Grethe Bartram was born on 23 February 1924 in Aarhus, Denmark, as the second of eight children. Her father, Niels Peter Christopher Bartram was from southern Jutland and since it was part of the German Empire from 1864 to 1920, he had therefore participated in World War I on the German side. Throughout the war which began on the 28th of July 1914 and ended on the 11th of November 1918, Denmark was neutral. Though Grethe’s father Niels Bartram suffered from shellshock from the war and found it difficult to work, he managed to operate a small bicycle repair shop in Aarhus. Both Niels and his wife were members of the Communist Party of Denmark as were the social circles of the family.
In 1937, at the age of 13, Grethe Bartram left school and worked for a couple of years at institution for mentally disabled people in Brejning, before finding work in Aarhus.
When the Second World War began on the 1st of September 1939, Grethe was 15 years old.
Join World History channel and get access to benefits:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKKy_pNKZBX4KcCct8505HA/join
Disclaimer: All opinions and comments below are from members of the public and do not reflect the views of World History channel.
We do not accept promoting violence or hatred against individuals or groups based on attributes such as: race, nationality, religion, sex, gender, sexual orientation. World History has right to review the comments and delete them if they are deemed inappropriate.
► CLICK the SUBSCRIBE button for more interesting clips: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKKy_pNKZBX4KcCct8505HA/?sub_confirmation=1
#worldhistory
#worldwar2videos
#ww2
The 9th of April 1940. Under the codename “Operation Weserübung”, Nazi Germany invades Denmark and Norway. Strategically, Denmark’s importance to Germany is as a staging area for operations in Norway where the Third Reich seeks to secure naval bases for use
Against the British fleet in the North Sea and to guarantee vital iron-ore shipments from neutral Sweden on which Nazi Germany is dependent. While Norway surrenders to Germany only after 2 months on the 10th of June 1940, invasion of Denmark lasts less than six hours and is
The shortest military campaign conducted by the Germans during the war. Though at the beginning the Germans are eager to cultivate good relations with a population they perceive as “fellow Aryans”, by the fall of 1942, Danish attitude of passive resistance toward their German occupiers
Undergoes significant transformation and the Danish resistance movement begins to gain support. In the Summer of 1943, sabotage activities, reprisals, strikes and street unrest across Denmark mount to a high pitch and Germans begin to rely on collaborating Danish informers. One
Of them will betray her own brother, husband and close acquaintances. Her name is Grethe Bartram. Maren Margrethe Bartram also known as Grethe Bartram was born on 23 February 1924 in Aarhus, Denmark, as the second of eight children. Her father, Niels Peter Christopher Bartram was
From southern Jutland and since it was part of the German Empire from 1864 to 1920, he had therefore participated in World War I on the German side. Throughout the war which began on the 28th of July 1914 and ended on the 11th of November 1918, Denmark was neutral. Though Grethe’s
Father Niels Bartram suffered from shellshock from the war and found it difficult to work, he managed to operate a small bicycle repair shop in Aarhus. Both Niels and his wife were members of the Communist Party of Denmark as were the social circles of the family.
In 1937, at the age of 13, Grethe Bartram left school and worked for a couple of years at institution for mentally disabled people in Brejning, before finding work in Aarhus. When the Second World War began on the 1st of September 1939, Grethe was 15 years old.
On 9 April 1940, when Nazi Germany invaded Denmark, the Royal Danish Army put up scant resistance and the Royal Navy surrendered without firing a shot. In the beginning, whatever negative attitudes the Danes had about the Germans were expressed through passive resistance, or giving them the “cold shoulder,” rather than open defiance,
Armed resistance, or sabotage. The Danes were given a degree of autonomy unheard of in any other German occupied country in Europe. Although Germany dominated Danish foreign policy, the Germans permitted the Danish government complete autonomy in running domestic affairs, including maintaining control over the legal system and police forces.
