lable at ScienceDirect

Journal of Historical Geography 47 (2015) 29e39

Contents lists avai

Journal of Historical Geography

journal homepage: www.elsevier .com/locate/ jhg

Feature: European Geographers and World War II

Geopolitics on trial: politics and science in the wartime geopolitics ofGudmund Hatt

Henrik Gutzon Larsen

Lund University, Department of Human Geography, Sölvegatan 10, 223 62 Lund, Sweden

Abstract

The history of Danish geographers during the Second World War is almost synonymous with that of Gudmund Hatt (1884e1960), the Professor of HumanGeography at Copenhagen University. Hatt was a key figure in the development of Danish geography and assumed the role of a public intellectual,particularly through his geopolitical analyses as they unfolded in a staggering number of radio speeches, newspaper essays, books and articles during thelate 1930s and early 1940s. But this industriousness, which accelerated during the first years of the Nazi-German occupation of Denmark (9 April 1940e5May 1945), was also the direct reason for Hatt’s hard downfall e academically as well as personally. For his wartime activities, Hatt was as the only Danishuniversity professor tried by a post-war public servants’ tribunal. It found that he had engaged in ‘dishonourable national conduct’ during the occupationand dismissed him from his professorship. Drawing on archives and published sources from the period, the paper focuses on Hatt’s wartime activities andgeopolitical analyses in the complicated political context of the occupation, and it pays particular attention to the conflict between ‘science’ and ‘politics’as it crystallised in the post-war trial of Hatt.� 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Denmark; Gudmund Hatt; World War II; Geopolitics

It is not often that geographers are on the front page. Yet on NewYear’s Day 1941, nine months into the Nazi-German occupation ofDenmark, the respected Berlingske Tidende put its entire front pagee and most of the following four broadsheet-pages e at thedisposal of Gudmund Hatt, the Professor of Human Geography atCopenhagen University. The distance between being a star or ascoundrel can be short, particularly in times of war. As a historian ofthe occupation succinctly put it: ‘What was nationally permissiblein 1940/41 appeared unforgivable by 1942/43.’1 By late 1941, whenNazi Germany no longer seemed destined to master the Europeancontinent, Berlingske Tidende was quietly distancing itself fromHatt, and his public activities finally stopped when the Danishgovernment in August 1943 ceased to function. But on liberationday, 5 May 1945, the once-revered geography professor wasarrested and interned by the resistance movement. This was aresult of his geopolitical commentaries and related activities during

E-mail address: henrik_gutzon.larsen@keg.lu.se

1 H. Kirchhoff, Samarbejde og modstand under besættelsen (second edition), Odense, 22 On Haushofer, see T. Barnes and C. Abrahamson, No comedy, only tragedy: the Hau

RGS-IBG annual conference, Edinburgh, 2012; on Loohuis, see H. van der Wusten andTijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie 104 (2013) 426e438.

3 G. Hatt, Verdenspolitisk Nytaar (World political New Year), Berlingske Tidende, Cope

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jhg.2014.05.0310305-7488/� 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

the occupation. Hatt’s wrongdoings did not amount to actualtreason, but he was prosecuted by the Extraordinary Public Ser-vants’ Tribunal (Den ekstraordinære Tjenestemandsdomstol), whichfound him guilty of having engaged in ‘dishonourable nationalconduct’ (uværdig national Optræden) during the occupation anddeprived him of his professorship. Whereas leading Germangeopolitical theorists, such as Karl Haushofer, were to escapeprosecution after the war, Hatt, like J.G. Loohuis in the Netherlands,was brought to account for his wartime activities.2 But in early 1941all that was still to come. In his extended New Year’s Day article,Hatt narrated the events of the previous year, which had placedmuch of Europe under the heel of Nazi-Germany and also led to theoccupation of Denmark. He, like most other Danes, expected to liveunder an inescapable Nazi hegemony for decades to come: ‘Thedefeated nations on Europe’s mainland had to collect themselves toa new situation’, as Hatt guardedly put it.3

004, 12.shofers, father and son, and the spaces of Nazi geopolitics, paper presented at theB. de Pater, How German geopolitics passed through the Netherlands, 1920e1945,

nhagen, 1 January 1941, 3.

H.G. Larsen / Journal of Historical Geography 47 (2015) 29e3930

Indeed, for the vast majority of Danes, the first years of the Nazi-German occupation were all about adapting to ‘a new situation’.4

From the outset of the virtually unopposed occupation on 9 April1940, both the occupying power and the leading Danish politiciansfound it opportune to portray the assault as a ‘peace occupation’. Thisimplied a fiction of Denmark remaining both sovereign and neutral,albeit under German ‘protection’. DanisheGerman relations wereaccordingly managed through the respective foreign offices and le-gations, notably the German legation in Copenhagen. To run thisdelicate and increasingly tense arrangement, the social-democraticand social-liberal coalition government was reorganised to includeministers from the major opposition parties, the liberal and conser-vative parties. Pivotal here was Erik Scavenius (1877e1962), a pro-fessional diplomat and politician affiliated with the Social-LiberalParty, who in July 1940 was brought into government as foreignminister and eventually, in November 1942, became prime minister.As responsible for relations with the occupying power, and as long-standing exponent of the view that Danish foreign policy shouldadapt to neighbouring Germany, Scavenius was (and is) arguably themost embattled figure in modern Danish history. For some, he suc-cessfully pursued a necessary if unheroic policy of appeasementbased on small-state realism, which ensured that Nazism nevergained a direct foothold in Danish politics and that Danish societygenerally avoided the murderous destruction inflicted on othercountries under Nazi-German occupation. For others, Scavenius wasthe embodiment of a cynical (if not outright immoral) adaption toNazi-German demands.5 Danish sovereignty and neutrality underNazi-German occupation was a fiction, of course. Yet it was a fictionwith considerable substance, which for more than three yearsbestowedpoliticians and thewider societywith a significant if alwaysfraught and fragile measure of independence. That ended on 29August 1943 when the politically battered government ceased func-tioning in the face of widespread strikes and unacceptable Germancounter-demands. From that point on, until liberation on 5May 1945,the Wehrmacht took over and imposed martial law (although a low-key version of the politics of cooperation continued with senior civilservants as thefigureheads). Referring particularly to the period from9 April 1940 to 29 August 1943, the Danish government’s positionwith respect to the Nazi-German occupier has been variouslydescribed as a policy of ‘cooperation’ (samarbejde), ‘concession’(indrømmelse), ‘negotiation’ (forhandling), ‘adaption’ (tilpasning) and‘collaboration’ (kollaboration). The choice of term is not trivial, witheach signallingadifferent andpotentiallycompeting interpretationofthe political history.6 But following standard Danish practise, I willpragmatically describe thefirst phase of the occupation as thepoliticsof cooperation.

Hatt’s wartime history is crucially connected to the first phase ofthe occupation and the politics of cooperation. This, it should bekept in mind, was a period that defies neat divisions between ‘right’and ‘wrong’. Like the vast majority of Danes, Hatt lived in aworld of

4 For an overview of the occupation history, see H. Nathaniel, Occupied: Denmark’s Ad5 On post-war narratives of the occupation, see C. Bryld, ‘The five accursed years’: Dani

to Norway and Sweden, Scandinavian Journal of History 32 (2007) 86e115; N.A. SørensenHistory 14 (2005) 295e315.

