BB #52, compiled a series of photos of QMII dressing out for the New Year parties.
There was one year where she dressed as a witch walked right past the assembled photographers without being recognized!
That was in 2000.
She arrived in a unmarked car, without a LiW and without an escorting PET car.
But when she left the party, she walked upright with a big smile on her face, knowing she had fooled the press!
See for yourselves here:
https://app.box.com/s/k6mcx4qoj14u0p8moeuge5om8waanunv
And on a completely different note.
This may belong in the general DRF thread.
Summary of article in Billed Bladet #52, 2019.
Written by Trine Larsen
A new book has been published: Children of the Occupation.
Where a number of well known Danes who were children during the Occupation, talk about how they and not least their families experienced the Occupation.
One contributor is QMII who was born a few days of DK was occupied and she turned five shortly before it ended.
It looks like a very interesting book!
DK was occupied on 9th April 1940 and QMII was born on the 16th April. - Actually a little ahead of time. Normally you may expect a first-time mother to give birth a little later than the due date, but the crown princess Ingrid was so distraught about the Occupation that she gave birth early.
QMII: "I was, I think, expected a little later as it often is with the first child, but that wasn't the case here."
Being so young, QMII didn't really comprehend the Occupation:
"I did know that world wasn't as it ought to be.
I have regarded everything in the light of the Occupation. That's the starting point of my life and it's a period that has tainted my view on life, the Danish history and the world history.
The Occupation has somehow set the tone to how I perceive Denmark, Denmark as part of the world, and the world around us."
QMII's grandmother (farmor) Queen Alexandrine, was German born:
"The Occupation must have affected her terribly."
In fact Queen Alexandrine's (German) family rarely visited Amalienborg during the Occupation:
"One of my father's cousins, Louis Ferdinand of Prussia, with whom my parents were very good friends, came to Copenhagen from time to time and if he was in civilian he would he would drop by my mother and father. At some point he phoned my father and said he was in Copenhagen, but he wouldn't drop by, because he hadn't got time to change (into civilian) and that my parents very much appreciated. That was the right attitude.
You simply distinguished between who you could associate and you did not want to associate."
Even the DRF couldn't move around freely in DK. (In the latter half of the war, it was actually a considerable risk to go by train or car. Especially if you moved in anything resembling a convoy.) Because Queen Ingrid flatly refued to ask permission from the Germans to visit Sweden and she did not wish to spend a night outside DK while the country was occupied, so she didn't visit her relatives.
As a child QMII was scared of loud noises, not knowing what happened outside the dark curtains. Sometimes it was gunfire.
At some point her parents hid a resistance fighter in the mansion.
"During the first years of the Occupation my parent continued walking and cycling in the streets. (Just as Christian X continued riding through the streets.) It was a natural thing for them to do. Perhaps it was their quiet protest against the occupation."
QMII was as said before afraid of loud noises and one summer the family had rented a summer cottage at a beach, because they couldn't leave Zealand for Trend, Marselisborg or Gråsten. And here a German plane flew low over the beach.
"They were presumably doing nothing else but looking at girls in bathing suits - but I howled while my father stood in his trunks on the bathing-bride and shook his fist against the plane: Oh, that rubbish!
From then on German planes were called nothing but rubbish..."
On 21st March 1945 the Gestapo HQ in Copenhagen was bombed. At that point QMII was out walking with her nanny and a valet. They had to seek shelter under a nearby railway station and from here they were quickly picked up by car and rushed back to the shelter at Amalienborg.
"I had experienced air raid warnings many times during the night, but never in daylight. I recall very well how I was carried down there and how we sat and waited until we could go back up. It wasn't unusual for us when the air raid siren went off but I was rarely afraid. When it said boom, my father always said: They are shooting gulls.
And if there was a loud bang, he said: That was a big gull.
In that way my parents ensured the disturbances didn't affect me. But as I wasn't fond of loud noises as a child, the disturbances nevertheless settled within me somehow."
Her parents also gave their blessings to the area around Trend hunting lodge being used to pick up drops of equipment and weapons from the Allies. And that was dug down and hidden in the forest around the lodge.
On 4th May 1945 in the early evening the message came through the radio that the German forces in Denmark had surrendered, to take effect the next day. That led to a nation wide jubilation.
QMII had been put to bed when the message came in, but she could her the commotion on the streets and the joy in the voices of her nannies. And then - very unusual - her father came up, took her out of bed and brought her down into the living room, where she was treated to lemon fizzy water, - most unusual! (I imagine Benedikte was left to sleep.)
QMII of course didn't understand what was going on. It's "The Peace." her dad explained.
"I quickly realized it was a landmark event we had experienced. I had experienced it myself; it wasn's just a big event I had heard about, I had mu own memories from those years and I have had them with me ever since in my mental baggage. It was an important period in my life which has followed my all through my life."
She admits that it took her many years before she found it easy to have anything to do with Germany.
"Even though we have lived in a time of peace we must not forget that it is a peace that has had its threats. I have grown up with living in peace is not something that is to be taken for granted; it's something you must be aware of and look after."
- The Resistance in DK can broadly be divided into three groups:
The Communists who, even though they were not oppressed in DK prior to 1941, were nevertheless more used to being clandestine and they were well organized as well.
The "amateurs" who build up their own organizations, often initially led by military officers and NCO, who through various channels got in contact with the Allies and who later on were directed and supplied mainly through SOE - Special Operations Executive.
And the military intelligence. Mainly run and led by officers. To them sabotage was actually considered something of a nuisance, interfering with their quiet intelligence gathering.
The latter two established an efficient communications network, with not only the DRF and the Allies but also the Germans - be they from the Wehrmacht, the SD and Gestapo or from opponents of the Nazi regime. - Hence why the Danish Jews got away. And why there was a live and let live agreement between the Resistance and especially the Wehrmacht. German soldiers were not targeted and could safely walk the streets. In return for a tendency to turn a blind eye. Which again helped the Jews get away.
So having always been surrounded by officers as well as diplomats it's hardly surprising the DRF was pretty well informed about what went on and were involved, as much as it was safe, in the actual resistance.