Throughout the occupation, the Danish Government insisted there was no “Jewish problem” in Denmark. They were like all the other citizens of Denmark and would be treated no differently. In practice, this meant that Jews were not forced to wear the Yellow Star of David,
Were not segregated or isolated, and were not barred from restaurants, public spaces, schools, cinemas, or theatres. Their property was not confiscated, and they were never dismissed from their jobs. Their movement was not restricted, by day or night and Jewish communal activities
Remained undisturbed despite the presence of German troops. In the end however, on 28 September 1943 the final order for deportation came to Copenhagen but because an attaché for Nazi Germany in occupied Denmark Georg Ferdinand Duckwitz tipped off the Danes about the Germans’
Intended deportation of the Jewish population and arranged for their reception in Sweden, Danish resistance groups subsequently rescued 95% of Denmark’s Jewish population. Between April 1940 and August 1943, Danish attitudes toward their German occupiers underwent significant transformation. German demands kept escalating until the Danes were
No longer willing to compromise, to engage in the “policy of negotiation,” to rely only on passive resistance and the “cold shoulder” technique. By the Fall of 1942, the Danish resistance movement began to gain support and in the summer of 1943, sabotage activities,
Reprisals, strikes and street unrest across Denmark mounted to a high pitch. In addition, the Danes were unhappy with the Germans because they were experiencing food shortages. On August 28, 1943, SS-Obergruppenfuhrer Dr. Werner Best, informed the Danish Government that it was declaring a “state of emergency.” Public gatherings of more than five persons were
Prohibited, as were strikes and financial support for strikers. An 8:30 p.m. curfew was imposed. Firearms and explosives were confiscated, press censorship was imposed, and Danish special tribunals for dealing with infringements of these prohibitions and regulations were to be established. Sabotage was to be punished by death.
In 1942 when Grethe started to inform on the members of the Dannish resistance movement, she was only 18. She was 2 years younger when she became pregnant and in July 1941, she married Frode Thomsen, who was 4 years her senior. Their relationship,
Which produced one son named Benny Gudmund – did not last long and ended in the summer of 1943. During the German occupation of Denmark, Grethe Bartram’s family, including her older brother Christian Bartram, became involved with the resistance. In September 1942 the Danish
Police put up a 1000 Dannish kroner reward for information regarding a sabotage fire in a shop in Fredericiagade in Aarhus. Through her brother, who had obtained gasoline from his father’s workshop for use in the arson, Grethe learned who had been involved and gave
The information to the police. The case was then forwarded to the German authorities. One of the four arsonists escaped, but on the 2 December 1942 the other three were sentenced to ten years in prison, while Christian Bartram was sentenced to one year in prison.
Thereafter, Bartram participated in illegal activities with people involved with the resistance movement and in March-April 1944, she became a permanent informer for the official secret police of Nazi Germany – the Gestapo in Aarhus and, according to her own statements,
Received 500 to 700 kroner a month for her work as an informer. She was given the name ” Thora”. She later stated that she had originally contacted the Gestapo to obtain the release of her brother Hans Andreas Bartram, who on 25 November 1943 had been sentenced to two years’
Imprisonment in Germany. At the same time, she was informed that that Aksel Larsen, chairman of the Communist Party of Denmark – had passed on a lot of information during interrogation, which to her legitimized that she could also do the same. As a result, in the summer of 1944, the entire
Local leadership of the communist resistance was arrested on the basis of her information. However, resistance members still had high confidence in Bartram at the time and in August 1944 she was sent to Copenhagen as a representative to establish new leadership for the resistance in Aarhus. The resistance subsequently became suspicious of her,
So she arranged to be arrested and imprisoned in Frøslev Prison Camp to allay this. However, this was not enough to remove the resistance movement’s suspicions, and when they were certain of her guilt, they attempted to liquidate her on several occasions. On 12 December 1944,
She was shot to the neck, but survived, as the weapon was of too small a caliber. She was hospitalized in Aarhus, but for security reasons was moved to the German hospital in Fredericia in Denmark where she wrote a letter to her mother in which she
Also wrote:” I am not made for poverty, and I will also show you that I will be rich one day…” In Fredericia she continued to work as an informer and provided information to the Gestapo. Though the local resistance movement had tracked her down and worked to have her liquidated,
By the time they were ready for another attempt, she was no longer in Fredericia, as the Gestapo had sent her to Germany to recover. After recovering from the assassination attempt, Grethe Bartram worked in the German town of Flensburg until March 1945, when she
Was employed by the Gestapo in Kolding, Denmark, where she remained until the German surrender. On the 5 May 1945, when Denmark was officially free of German control, she was in the Gestapo headquarters in Esbjerg where she was wounded after the resistance detonated bombs there.