6 H. Dethlefsen, Denmark and the German occupation: cooperation, negotiation or co7 H.G. Larsen, Gudmund Hatt 1884e1960, in: H. Lorimer, C.W.J. Withers (Eds), Geogra8 On the history of Danish geography, see S. Christiansen, N.K. Jacobsen, and N. Nielsen

1979, 377e446; for an outline in English, see S. Christiansen, Geography in Denmark, B9 Redegørelse fra Tiltalte (Statement by the indicted), 10 December 1945, Danish State

(The Prosecutor for the Extraordinary Public Servants’ Tribunal), case number T.225 [herown view of his activities during the occupation. Judged by the available press reports anthe written statement during the trial. The document will in the following be indicated10 H.G. Larsen, ‘The need and ability for expansion’: conceptions of living space in the11 For example: G. Hatt, ‘Menneskeracerne og deres Udbredelsesmuligheder’, GeografiskTidsskrift 32 (1929) 92e115.

often contradictory and e particularly when seen from some dis-tance e more or less compromising shades of grey. Partly for thisreason, he is a vivid and frequently troubling example of just howvaried a geographer’s life could unfold in the interstices of thewarring states. The broader outline of Hatt’s life and work has beenaddressed elsewhere.7 This article focuses on Hatt only within thecontext of World War II and the Nazi-German occupation ofDenmark. Partly my aim is to analyse how a geographer from asmall and highly exposed country was caught up in the cataclysmicevents of war and occupation. But partly it is also to contribute towider debates on the politics of geography, and the embedding ofgeographical knowledge and practices within wider historicalgeographies.

Evidence

From an unassuming background as the son of a village teacher inthe peripheral region of western Jutland, (Aage) Gudmund Hatt(1884e1960) worked his way up to become a member of Den-mark’s intellectual elite. In 1929 this ascent was crowned by theaward of a Chair in Human Geography at Copenhagen University.At the time this made him one of only two Danish geographyprofessors.8 The history of Hatt is thus to a large extent the historyof Danish university geography during the war, and he was theonly geographer to be caught up in the intricate politics of theoccupation. It was an interest in ethnography that brought Hatt togeography, a common path at the time, and later he also devel-oped an interest in archaeology. But stemming from his co-authorship of the four-volume Jorden og Menneskelivet (TheEarth and the Human Life, 1922e1927) with the Copenhagen pro-fessor of physical geography, Martin Vahl, his human geographyfocus was colonial anthropogeography and geopolitics. In hispost-war statement to the public servants’ tribunal, where Hattprudently sought to avoid the tainted notion of ‘geopolitics’, heexplained that Jorden og Menneskelivet had been ‘an introductionto political geography. The study of different countries’ cultures,population, economies and politics gaveme amaterial fromwhicha politicalegeographical understanding could be built’.9 This ledhim to consider the material and geographical foundations of thegreat power conflicts, a theme from around 1940 he began toaddress in terms of Livsrum (living-space) and Livsrumspolitik(living-space politics).10

‘The eminent foreign-policy writer’

Hatt’s work in and around geopolitics had even before the occu-pation made him a ‘public intellectual’. During the late 1920s hepublished some academic articles that today can be recognised asgeopolitical.11 But it was in radio lectures aired by the DanishBroadcasting Corporation (Statsradiofonien) from 1935 that he

aption and Resistance to German Occupation 1940e1945, Copenhagen, 2012.sh perception and usage of the period of the German Occupation, with a wider view, Narrating the Second World War in Denmark since 1945, Contemporary European

llaboration? Scandinavian Journal of History 15 (1990) 193e206.phers: Biobibliographical Studies, Vol. 28, London, 2009, 17e37., Geografi, in: T. Wolff (Ed), Københavns Universitet 1479e1979, Vol. XIII, Copenhagen,elgeo (2004) 59e68.Archives, Copenhagen, Auditøren ved Den ekstraordinære Tjenestemandsdomstoleafter T.225]. The 35 pages long statement is the most substantial source on Hatt’sd the records of the extraordinary public servants’ tribunal, he did not depart fromas Hatt’s ‘post-war statement’.small-state geopolitics of Gudmund Hatt, Political Geography 30 (2011) 38e48.Tidsskrift 31 (1928) 151e163, 214e232; G. Hatt, Begrebet ‘Mellemeuropa’, Geografisk

Fig. 1. Hatt speaking on ‘Baltic Sea Problems’ in the DanisheGerman Society, Copen-hagen, 17 May 1941. Source: Photo album, Family Papers, box 27.

H.G. Larsen / Journal of Historical Geography 47 (2015) 29e39 31

became publically well known for his geopolitics. Moreover, manyof his radio lectures were quickly published as books, articles orextended newspaper essays.12 This included publications onthemes such as ‘Pacific Ocean Problems’ (1936), ‘The EuropeanSituation’ (1938), ‘The Colony Questions’ (1938) and ‘The EuropeanEquilibrium’ (1939).13 Hatt was both popular and in demand, andthat hewas such a frequent voice on the state radio suggests that hecould move nimbly across a contentious contemporary politicallandscape without offending the powerful and easily insultedsouthern neighbour. The Danish Government encouraged self-censorship of the main media well before the occupation hadbegun. In this sense, while Denmark might have been formallyneutral, in abiding to the logics of small-state realism, it waspragmatically or, some would say, cynically adapting to Germany.14

Nominally under Danish control, censorship was formalised withthe occupation on 9 April 1940.

From January 1939, Hatt increased his public exposure by pub-lishing in the three national papers of the Berlingske PrintingHouse. Initially, this took the form of long reviews and articles inthe evening paper Berlingske Aftenavis. But from January 1940, thetabloid BT engaged him to write about the evolving political situ-ation. This lasted until September 1940 when Hatt switched toBerlingske Tidende, the morning paper of the Berlingske PrintingHouse. A blurb attached to his first article, which was a fawninginterview with Vojtech Tuka, the radically nationalistic and anti-Semitic prime minister of the Slovak Republic, introduced Hatt as‘The eminent foreign-policy writer’.15 From January 1939 to March1942, Hatt wrote more than one hundred articles for the three,politically conservative newspapers. But his publication in thesevenues did not necessarily reveal Hatt’s political inclinations. If Hattpositioned himself within the Danish party-political landscape ofthe 1930s and 1940s, the best guess would be that he was closest tothe Social-Liberal Party.16

Hatt wrote for the Berlingske Papers partly to take over fromNicolai Blædel, an outspoken critic of Nazi-Germany who in theintricate field of German demands and Danish adaptions had beenforced to leave those outlets. It is somewhat ironic, then, that theDanish Nazi newspaper, Fædrelandet, ‘welcomed’ Hatt as Blædel’s‘little brother’. Referring to an article on the British Empire inwhichhe invoked Halford Mackinder as an authority, it found that Hattwas ‘typically British’ and had written an ‘English propagandaarticle’.17 Fædrelandet later changed its opinion about Hatt, butcontrary to common belief, he did not write for the Nazi paper.Kreth suggests that Hatt was ‘dismissed’ from Berlingske Tidende inthe early autumn of 1941, apparently because ‘he had entered upona German-friendly line that was not met with sympathy by thereaders.’18 That Hatt’s analyses were positively inclined towardsGermany is correct. Yet he had declined to sign a contract with the

12 H.G. Larsen, Gudmund Hatt og geopolitikken e en kommenteret bibliografi, Aalborg, 213 G. Hatt, Stillehavsproblemer, Copenhagen, 1936; G. Hatt, Den europæiske Situation, CopG. Hatt, Den europæiske Ligevægt, Tilskueren 56 (1939) 198e211.14 B. Lidegaard, Overleveren 1914e1945, Copenhagen, 2003; also B. Lidegaard, A Short H15 G. Hatt, Hos Professor Tuka, Berlingske Tidende, Copenhagen, 6 September 1940. Facithe official guest of the newly established fascist regime from 13 August to 4 Septembernight on the radio that Slovakia with enthusiasm has gone over to Nazism, yes anti-Semcolour when you go there as the government’s guest and write about the conditions.’ Demof Gudmund Hatt, archive no. 07256, box 2 [hereafter Private Papers].16 This is also the qualified guess of Joachim Lund. See J. Lund, ‘At opretholde Sindets NeT. Lauridsen (Ed), Over stregen e under besættelsen, Copenhagen, 2007, 242e293.17 Fædrelandet, Professor i det berlingske Hus vil flytte Imperiets Hjerte! Fædrelandet,18 R. Kreth, Pilestræde under pres: De Berlingske Blade 1933e45, Copenhagen, 1998, 23719 Emilie Demant Hatt to Hatt, 20 September 1941, Private Papers, box 2. On Demant HSami, 1907e1908 (translated with an introduction by Barbara Sjoholm), Madison, 2013.20 Nørlund to Hatt, 7 August 1940, Private Papers, box 12; Hatt to Nørlund, undated draHatt had worked from 1919 to 1929.

paper, and his post-war statement to the public servants’ tribunalsuggests that he slowly stopped submitting his articles rather thanbeing dismissed: ‘My work gradually ceased, partly because I feltthat the editors no longer were so keen to get my articles, partlybecause I found that the journalistic work had occupied too muchof my time.’ From his prominent New Year’s Day article and almosttwenty other articles in Berlingske Tidende during the first half of1941, only a couple of articles by Hatt were printed during theautumn. His last newspaper article appeared in March 1942.

