police's side. Vogt pointed out that whether the communist work in a country was legal or illegal, all information from the police had to be collected in one place. Considering the political activities transcending national borders, all the gentlemen agreed that a further developed cooperation between the German police and the police in the Scandinavian countries would be a highly desirable measure. Gruppenführer Heydrich expressed his desire to invite a large number of Danish police officers to Berlin for special training at the Reich Security Main Office and was also willing to make German officials available in Denmark, if it was found useful, so that through lectures and instruction they could contribute to the specialized training of those criminal police officers who were to operate in this particular area."