She recovered quickly and went by bicycle to Kolding to get help but the Gestapo had already evacuated. She wanted to try to get out of the country disguised as a Red Cross sister, but the Germans did not help with this. Instead, she was given 25 extra cartridges for the pistol
She had received when she was hired by the Gestapo in Kolding. She then fled to Brejning, where she was arrested on May 10, 1945 by the local resistance movement. While Bartram was in Aarhus Prison awaiting trial, the Aarhus newspaper reported in March
1946 that a 35-year-old married prison officer had been in a long-term love affair with Bartram. During the trial, it was revealed that Grethe Bartram had informed on as many as 53 people, including her brother, husband and close acquaintances. Of those, her information
Directly resulted in 15 being tortured during interrogation as well as 35 being transported to Nazi concentration camps in Germany, where eight ultimately died or were reported missing. Bartram pleaded guilty to the majority of counts she faced and was sentenced to death
On 29 October 1946 by the Criminal Court of Aarhus, later affirmed by the High Court on 22 February 1947 and the Danish Supreme Court on 4 September 1947. During the hearing in the Supreme Court, three of the 11 judges wanted to impose life imprisonment,
As they emphasized that she had not immediately seen the consequences of her actions as a person who had been subjected to torture, and that she was quite young at the time of the crime. Bartram stated that if she had known that the case of 1942 sabotage fire in a shop in
Fredericiagade in Aarhus would have been handed over to the German authorities, she would not have denounced the persons. However, on the same occasion, she also stated that she wanted to earn the money as her husband had suffered a serious accident at work in the summer of 1942, after
Which he spent a long time in hospital, which put the young family’s finances under pressure. When they divorced on the following year, their son was put into foster care with her mother-in-law. During the trial in 1946, a mental health report was prepared. The county doctor
Concluded that Bartram was gifted but had to be described as a psychopath of the amoral type, who is self-assertive and boastful and prone to imaginative and mendacious whims that are carried out without restraint. Moreover, she had to be considered a “somewhat emotionless individual”. When Bartram became aware of the declaration,
She protested. What was particularly upsetting to her was the term “emotionless”. As with Anna Lund Lorenzen, the only other Danish woman sentenced to death after 1945 for war crimes, on 9 December 1947 her sentence was commuted to life imprisonment by Minister of
Justice Niels Busch-Jensen who gave as his reasons Bartram’s young age at the time, that she had been raised in an “anti-religious, communist and materialistic spirit”, and that she had had financial troubles. In the end, Bartram spent only ten years in prison and was released on 26 October 1956. She
Then moved to Sweden, where she lived under her married name Maren Margrethe Thomsen, though she had already divorced her husband in 1943. Grethe spoke fluent Swedish with a Danish accent and lived with her Swedish friend from 1956. In the late 1960s she was granted Swedish citizenship.
In an interview in 2010 Bartram said that she regretted her actions and a maturing process had taken place during the period she was in prison. Thus, when she moved to Sweden, she was a different person. When Bartram died on the 23 January 2017 in Norwegian Vessigebro, she was 92 years old.
There were no tears shed for Grethe Bartram. thanks for watching the World History Channel be sure to like And subscribe and click the Bell notification icon so you don’t miss our next episodes we thank you and we’ll see you next time on the channel
47 Comments
Well done! Great video
Ans Van Dijk to me was still the worst Dutch collaborator.
I like that you started mentioning these Nazi collaborators. Amazing video as always. This is the best history channel on YouTube. Keep up the great work 👍
Great video as always 🙏
Great video covering Denmark during ww2, thank you ♥
How could anybody collaborate with the nazis To me that is beyond the pill
"WORLD HISTORY" ?! I get it. Okay, world history lasted 12 years and happened in Germany and neighbouring countries. 🙂 Greetings to my ( totally innocent and morally superior ) American friends from an evil kraut in Germany or should I say hell? 🙂
No, no tears shed for Grethe. Turning family members in to the Germans tells us of her poor character and lack of compassion. Her son wasn’t even raised by her; perhaps he shed tears for his absent mother. Thank you World History, your narrator is amazing.
RIH
Grethe Bartram
(1924-2017)
Not too sure . I might shed one tear perhaps because of her moral redemption .
Well….at least she expressed guilt and regret over her part in betraying the Partisans. Whether it was sincere or not, who is to say.
Yet another Beast doing the bidding of the Nazis got off way too easy!