‘A cheap insurance’

According to his post-war statement, Hatt thought that the occu-pationwouldmean an end to his role as a public intellectual. In fact,the new situation only increased demands on him and resulted in avirtual avalanche of publications. It was not without reason that atthe height of his public activities his wife, the artist Emilie DemantHatt, worriedly cautioned: ‘If only you don’t pledge to write bothhere and there, far more than you can cope with.’19 Yet the occu-pation also brought other demands for Hatt. He was among thefounding members of the DanisheGerman Society (DanskeTyskForening), which the Danish Foreign Office in the summer of 1940had established as an integral part of the politics of cooperation. Helater became member of the society’s board. Hatt joining thiscentrepiece of official Danish cooperationwith the occupier did notalways go down well. A friend forthrightly wrote: ‘It was a bloodyshame to see you in that society.’ Towhich Hatt replied that he ‘wasentirely conscious that many of my friends, maybe all of my friends,would disapprove of me joining the DanisheGerman Society. Butthat does not change anything. I do what I find right.’20 In his post-

009, http://vbn.aau.dk/files/16716219/Gudmund_Hatt_og_geopolitikken.pdf.enhagen, 1938; G. Hatt, Afrika og Østasien: Kolonispørgsmaalene, Copenhagen, 1938;

istory of Denmark in the 20th Century, Copenhagen, 2009.litated by the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Hatt visited the Slovak Republic as1940. Shortly before the trip, his wife perceptively warned: ‘You probably heard lastitism and everything. It will be taken for granted that you have the same politicalant Hatt to Hatt, 1 August 1940, Danish State Archives, Copenhagen, private papers

utralitet’: Geografen Gudmund Hatt, det ny Europa og det store verdensdrama, in: J.

Copenhagen, 31 May 1940..att, see E. Demant Hatt, With the Lapps in the High Mountains: A Woman Among the

ft, Private Papers, box 12. Poul Nørlund was director of the National Museum, where

H.G. Larsen / Journal of Historical Geography 47 (2015) 29e3932

war statement, Hatt explained that he had been somewhat reluc-tant to join the DanisheGerman Society, as he ‘was not surewhether it was right to prostrate oneself before the Germans.’ Yet,considering that the request came from the Foreign Office, he hadaccepted since hewas ‘convinced that the policy of ForeignMinisterScavenius was the only right one under the given circumstances.’Hatt’s trust in Scavenius was great, as we will see, and if he har-boured doubts about joining the DanisheGerman Society, he mayhave found some relief in the fact that the very top of the Danishestablishment seemed to support the undertaking. When Hattspoke to the society in May 1941 (Fig. 1), both Prime MinisterStauning and Foreign Minister Scavenius were among the Danishand German dignitaries on the front row.

Hatt’s activities in the DanisheGerman Society never became apoint of major criticism e or, maybe more correctly, formal sanc-tions.21 That cannot be said of his renewed role as radio lecturer. Inthe spring of 1941, Hatt returned to the Danish Broadcasting Cor-poration to give six radio lectures that were subsequently pub-lished as Hvem kæmper om Kloden (Who is Fighting over the Globe,1941). The book is essentially a regional political geography of thewarring world. The title of the original radio series, ‘The EconomicSpheres of the Earth’ (Jordens Økonomikredse), is indicative of hisview of foreign politics as grounded in geographical-material in-terests. More ominously, in retrospect, were the monthly ‘World-Political Overview’ (Verdenspolitisk Oversigt) radio lectures thatcommenced in August 1941.

These lectures were a typical product of the politics of coop-eration. The German plenipotentiary to Denmark, Reich-sbevollmächtigter Cecil von Renthe-Fink, had in late June 1941approached the Ministry of Foreign Affairs with a request for theDanish radio to broadcast regular foreign-political overviews. Thiswas part of a broader German demand for the Danish radio tobring what became known as ‘forståelsesforedrag’ e lectures thatcould provide Danes with an ‘understanding’ of German cultureand politics. In the delicate political situation, the ministry couldhardly reject this ‘request’, and it was forwarded to the DanishBroadcasting Corporation. Together with three others, Hatt waslisted as a possible lecturer. Apparently, his name had also beenamong those mentioned in contacts between the ministry and theGerman legation. After the war, Scavenius declared that ‘ProfessorHatt held his lectures on a request from the Danish BroadcastingCorporation, occasioned by the Foreign Office.’ He furtherexplained that this was because the German legation had tried toaccess the radio for Nazi-German propaganda, and that the gov-ernment had sought to counter this demand with ‘dispassionatelectures’ (‘saglige Foredrag’). In this way, Scavenius asserted, Hatt’slectures should ‘be seen as an element in the government’s pre-vention policy against the occupying power, and by availinghimself in that role he has solely served the policy of the thenDanish government.’ Scavenius repeated this explanation duringthe trial of Hatt, where the press took notice of his e somewhatunsavoury but typically terse e description of Hatt’s lectures as ‘acheap insurance’.22

21 Not all got away from an involvement with the DanisheGerman Society. The chairmposition by the extraordinary public servants’ tribunal (L.B. Christensen, Peter Knutzen:22 Referat fra Pressebureauet (memorandum from the press office), 30 June 1941, MinisArchives, Copenhagen; Erklæring fra fhv. Statsminister Erik Scavenius (Declaration by foAssurance’ (Prof. Hatt’s lectures ‘a cheap insurances’), Social-Demokraten, Copenhagen, 923 G. Hatt, Udenrigspolitisk Oversigt, Tidsskrift for Udenrigspolitik 8 (1942) 209e219; mevidence in the post-war trial of Hatt.24 Brüel to Hatt, 31 July 1943, Private Papers, box 13.25 S. Andersen, Danmark i det tyske Storrum, Copenhagen, 2003, 214ff.26 ‘The North’ (Norden) is here used in the sense of the Nordic countries. For biblioggeopolitikken (note 12), 9e11.

Close to twenty of Hatt’s ‘World-Political Overview’ lectureswere published in Tidsskrift for Udenrigspolitik, a journal on foreignpolitics supported by the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. LikeBerlingske Tidende, the journal was evidently pleased at first towelcome Hatt to its pages. The manuscripts of his lectures wereinitially published with only minor changes. This included a radiolecture that according to Hatt’s note on the manuscript had beenbanned for broadcast by the German radio censors.23 Increasingly,though, the editor of Tidsskrift for Udenrigspolitik began to revise themanuscripts and to suggest changes. For example, shortly beforethe political events that finally terminated Hatt’s lectures, the ed-itor explained to Hatt that he had found reason to ‘soften’ an ‘all tooapparent attempt to play down the invasion [of Sicily]’ in one of hispieces.24

Altogether, Hatt gave almost thirty ‘World-Political Overview’

radio lectures. The last was broadcast on 26 August 1943 e in themidst of the August strikes that only three days later led the gov-ernment to cease functioning. As a clear indication of how closelyHatt’s activities were connected to the politics of cooperation underthe stewardship of Scavenius, this was also Hatt’s last appearanceas a public intellectual e both in writing as well as in speech.

