Two rare issues - Issues 1 and 3 (no additional issues were published) of the illegal Danish Journal I KONTAKT med verden - "I Contact the World" - a total of three issues were published until the Gestapo police arrived at the editorial office, arrested the editors and sent some of them to a concentration camp. Before us are two of them - the first issue and the last issue. Denmark, April and October 1944. Danish. Extremely rare.
Issue No. 1: April 1944.
Issue No. 3: October 1944.
Rare Journal of the Danish Resistance, published anonymously during the Nazi German occupation of Denmark, and officially presented itself as "the illegal magazine". The editorial in Issue No. 1 stated that the purpose of the issue was to bring the truth to the public regarding rumors about "people disappearing at the hands of the Gestapo", and to explain what was really happening to those people. Issue No. 3, which features a caricature of Adolf Hitler on its cover, was the last issue published. The underground printing press began operating in early 1944. The resistance group managed to print a small number of books and magazines before being caught by the Gestapo. In June 1944, the editor was forced to flee to Sweden, while a third worker published the planned issue that appeared in October (Issue No. 3 before us). While working on printing the third issue, the Gestapo arrived at the printing offices, seized the printing presses, and arrested five of the printers on charges of illegal activity. The only issues that were preserved were those that had left the printing house before the Gestapo arrived, hence their rarity. During the raid, one worker was arrested and sent to a concentration camp in Germany. After that, the magazine ceased publication.
The editorial in Issue No. 3 states: "Fight for what is dear to you, if that is the case, then life is not that hard, nor is death". The editors who worked underground and knew they could be caught any day, wrote: "Since the last issue, we have worked to publish a new one, but every time it seemed to succeed, a man with a Gestapo car passed by, which caused most of the original editors to be in Frøslev or in Sweden. We hope to prove in this issue that their self-sacrificing work was not in vain. For without them we would never have come as far as we did... So too for all the hundreds of young people who were forced to give their lives on their native soil, or to be sent to one of the Frøslev or to Germany. None of them suffered in vain. They all contributed to the day which every Dane will remember with pride..." . The editors write that they prefer the public to distribute 10 of these booklets rather than send a modest donation to the publisher.
The journal is full of caricatures against Hitler, the Gestapo and the German army, and regularly reports on the resistance, on Gestapo crimes (a poem appears: "Listen to our moral, reader: Being illegal is not fun at all, it's work for tough men"), the progress of the Allies, interesting techniques used by the Allied armies against the Nazi enemy, the defeat of the Nazi army on various fronts, and more. It also features articles about heroes in the US Army and their acts of bravery during the war.
Both issues are complete. Minor stains on title page of Issue No. 3. Overall good condition.