Hello. Do you know if there were lots of collaborators to the Nazis, especially Jewish ones?
The resistance all communists. They still deny that they are undermining criminals. They still do so. Not much has changed since ww2 it seems.
Ah; one that got away.
How can anyone be so vile? The Danish resistance were heroes during WWII for ferrying almost the entire population of 7,000 Jews out of the country before a planned roundup. This woman is a blight on Denmark.
Meh. They got what resistance types always get. I thought this would be about a righteous citizen who turned in jews to the SS.
Thanks another great video,also great narator
This was an all too common story in Norway. My father escaped to England to join the RAF but his father, my grandfather, joined the Nasjonal Samling, which was Quislings Nazi Party. My fathers childhood friend died on the Russian front fighting for the Waffen SS. The war drove a knife into many families in Norway. Splits that took 2 generations to even begin to heal.
Please can you do a video on Dinko Sakic and the role Croatia played as a Nazi Ally
This is so contrarian a description to every Dane I know. People like her are just soulless.
Why were the Scandinavians so passive?
Feltmadras
I would love you to tell the story of Hans-Joachim Marseille, the Luftwaffe pilot and flying ace who was openly anti nazi and saved the lives of black South African soldiers in North Africa from Einsatzgruppen Egypt during the North African Campaign.
She was a sell out. Period. Awful to turn on your own family members. Stella Goldslag of Berlin was far worst.
Pure evil–you can't fix that.
Ladies and gentlemen, she is the worst type of simp: The Sellout. Avoid these type of people ay all cost.
Hey World History Channel. I love your videos and the educational material that you provide.
This woman was evil and shale burn in hell with all of the other Nazis.
Also, I was wondering if you would be interested in doing a video on Saint Maximillian Kolbe. He Gave his life for another prisoner in Auschwitz in WWII. I think that it would be a nice video idea
As a Dane, I love hearing these stories…
Only she knew if her remorse was genuine. Only those who have lived through those events have a right to judge her and the many other collaborators. The rest can’t know how they would have behaved.
No tears shed for her
But i shed tears for the victims 😭😢
She was mad at her father and brothers. Wonder why 🙄
Imagine HER brain in a MANS body. Mary Shelley was onto something.
The danish, arian fellows…
There were no tears shed for….
Excellent and extremely well researched video, as always.
Thinks she survived the war alas , gave a lot of young men to the germans – 10-12 men was arrested for working for overthrowing the germans
What an evil woman. Perhaps she had been abused by her Communist family and felt like she wanted revenge. I shed no tears for her, neither do I want to excuse her actions however I’m glad she wasn’t executed and had to face a long jail sentence and exile to Sweden.
Dora, Dora, Dora the informerrrrr!
Hmm…. thank You for an informative video. It explains a lot to me personally.
I never really thought about it, but it was strange that my aunt moved to Esbjerg as a divorce lawyer and her husband – a known liquidator of the resistence got a commision as an officer at the artillery regiment in Varde. They were personal freinds with the chief of police.
Now Grethe Bartram was a communist,, and there was a deep devide between the communists and the other parts of the resistance movement.
But this another piece of the puzzle.
It should be added, that my aunt was very well informed – and kept her trap shut – about the RAF attack on the Shell House. One of the bombing raids the RAF remains very proud of. The political prisoner on the top floor had a high escape rate, but the captive Danish general and his staff got killed – due to the time of day the raid was performed.
AI voices are so horribly bad.
She definitely has that "STINKY" look about her.
Hej!! Greetings from Aarhus, Denmark!!
Great video and congratulations on your Danish pronunciation….except for the word 'Aarhus'…sometimes written as Århus.
But don't worry…Danish pronunciation is notoriously tricky!!
You pronounced it 'Ar-hoos', which isn't quite correct.
The double Aa (Å) is pronounced 'awe', as in 'shock and awe'….or 'or'!!
So Aarhus is pronounced 'Awe-hoos'. (Or-hoos)
And Aalborg is pronounced 'Awl-bore'..the 'g' is silent.
And Danish 'r', as in the name 'Grethe' is not rolled, but made in the mouth at the back of the tongue….a tough one one for non-Danes!!
Hideous. Inside, and outside.
She got 8 good men killed. She should at minimum never have seen the sun or taken a breath the fresh air of freedom.
Not the Dane we are most proud of.
Greetings from Denmark!
Thank you for this post.