‘Denmark in the new Europe’

While his radio lectures and newspaper articles undoubtedly gavemost exposure, Hatt also found other outlets for his analyses duringthe occupation. In spring of 1943, this included two articles forEuropa Kabel: Økonomisk Ugeskrift (Europe Wire: Economic Weekly),the short-lived Danish version of a thinly concealed Nazi-Germanpropaganda magazine. According to his post-war statement, Hattwas connected to the magazine by ‘a Danish man attached to theMinistry of Foreign Affairs’, who had asked him to assume theeditorship. He declined but allowed the magazine to print two ofhis articles. The monthly Globus: Tidsskrift for Nutidskultur,Planøkonomi og Geopolitik (Globe: Journal of Contemporary Culture,Planned Economy and Geopolitics) was more successful in attractingHatt. The journal was established in the spring of 1941 by a group ofleft-wing social democrats, which saw the German plan economyas a tool to secure Danish workers’ interests in the expected re-ordering of Europe. This undertaking initially had some supportfrom the Social Democratic Party, and Prime Minister Stauningcontributed a short piece to the first issue (which also published asummary of Hatt’s ‘Who is Fighting over the Globe’ radio lectures).The ‘Globus Circle’ was later excluded from the party, but Globuscontinued as a formally respectable but increasingly Nazifiedjournal.25 Hatt may have sensed the direction the journal wastaking, as his last contributions (in February and March 1943)addressed uncontroversial issues taken from his Iron Age archae-ology. Before that, however, the journal reprinted or publishedsome of his most politically charged texts.

Among these was ‘Norden og Europa’ (The North and Europe),whichwith small modifications was published in Sweden and thereare also at least two Danish and two German versions.26 The article

an, the director general of the state railways, Peter Knutzen, was deprived of hisJeg frygter ikke Historiens Dom, Odense, 2011).try of Foreign Affairs, Gruppeordnede sager (1909e1945), 109.H.8./b4, Danish Statermer Prime Minister Scavenius), 3 April 1946, T.225; Prof. Hatts Foredrag ‘en billigApril 1947.anuscripts to radio lectures, Private Papers, box 18. The manuscripts were used as

raphical details on the various variants of the text, see Larsen, Gudmund Hatt og

Fig. 2. Hatt speaking on ‘The North and Europe’ in the National SwedeneGermanyAssociation, Jönköping, Sweden, 23 August 1941. Source: G. Hatt, J. Weibull, P. Engdahl,N. Torulf and K. Olivecrona, Norden och Europa: Föredrag vid RST: s sommarting 1941,Malmö, 1941.

H.G. Larsen / Journal of Historical Geography 47 (2015) 29e39 33

was based on a lecture Hatt gave in Riksföreningen Sverige-Tyskland(the National SwedeneGermany Association) on 23 August 1941.Unfortunately for Hatt’s reputation, the version published in Swe-den was accompanied by a photograph of him at the rostrum inJönköping, Sweden, where the Swedish flags in the backgroundpale against the swastika banner of Nazi-Germany (Fig. 2). Therather unsavoury photograph was not lost on the undergroundnewsletter Information, which in February 1945 (somewhat belat-edly considering his inactiveness since August 1943) published ahighly critical portrait of Hatt.27 In his post-war statement, Hattdescribed the National SwedeneGermany Association as ‘a sort ofparallel to the DanisheGerman Society’. That was probably hissincere belief and nobody contradicted him. But in contrast to thequasi-official DanisheGerman Society that had been established asan opportunistic reaction to the occupation, the private associationin neutral Swedish to a greater extent harboured members withactual national-socialist sympathies.28 While Hatt may have beenunaware of such orientations in his Swedish audience, he surely

27 The portrait is reproduced in J. Barfod (Ed), Information: 29. januar 1945 e 21. febru28 On the National SwedeneGermany Association, see S. Oredsson, Lunds universitet u29 Redegørelse fra Tiltalte til Udenrigsministeren (Statement by the indicted to the For30 Møller to Hatt, 1 November 1941, Private Papers, box 13.31 This and the following quotations from ‘The North and Europe’ are from G. Hatt, No32 G. Hatt, De erhvervsgeografiske Muligheder for en udvidet vareudveksling mellemtialities of inter-northern commerce, Le Nord: International Review of the Northern Coun(1928) 92e115.33 Larsen, ‘The need and ability for expansion’ (note 10); J. Lund, Denmark and the ‘Eur

must have known the political sentiments of the audience when on13 October 1941 he repeated the lecture at Goebbels’ NordischeVerbindungsstelle in Berlin. He was speaking there as a delegate ofthe DanisheGerman Society, and the visit was, like Hatt’s otherwartime foreign travels, facilitated and, it seems, encouraged by theDanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. On his way to Berlin, Hatt alsoparticipated (without giving a presentation) in a conference on‘Fragen der europäischen Großraumwirtschaft’ (Questions regardingthe European greater-space economy) in Weimar. Hatt’s report toScavenius suggests that he participated to gauge German plans forthe future organisation of Europe, including imperialist designs onthe Nordic countries, and that he was not particularly impressedwith the discussions at the conference.29

In private correspondence with Hatt, A.P. Møller, the founder ofMaersk Line, found that ‘The North and Europe’ seemed to view theforeign-political problems ‘through German-tinted glasses’, andconcluded that ‘a somewhat greater expression of national up-rightness would have been desirable.’30 It is not difficult to see whythe shipping magnate saw the text as pro-German, but Hatt himselfwould have had a different interpretation on the national desir-ability of his analysis. At a time where mainland Europe stillseemed destined for a future under Nazi-German hegemony, Hattcharacteristically cautioned: ‘We should distinguish between re-alities and wishful thinking.’31 Accordingly, while he expressed hissolidarity with the other Nordic peoples, he cautioned that because‘the division of the world into economic-geographical greaterspaces advances with the relentlessness of a law a nature’, theNorth would have to ‘find its place within a larger context tomaintain its production capacity, its population size and its stan-dard of living.’ This view was not induced by the war. Hatt alreadywell before the war argued that Denmark had to seek its future in awider European economy, and he showed sympathy for Cou-denhove-Kalergi’s ‘Pan-Europe’ vision.32

In ‘The North and Europe’, Hatt drew on awartime variant of hiswider geopolitical thinking, but equally he tacitly supported theongoing Danish attempts to protect the country’s economy in theanticipated reordering of Europe under Nazi-Germany.33 Situatedbetween three warring political-economic ‘blocks’ e Britain,‘mainland Europe’ (Germany) and the Soviet Union e Hatt arguedthat Denmark and the Nordic countries should throw its lot in withGermany. This was not a question of sympathy. Most Danish sym-pathised with Britain, he indicated surprisingly openly, but thatignored pressing geopolitical realities:

ar 1945,nder andeign Mi

rden ogde skantries 1

opean N

Germany is located in Europe’s centre, England in Europe’speriphery. Germany’s fate is Europe’s fate. England, on theother hand, is the centre of a global empire andmore directlytied to that than to the European mainland.

Presenting this text onlyweeks after Nazi-Germany’s invasion ofthe Soviet Union, this led him to a categorical conclusion:

Germany is in this war struggling against foreign, Europe-hostile forces. Germany’s defeat in this struggle wouldamount to a European catastrophe. Germany’s victory couldpossibly be the entry to a new and rich blooming Europe.

Copenhagen, 1977, 202e203.ra världskriget, Lund, 1996.nister), 9 November 1941, T.225.

