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The hidden heroes of the Danish resistance: The communists during the occupation

Communists lit the spark in the fight against Nazi German occupation, triggering organised sabotage and building bridges between political movements. Many paid with their lives, says Anders Hauch Fenger

Armed Civic Resistance members in May 1945

WHEN Aage Nielsen, a young Danish communist, ducked into the trench at Casa de Campo outside Madrid in 1936 to avoid being hit by bullets from fascist rifles, he thought this was just the beginning of something much bigger than the fight for barren land and the right of Spaniards to defend democracy.

For Aage, an construction worker in Copenhagen, this was part of a larger conflict and he was deeply aware that fascism could threaten not only Spain, but all of Europe.

He feared that if the fascists succeeded in crushing Spanish democracy, it was only a matter of time before Denmark was next.

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