Danske landsforrædere på film

In Danish occupation films, three main types of ‘traitor to the nation’
are represented: 1) economic collaborators, 2) Danish soldiers in the Schalburg
division, fighting communism in Eastern Europe, and 3) informants to the Gestapo, and quislings. The purpose of this chapter is to trace the development in the representation of these three types. My point of departure is the judicial settlement – the Danish collaborator trials – after the liberation in May 1945. In the light of the official cooperation policy led by the Danish government until August 1943, the trials presented severe dilemmas in terms of ethical and moral justifications for convictions. These dilemmas later became a key element in Danish occupation films such as Three Years Later (1948), The Traitors (1983), Into the Darkness (2020) and Out of the Darkness (2022). The initial disdainful attitude towards traitors was gradually replaced by a growing understanding of the different shades of guilt and perpetration.