Europa, Copenhagen, 1941, 3, 13, 20 and 22.dinaviske Lande, Geografisk Tidsskrift 37 (1934) 73e94; G. Hatt, The poten-(1938) 143e162; G. Hatt, Begrebet ‘Mellemeuropa’, Geografisk Tidsskrift 32

ew Order’, 1940e1942, Contemporary European History 13 (2004) 305e321.

Fig. 3. Hatt arrested by the resistance movement in Vordingborg, 5 May 1945. Source: Image Database, The Royal Library, Copenhagen (Creative Commons).

H.G. Larsen / Journal of Historical Geography 47 (2015) 29e3934

This was the key point in Hatt’s ‘pro-German’ line of reasoning.As we will see, this by no means implied that Hatt embracedNazism or totalitarianismmore generally. Rather, based on an arch-realist reading of what he considered objective and material in-terests, he distinguished between ‘realities’ and ‘ideologies’, be-tween ‘Germany’ and ‘Nazism’. His strong warnings against Sovietexpansionwere similarly not founded on anti-Communism, thoughhe at one point warned against ‘the eastern giant state and its, tothe Nordic way of thinking, disgusting social order.’34 He saw thisexpansionism as a ‘Russian’ necessity that predated the establish-ment of the Soviet Union. It is significant, however, that his vocalattack on ‘the eastern giant state’ appeared in a radio lecture onFinland. The fate of Finland caused him particular concern. Butalready before the occupation, he more generally lamented the fateof republican Spain, Czechoslovakia, Austria and Poland. Signifi-cantly, he was particularly critical of the western powers’ failure toaid these smaller European states.35

Globus published ‘The North and Europe’ in June and July 1942.In November that year, it also printed ‘Danmarks rumpolitiske Stil-ling i det nye Europa’ (Denmark’s space-political position in the newEurope).36 The article was originally written for a projected specialissue on ‘Dänemark im neuen Europa’ (Denmark in the new Europe)for Raumforschung und Raumordnung, the journal of the Nazi-

34 G. Hatt, Finland, Tidsskrift for Udenrigspolitik 7 (1941) 122. The article is based on a raContinuation War between Finland and the Soviet Union (with Nazi-Germany on the si35 For example G. Hatt, Den store Krigs Forudsætninger (The background of the greatEngland og Tyskland? (On what depends the tension between England and Germany?)36 G. Hatt, Danmarks rumpolitiske Stilling i det nye Europa, Globus: Tidsskrift for Nutid37 J. Lund, Collaboration in print: the ‘Aktion Ritterbusch’ and the failure of GermanHistory 37 (2012) 329e354. On the Reichsarbeitsgemeinschaft für Raumforschung, see alsoGeopolitik, in: J. Agnew, K. Mitchell, G. Toal (Eds), The Companion to Political Geography38 Hatt to Svenningsen, 26 March 1942, T.225; Report, September 1945, T.225. Apart fr1943) and e as ‘Danmarks geopolitiske Stilling’ (Denmark’s geopolitical position) e in twoand to what extent Hatt participated in this, is as yet uncertain. But the pamphlets werethe Danish Nazi party (DNSAP) with covert German support. Trinitatis-Trykkeriet, whichcommunist led resistance group (J.T. Lauridsen, Dansk nazisme 1930e45 e og derefter, C39 G. Hatt, Menneskeracerne og deres Udbredelsesmuligheder, Geografisk Tidsskrift 31 (Larsen, ‘The need and ability for expansion’ (note 10).

German Reichsarbeitsgemeinschaft für Raumforschung (ReichWorking Group for Spatial Research). Actors within the Danishpolitics of cooperation cautiously supported this attempt at intel-lectual propaganda, but the special issue was for reasons thatremain unclear never published.37 The Danish Broadcasting Cor-poration declined Hatt’s suggestion to bring the text as a radiolecture. Foreign Minister Scavenius, though, read the manuscriptand believed it should be published in Danish.38

The article covers much of the same geopolitical ground as ‘TheNorth and Europe’ and several others of Hatt’s wartime publica-tions. But it also hints at another dimension of his geopoliticalthinking that has bearing on his wartime stance. Unusual in classicgeopolitics, Hatt’s history of Denmark’s geopolitical positionintroduced a separation between the ‘state’ and the ‘people’. Linkedto his early assertion that ‘any vital people possesses the need andability for expansion’, he found:

dio lectude of Fiwar), T

, in: C. Fskultur,intellectW. Nat, Oxfordom beinpamphleprintedalso propenhag1928) 1

The Danish people’s expansive capacity has mostly notunfolded through state expansion. But through private en-terprise and frequently under a foreign flag, the Danishexpansive force has asserted itself all over the globe.39

In other words, Hatt implicitly asserted that the Danish peopleeven under foreign rule had an ability to pursue material

re Hatt gave on 28 June 1941, three days after the outbreak of the so-callednland).ilskueren 56 (1939) 428e433; G. Hatt, Hvorpaa beror Spændingen mellemørslev, G. Schnitler, W. Kleen (Eds), Krigen, Copenhagen, 1940, 114e133.Planøkonomi og Geopolitik 2/November (1942) 1e12.ual propaganda in occupied Denmark, 1940e1942, Scandinavian Journal ofter, Geopolitics in Germany, 1919e45: Karl Haushofer and the Zeitschrift für, 2003, 187e203.g published in Globus, the text was also printed by Europa Kabel (26 Marchts from (1942 and 1943). How and by who these pamphlets were published,by ‘Trinitatis-Trykkeriet’, which in the autumn of 1940 had been bought byinted for a few non-Nazi costumers, was in April 1943 torched by BOPA, theen, 2002, 549).63; Hatt, Danmarks rumpolitiske Stilling i det nye Europa (note 36), 6; also

H.G. Larsen / Journal of Historical Geography 47 (2015) 29e39 35

sustenance and development. In this way Hatt connected to theidea that Danes should be able to survive as a ‘people’, a notion heldby leading segments in Danish society. Originating in the Social-Liberal Party, this idea asserted the futility of defending the terri-tory of the Danish state against determined aggression from aforeign power, effectively Germany. Rather, the prime concernsshould be maintaining the material and cultural welfare of thepeople, and bolstering the institutions of the liberal-democraticstate to withstand both domestic subversion e from Left andRight e and potentially protracted foreign occupation. This notionin part informed the emergence of the welfare state during the1930s and was eventually also adopted by the Social-DemocraticParty. With the Nazi-German occupation, the idea became a guid-ing principle in the politics of cooperation.40 That Hatt also else-where inserted more or less veiled calls for Nazi-Germany torespect small nations’ self-determination and economic develop-ment in a new European order suggested that he in part, at least,was in line with this strategy. In ‘Denmark’s space-political posi-tion’, however, Hatt also returned to his main geopolitical theme.Emphasised in italics in the journal, he drew a conclusion about thefuture that was increasingly unwelcomed:

40 Lide41 Hat42 KrisKristeligthe termtheoristSchmitt43 Hat44 Thiexampl45 PoliRigsadv46 D. TYork, 1947 Dal48 Dem

A German defeat in the present war would probably entailEurope’s division into a Russian and an Anglo-Saxon sphereof interest. But the Anglo-Saxon sphere of interest wouldhardly be particularly resistant towards a growing Russia,which no longer is obstructed by a strong continental Euro-pean power in its advance towards the ocean. It seemsobvious that a destruction of Germany as force would meanRussian mastery over the Baltic Sea and the North. TheAnglo-Saxons and their sea power would at any rate not beable to obstruct [the Russians] if Germany is gone. The fate ofthe North and with it Denmark is thus intimately tied to thefate of Germany. Germany’s disaster will pull the North withit. Germany’s victory will avert the Russian peril from Europee and enable the formation of a united Europe.41

