Caught in the Crossfire

CAUGHT IN THE CROSSFIRE by Norsebard Contact: [email protected] -*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*- DISCLAIMERS: This World War II drama belongs in the Uber category. All characters are created by me, though some of them may remind you of someone. Although this is an amalgamation of several true stories, certain characters and events have been dramatized and composite characters have been used. All character names - save for a few historical figures - have been created for this story to hide the identity of the real people involved. The registered trademarks mentioned in this story are © of their respective owners. No infringement of their rights is intended, and no profit is gained. This story depicts a loving relationship between consenting adult women. If such a story frightens you, you better click on the X in the top-right corner and find something else to read. This story contains some profanity. Readers who are easily offended by bad language may wish to read something other than this story. This story contains war-type violence and occasional brutality, some of which is directed at women. Readers who are sensitive to such content may wish to read something other than this story. -*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*- NOTES FROM THE AUTHOR: Written: September 4th - 30th, 2013. Thank you for your help, Phineas Redux and Boba71 *Flower* As usual, I'd like to say a great, big THANK YOU to my mates at AUSXIP Talking Xena, especially to the gals and guys in Subtext Central. I really appreciate your support - Thanks, everybody! :D Description: On March 21st 1945, history records that the Royal Air Force conducted a low-level bombing raid against the Gestapo headquarters in Copenhagen, Denmark. What history fails to record are the names of the brave women in the resistance movement who gathered the intelligence and who risked their lives going up against the Nazi occupation forces day-in, day-out for several years. This is a story of two of those women, Henriette Brandt and Vera Holgersen. -*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*- * * PROLOGUE On April 9th, 1940, Denmark was occupied by Nazi Germany. Air, sea and land-based troops fell over the small country and swept all opposition aside in a matter of hours. Although it was spared the destruction that befell so many of the other European nations, it was a bitter pill to swallow for the Danes who had always taken pride in their independence. For two years, a somewhat peaceful co-existence was upheld, but when the tide of war started to change in 1942, the Danes grew bolder and began to create small resistance groups that were used to perform bee-sting operations against the German troops and the local collaborators. As the fortunes of war worsened for the Nazi forces throughout Europe in 1943, the small resistance groups received help from the SOE, the Special Operations Executive based in the United Kingdom. Some of these resistance groups began to organize large-scale acts of sabotage, like bombings of factories that were controlled by the Nazis or Danish collaborators, or assassinations of known or suspected informants working for the Germans. Matters came to a head in August 1943 when a general strike swept through the land. In all major cities, Danish workers put down their tools and refused to work for the Nazi occupation forces. The German National Command, led by Reich plenipotentiary and General der SS Werner Best, declared martial law which led to the dissolving of parliament. In the weeks following the declaration of martial law, the Nazi terror regime hunted down the Jewish community in Denmark like their European relatives had been half a decade earlier. Through good fortune - and the help of a German diplomat - the majority of the Danish Jews were saved by finding passage to nearby neutral Sweden, but some weren't as lucky and were deported to the concentration camps in Germany and Poland. All this led to an escalation in the acts of sabotage. Ultimately the largest attack on German interests in Denmark, the bombing of the Rifle Syndicate - an arms factory - was carried out two weeks after D-Day in June 1944 by intrepid members of a single resistance group. As revenge for the many acts of sabotage, a large unit of uniformed Danish collaborators known as the Schalburg Corps performed assassinations of people suspected of being in the resistance movement, and brutal tit-for-tat bombings against civilian targets that were meant to create fear among the population - these acts of terrorism came to be known as 'Schalburgtage.' Amidst unprecedented aggression from the Nazi soldiers, officers of the regular Danish police forces were arrested on September 19th, 1944, and sent to concentration camps in Denmark and Germany. This operation opened a barn door for the HIPO Corps - short for auxiliary police, i.e. uniformed Danish collaborators - that assumed control over most of the major cities and acted as the regime's homegrown, thuggish force against the population. In late 1944 going into 1945, the Nazi secret police, the Gestapo, along with uniformed police units from the German SD - the state security forces - and scores of sympathizers and informants had gathered a huge archive of records listing thousands of Danish citizens who were suspected of various crimes against the Fatherland. The archives were located in the former offices of Royal Dutch Shell that had been commandeered at the start of the war. If the archives could be destroyed, it would mean the Gestapo and the auxiliary police would lose the ability to wage war effectively against the resistance movement. The resistance movement drew several plans for an air raid on the Shell House and sent them to their British contacts, but all were rejected by the Royal Air Force - that is, all but one... * * CHAPTER 1 Monday, February 19th, 1945. The tram that brought the twenty-seven year old Henriette Brandt home from work creaked and groaned as it drove down Gammel Kongevej. Occasionally, the trolley pole above the car bucked or sent out a few sparks, but that wasn't out of the ordinary. She was fifteen minutes late compared to when she usually got off from work, and as a result, the tram was far more crowded than she preferred. No seats were available, so she held onto one of the leather straps halfway down the first of the two cars. The boulevard the tram drove on was far less congested than it had been before the war. Then, it would have been suicidal to even contemplate crossing it on foot, but now, she could count the number of motorized vehicles they went past on one hand - five years of fuel rationing had left a mark. In their place had come hundreds if not thousands of bicycles that occupied the deserted streets and boulevards; many of which drove reasonably, but some appeared to have left their brains at home. Just as Henriette moved her hand away from the leather strap to look at her wristwatch, the tram car bucked in the tracks which nearly made her lose her footing. As it was, she bumped against a man in a dark, woolly coat who was sitting right next to where she had been standing. "Oh, I'm terribly sorry, Sir," she said and offered the man an apologetic smile, but the grin on his face proved that having a cute blonde practically fall into his lap hadn't insulted him too much.. Once the tram had settled down, Henriette stood up to her full height of five-foot-five and got her clothes in order - her warm tweed jacket had become a little crooked, and her long, dark gray skirt had slipped aside to reveal a sensible shoe and a socked ankle. Both items were quickly taken care of, as was her black beret that had been knocked slightly askew on her shoulder-length, white-blonde hair. Looking ahead through the gloomy late February darkness, she suddenly spotted two German officers waiting at the next stop. Though the special letter she had in her purse wouldn't mean a thing to anyone not initiated in the decoding process, she felt it most prudent to avoid any contact with the enemy for the time being. With a casual smile at the man she had bumped into, she began to shuffle out onto the open platform at the tail end of the car. No sooner had the tram come to a halt at the stop where the German officers were waiting before she stepped down onto the pavement and walked away in an unhurried yet determined stride. It hadn't been the right one for her - she lived another four stops down the line - and she knew it meant she would be home even later. 'I hope Vera won't be too worried,' she thought, glancing to her left at a German staff car that drove past on the boulevard, cutting up two bicyclists who had to take evasive action. Shivering, she pulled her tweed jacket closer and upped the pace to keep warm. Her breath was visible as plumes of steam that made her look like a locomotive pulling a heavy load. The February cold soon crept up her legs, and she was glad she was wearing her winter bloomers. Another quick look at her wristwatch proved that it was a quarter past five, and she upped the pace even further so Vera wouldn't have to wait for too long. She kept her eyes on the pavement as she walked down the boulevard, having learned from the past five years that the best way of getting into trouble with the Germans or the HIPOs would be to study the people she met on the street.

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