Trial

On Liberation Day, 5 May 1945, members of the resistancemovement arrested Hatt in Vordingborg (Fig. 3). A factuallyflawed newspaper article later that month reported that he, ‘thegreater-space prophet’ (‘Storrums-Profeten’), had ‘sought refuge’in the provincial town.42 The reality was more prosaic. Hatt wasin Vordingborg as an external examiner at the local college ofeducation. He was one of the many who in those days, as Hattput it, had to ‘run the gauntlet through a yelling and screamingand spitting mob of thousands.’43 Eight days later, he was

gaard, Overleveren 1914e1945 (note 14); Kirchhoff, Samarbejde og modstand undt, Danmarks rumpolitiske Stilling i det nye Europa (note 36), 9e10.telig Dagblad (semper), Der renses nu ud i den videnskabelige Verden, Kristelig DaDagblad, 23 May 1945. The term ‘Storrum’ (greater-space) must at this point havethat clearly was inspired by the German ‘Großraum’, but it is not on the basi

s. I here translate the Danish term following the translation of ‘Großraum’ propand Walter Christaller, Annals of the Association of American Geographers 103 (2t to Bentzon, 15 May 1945, Danish State Archives, Copenhagen, papers of the Has kind of claims may have derived from Hatt’s activities in the DanisheGermane, Anonymous, Gudmund Hatt e igen! http://storstensgrave.wordpress.com/200tiets Efterretningstjeneste (Danish Security and Intelligence Service), Centralkartookaten (Prosecutor General), Seddelregister til P-journalen (1945e1952), Danishamm, Retsopgøret efter besættelsen, Copenhagen, 1984; also D. Tamm, Phases of c98, 1458e1482.gaard-Knudsen to Nørregaard, 12 July 1945, Private Papers, box 14; Hatt to Nørrant Hatt to Hatt, 29 May 1941, December 1941 and 3 September 1946, Private

transferred to the police headquarters in Copenhagen fromwhich he was released without charge. That he was arrestedsuggests that Hatt had assumed an ominous presence in thepublic imagination. The ‘greater-space prophet’ article could, forexample, spin a tale about his ‘renowned’ dinner parties inhonour of bigwigs of the occupying regime and well-known Naziscientists. It also stated as a fact that both before and after 29August 1943 he had served as a ‘henchman for the Germans’.Neither claim had much foundation in reality.44 The dossier onHatt compiled by the resistance movement in preparation of thepost-war retribution contained nothing beyond some biblio-graphical entries and scattered quotes from his publications, andhis name does not appear in the persecutor general’s index ofpersons investigated for treason.45

Still, Hatt was caught up in the legal settlement of the occupa-tion. In what remains a thorny chapter in Danish history, theparliament in the summer of 1945 passed legislation that retroac-tively outlawed certain actions during the occupation; in defianceof legal norms, activities that were not illegal when they took placewere made illegal and punishable. This included provisions for theExtraordinary Public Servants’ Tribunal, which could imposedisciplinary sanctions in the form of dismissal and loss of pension.46

It was this institution Hatt himself in July 1945 requested toinvestigate his activities during the occupation, but he was appar-ently urged to take this step by the university’s management. ThatHatt unceremoniously scrawled the request on a scrap of papersuggests that he was less than pleased.47

In February 1947 the prosecutor of the public servants’ tribunalpresented the final indictment. Up until that time Hatt maintainedhis position at Copenhagen University, although he had beenrelieved of all duties. Letters from his wife suggests that Hatt fromthe early years of the occupation, if not before, had been bad-tempered and increasingly angry with people and the world ingeneral: ‘If only you rest,’ Emilie implored in May 1941, ‘then yourmisanthropy will ease off e it is a sign of fatigue to be so angry ateverything and everybody.’ And in December 1941, she followed upwith a far-sightedwarning: ‘Don’t let your surroundings induce youto heady, generalising pronouncements; people will rememberwhat you say and maybe use it against you.’ Predictably, Hatt didnot mellow. Come home ‘in good health and not too sad at heart’,Emilie urged him in September 1946.48 Interestingly, given thatmany other professional associations were busy sheddingmemberswho were tainted by the occupation, Hatt was not expelled fromthe Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters. However, hestayed away from Academy meetings for ten years after hereportedly ‘behaved provocatively towards the president’, NielsBohr, and was ‘led from the room by three members’. For long, theAcademy also avoided publishing two major treatises in the fields

er besættelsen (note 1).

gblad, Copenhagen, 20 May 1945; also J. Christiansen and J. Seedorff, Professor Hatt,become a synonym for Nazi sympathies in the wider public. Hatt occasionally used

s of his writings possibly establish if he was influenced by any particular Germanosed in T.J. Barnes and C. Minca, Nazi spatial theory: the dark geographies of Carl013) 669e687.tt family, archive no. 07180, box 6 [hereafter Family Papers].Society, which included dinner parties and lectures by German visitors. See, for

9/10/05/gudmund-hatt-igen (8 May 2014).teket, cards on Aage Gudmund Hatt (box 143), Danish State Archives, Copenhagen;State Archives, Copenhagen.o-operation, shades of guilt, in: S.U. Larsen (Ed), Modern Europe after Fascism, New

egaard, undated draft, Private Papers, box 14.Papers, box 2.

H.G. Larsen / Journal of Historical Geography 47 (2015) 29e3936

of archaeology and ethnography that he submitted in 1945 and1946.49

Hatt was indicted on four charges by the tribunal, which ac-cording to the prosecution amounted to ‘dishonourable nationalconduct’ according to the retroactive law. Additionally, and aggra-vatingly, he had in relation to the first charge also ‘afforded theoccupation power significant propaganda support’. For this, theprosecution contended, Hatt should be deprived of his professor-ship and part of his state pension.50

The first charge of the indictment addressed the statements Hatthad made in writing and in speech during the occupation. This, theprosecution argued, involved his sympathy for the German ratio-nale for starting the War; his opinion that Germany would win theWar; his glorification of Hitler and Germany’s position among Eu-ropean nations; his agitation for Danish consent to the ‘newEurope’; his friendliness towards Germany; his support of the freecorps composed by Danish volunteers in Waffen-SS units on theEast Front; and finally, his criticisms of the Allies, their politics, andDenmark’s own resistance movement. These claims were sup-ported by reference to Hatt’s writings and speeches, although theprosecution in relation to some points e those on Hitler, the freecorps and the resistance movement e could only muster two orthree references. The most well-documented point was the accu-sation that Hatt ‘very strongly and repeatedly accentuated that itwould be a catastrophe for Europe, and especially the North, ifGermany lost, and that Russia with the other Allies won the war’.

The second charge criticised Hatt for having allowed themagazine of a Nazi students’ organisation to quote him for sayingthat friendliness towards England and communist sympathiesshould not be confused with Danish patriotism.51

The third charge criticised Hatt for his participation in theWeimar meeting on the greater-space economy of Europe; forgiving ‘The North and Europe’ speech in Berlin; for having acceptedin January 1942 an invitation to a conference in Prague on Europe’sfuture (in which in the end he did not participate); and for havinggiven three archaeological lectures at German universities in thesummer of 1942.

Finally, the fourth charge criticised Hatt for a private letter toEjner Krenchel in which he praised a radio talk Krenchel had heldafter 29 August 1943; that is, after the termination of the overtphase in the politics of cooperation. The nub here was that Kren-chel, who was later sentenced for treason, read part of Hatt’s letteron the radio.

The prosecutor had clearly searched every nook and cranny forincriminating material, and the charges against Hatt were largelybased on moral judgments that would have been unacceptable atanother juncture in modern Danish history. This caused the pros-ecutor some problems. Before the trial, for example, Hatt’s defencehad submitted wartime articles from a leading newspaper inwhicha senior Danish officer presented analyses similar to those of Hatt.In that case, the author was promoted after thewar and became theDanish military attaché to Washington.52 Nonetheless, the trialwent ahead on 8 April 1947. To add insult to injury, the hearings

49 M. Blegvad, Det Kongelige Danske Videnskabernes Selskab 1942e1992, Copenhagen, 150 Anklageskrift (Indictment), 3 February 1947, T.225.51 ‘Engelskvenlighed og kommunistiske Sympatier bør ikke forveksles med Danskheddeclined to speak in ‘National Studenteraktion’, the organisation that published the ma52 Report, 6 March 1947, T.225.53 Land og Folk, ‘Jeg vilde kun gavne Regeringen Scavenius’ erklærer Professor Hatt (‘Copenhagen, 9 April 1947.54 Lecture notes for course in political geography, Private Papers, box 23. During the‘Professor Hatt’s teaching during the occupation years was absolutely objective in chmatematisk-naturvidenskabelige Fakultet i Studenterraadet, undated, T.225).55 Hatt to Stauning, 10 May 1939, Private Papers, box 11.

were held in the ceremonial hall of the National Museum whereHatt from 1919 to 1929 had spent some of the best years of hisworking life.

‘I could not evade my duty’

As Denmark that spring was in grips of a prolonged strike, the presscoverage of the hearings was reduced. This saved the BerlingskeTidende from the embarrassment of reporting the legal proceedingsagainst their ‘eminent foreign-policy writer’. The remaining papers,though, devoted space to what turned out to be the only trial of auniversity professor by the tribunal. Not surprisingly given Hatt’sstrong warnings against ‘Russia’, the communist Land og Folk didnot spare him:

992, 53e

’ (Akadegazine.

I wante

prepararacter

Immediately from the start of the hearings, Hatt let it showthat he would defend himself to the limit. Often his argu-mentation was not without specious effect, and hisintellectual-aristocratic disdain for the attitude of the peopleand his intelligent comments gave the audience a clearimpression of how dangerous a man Professor Hatt was forunstable souls when he made his talents available for theGerman propaganda.53

In court, as in his post-war statement, Hatt steadfastly justifiedhis activities during the occupation. Most straightforwardly, hemaintained that he was simply fulfilling his academic duty. In hispost-war statement, Hatt wrote:

[P]olitical geography in the period 1935e1943 took up somuch of my time. not only because of my interest in thepolitical problems, but also because of my sense of duty.Political geography is my subject area; therefore, whenasked, I felt duty-bound to give lectures and write articles onrelated subjects.

Being the Professor of Human Geography, this argument hadsome substance. Hatt also gave lectures on political geography atthe university.54 Yet, this sense of academic duty fused with a senseof national duty. Already before the outbreak of war in Europe, Hatthad ‘as a geographer and as a Dane’ sought to impress his analysisof the imminent dangers to Denmark on PrimeMinister Stauning.55

When Denmark was occupied, the joining of professional and thenational interests became acute, and according to Hatt’s post-warstatement this was the key explanation for his public activities:

[In] my work. to mitigate the relationship betweenDenmark and Germany I have tried to benefit my owncountry. I considered this work to be necessary. And as onlyvery few people could or would do it, I did not find that Icould evademy duty. I understood the situation such that theDanish government and particularly Foreign Minister Scav-enius e in whose insight and unselfish patriotism I contin-uously have had trust e needed support from non-Nazi menthat could and would talk reason with the Germans.

54.

misk Aktion, no. 8, 1942, 10). Contrary to what has later been claimed, Hatt

d to aid the Scavenius Government’ declared Professor Hatt), Land og Folk,

ation of the trial, representatives of the geography students declared thatand without political tendencies’ (Erklæring fra Repræsentanter for det

Fig. 4. Applied science. The caption reads: ‘Scavenius was questioned in the civilservant trial of Prof. Gudmund Hatt. Scavenius: The aim was to keep the Danish peoplequietly sleeping, and to that end Prof. Hatt was a fine nightcap’. Source: Land og Folk,Copenhagen, 11 April 1947.

H.G. Larsen / Journal of Historical Geography 47 (2015) 29e39 37

In his testimony to the tribunal, Scavenius supported thisexplanation. On Hatt’s radio lectures, which were subject toparticular criticism, Scavenius said that during the occupation hehad stressed to Hatt ‘that it would be of use to Denmark if hecontinued his lectures.’56 It is questionable, however, whethersupport from the by then strongly unpopular figurehead in thepolitics of cooperation helped Hatt. Land og Folk, at least, foundreason to carry a cartoon depicting Hatt as a swastika adorned‘nightcap’ in the hands of Scavenius (Fig. 4). The title, ‘applied sci-ence’ refers to Hatt’s definition of geopolitics during theproceedings.

The fusion of academic and national duty only helps us to un-derstand why Hatt acted. Others acted for similar reasons withoutbeing prosecuted. The issue here is Hatt’s pronounced pro-Germanstance, which he never tried to evade during the proceedings. In hispost-war statement he maintained that with ‘a clear conscience’ hecould show understanding for Germany, because

56 Uds57 Ma58 H. J59 Bre1947, T.60 Uds

it was my conviction that Germany was necessary for theworld balance. Nazism, it is true, has always seemedme to bea sort of insanity, but I considered it unwise and unjust toidentify Germany with Nazism.

We should in this respect lay out three interrelated issues thatbring us a little closer to an understanding of Hatt’s stance. Firstly,as we have already seen and as Hatt reiterated during the pro-ceedings, his geopolitics was based on an understanding of theworld divided into competing political-economic blocks. Germanywas in this respect vital in maintaining the European ‘balance’against what he saw as a necessarily expansive ‘Russia’. This, itseems, was a long-standing conviction: ‘My relatively pro-Germanstance was founded already during the First World War’, he wrote

krift af Den ekstraordinære Tjenestemandsdomstols Retsbog (Transcript of the rnuscript, undated (but written after December 1958), Family Papers, box 22.errild, Hos professor Gudmund Hatt, Gads danske Magasin 33 (1939) 174.v fra Professor Niels Nielsen til Højesteretssagfører Stegich-Petersen (Letter from225.krift af Den ekstraordinære Tjenestemandsdomstols Dombog (Transcript of the

in a biographical manuscript in the final year of his life: ‘I consid-ered it to be best for Europe if Germany was not crushed’.57

Secondly, Hatt gave precedence to his mechanical and materi-alist worldview that distrusted ideologies as an explanation ofworld politics. In an interview from shortly before the Nazi-Germanattack on Poland, Hatt firmly declared that Denmark had to bedemocratic, and that as a democrat he had ‘a natural sympathywiththe democratic great powers, which I would not like to see van-quished by the Central Powers’. There is no reason to believe that hechanged his commitment to democracy, but neither did he changehis view that ideologies e including democracy e were effective‘weapons of agitation’ and that foreign politics was not aboutsympathies and antipathies:

ecords o

Profes

verdicts

[W]hat is happening in the world today is a tremendousstruggle, not over ideologies but over real assets. The struggleconcerns such realities as colonies, markets and resources;therefore, we should not be tempted to take side because welike one ideology better than another.58

Hatt was if anything an arch-materialist, and this materialismwas coupled to a strong variant of small-state political realism. Noteven the revelations of the horrors committed by the Nazi regimeseem to have dislodged him from this position. In his post-warstatement, Hatt declared:

I have never felt or expressed any sympathy for Nazism. Onthe other hand, I have on repeated occasions maintained thatthe ideologies were camouflage for material war aims, as thewar in reality, when all disguises are removed, was a strugglefor power. My natural sympathies concerned the small Eu-ropean nations, which although blameless had to bear theburdens of the war and see the devastation of their part ofthe world.

Finally, Hatt was convinced that his analyses were based onobjective geographical facts. As he put it in his post-war statement,‘the political geographer studies impersonal forces’ and should‘explain the power-politics of states according to given geograph-ical conditions.’ This rather stodgy empiricism was laced withconsiderable stubbornness. According to a statement of support bythe Copenhagen professor of physical geography, Hatt’s ‘determi-nation to seek cognition of truth in his scientific research has al-ways been unconditional, and he has carried through this principlewithout the slightest consideration for own convenience andwithout consideration for what might please others.’59 This was tocost Hatt dearly.

‘Dishonourable national conduct’

The three judges were not convinced by Hatt’s defence. After thelast hearing on 11 April 1947, they withdrew to consider theirverdict, which was made public on 6 May 1947. Probably expectingwhat would come, Hatt did not turn up in person to hear thereading of the verdict. It was his wife that a week later was servedthe thirty-three pages long document.60

The tribunal gave a mixed verdict. It ruled that Hatt’s quote inthe Nazi students’ magazine was ‘unfortunate’ but not a breach ofthe retroactive law. This was also the case in relation to Hatt’s

f the extraordinary public servants’ tribunal), T.225.

sor Niels Nielsen to Supreme Court Barrister Stegich-Petersen), 5 February

of the extraordinary public servants’ tribunal), 6 May 1947, T.225.

H.G. Larsen / Journal of Historical Geography 47 (2015) 29e3938

lecture in Berlin and the three archaeological lectures at Germanuniversities. But his participation in the Weimar conference, andhis acceptance of an invitation for the conference in Prague,amounted to ‘dishonourable national conduct’. This was becausethe tribunal did not find evidence of support for Hatt’s decisionsfrom the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The private letter to Krenchelwas similarly judged an act of ‘dishonourable national conduct’.Hatt should have known that Krenchel could use the letter in hisradio talks, the judges argued, and the letter could not be consid-ered ‘private’ given that Hatt had only met Krenchel once.

The logic of these rulings may appear odd and it is difficult toescape the impression that the tribunal was engaged in an essen-tially political balancing act. On the one hand, it had to minister ameasure of justice, if according to legally problematic legislation.On the other hand, it seems that the tribunal simultaneously soughtto avoid challenging the prosecution, which represented a keyinstitution in the retribution demanded by many, and to passjudgment on the wartime politicians, who generally remained inpower. (The conduct of politicians during the occupation was forlong investigated by a parliamentary commission; in 1955, theparliament decided not to take any action.) Particularly in relationto the main charge against Hatt, that concerning his statementsmade during the occupation, the tribunal was careful not to pass(adverse) judgement on the politics of cooperation e and its poli-ticians. I will in this respect focus on two facets of the tribunal’sruling.

Firstly, the tribunal rejected Hatt’s claim to present ‘objective’science:

61 H.opretho62 B. O

In the opinion of the tribunal, the statements in the writingsand speeches cited above can neither in form nor in contentbe seen as an objective scientific account of geographical-political perspectives on the European situation [because]the mentioned statements contain both attacks on theBritish-American-Russian politics and a defence of theGerman-Japanese politics [that are] of a purely moralcharacter.

In this respect, the tribunal took notice of the fact that Hatt onone occasion included ‘the Jews’ among the enemies of Germany,but anti-Semitism never became an element in the accusationsagainst him, and nothing suggests that Hatt harboured anti-Semiticsentiments beyond the common stereotypes of the time.

Secondly, and key to its eventual judgment, the tribunal alsorejected Hatt’s claim that he worked in accordance with the politicsof the Danish government. In a judgement that many historianstodaywould support, the judges found that the Danish governmentduring the politics of cooperation generally had bowed to Germandemands and adapted to German politics only when strictlynecessary. Hatt’s statements, on the other hand, could not be seenas ‘a cautious orientation towards the political line demanded bythe occupying power, but must be seen as an essentially uncondi-tional defence of the occupying power. and as an equally definitedemonstration of sympathy for it and against its adversaries’.

The tribunal was on shaky ground as it here passed judgment onsentiments rather than acts, something which ordinarily is notpermitted in Danish legal practice. But these were not normaltimes, and although the tribunal did not find a basis for theaggravating charge that Hatt had ‘afforded the occupation regimesignificant propaganda support’, in respect of his statements duringthe occupation he was found to have engaged in ‘dishonourable

Hoff, Nogle Erfaringer fra Behandlingen af Sager for den ekstraordinære Tjeneslde Sindets Neutralitet’ (note 16), 276.utze, Hjerte og Nyrer gransket og dømt, Information, Copenhagen, 8 May 1947.

national conduct’. While the sentence deprived Hatt of his profes-sorship, the ambiguities that characterised the case and the occu-pation history generally meant that he was not deprived of his statepension. A few years after the trial, the presiding judgewrote a legalanalysis of the extraordinary public servants’ tribunal in which hedevoted several pages to the proceedings against Hatt. He foundlittle to criticise. But seen from the present, Joachim Lund seemsright to conclude that the tribunal in the case against Hatt revealeditself as a ‘sindelagsdomstol’ e a moral court.61

Verdict

Information was one of the newspapers that in spite of the strikeswere published during the trial of Hatt. In its few, typewrittenpages, which brought memories of the papers origins in the un-derground press during the occupation, it found room for a leadingarticle on the verdict by its renowned editor, Børge Outze. ‘Backedby a chair in human geography’, Hatt had according to the editor

temand

made himself a preacher for the pseudo-scientific quackerythat went by the name of geopolitics, debased our highestinstitution of learning and acted as the Nazis’ sycophant witha willingness that made Nic. Blædel characterise him as ‘theharlot of science’.62

The paper certainly had not warmed to Hatt since its wartimeportrait. Still, this voice from the resistance movement objected tothe verdict, not because it found that Hatt should be spared, butrather because he was convicted for ‘sympathies’ while the politi-cians and the establishment behind the politics of cooperationwent free. With venomous irony, the editor congratulated thetribunal in finding a method to ‘scrutinise the heart and liver of theculprit and convict him on the results of its research.’

Information’s editor recognised the crux of the matter of Hattand his activities in the context of World War II and the Nazi-German occupation of Denmark. His conception of (political) ge-ography as an objective sciencewas by nomeans unusual. Norwerehis geopolitical views of the world conflict particularly radical atthe time. If anything, he added a small-state perspective thatmodified the better-known great-power geopolitics, and there is noreason to doubt that he did what he truly found would be best forhis country. But he did this at a time of fast-changing moods andevents, and in contrast to great-power geo-politicians, who could‘lose’ or ‘win’ with their respective states, he practiced in a smalland highly exposed state inwhich both the elite and the populationhad to adjust continuously to the changes in the storm that playedhavoc with the continent. Hatt should have some credit forstanding firm on what he thought best and right. Yet his rigidmaterialism blinded him to the role of ideologies, making himunable to recognise that politics is more than a chessboard ofbalancing geo-material power. Hatt fell victim to his own rigidity,while those he sought to aid, to the consternation of Information’seditor, generally played a more sophisticated power game, man-aging to wriggle themselves e and, it can be argued, Denmark as awhole e out of a dire historical moment. Still, that Hatt persistedwith almost suicidal ferocity in his quest takes us beyond rationalexplanation. Intellectual pride, a complicated personal psychologyand a certain political naivety probably played a part.

Towards the end of his life, Hatt’s reputation was graduallyrecuperated. He maintained distance from the small community ofDanish geographers. But he reappeared at themeetings of the Royal

sdomstol, Ugeskrift for Retsvæsen, Afdeling B, Copenhagen, 1949; Lund, ‘At

H.G. Larsen / Journal of Historical Geography 47 (2015) 29e39 39

Danish Academy where Niels Bohr personally welcomed his return(according to an obituary that also referred to Hatt as ‘the greatscholar’). And shortly before his death, a group of former studentshonoured him with a special issue of the archaeological yearbook,Kuml.63 Yet he never recovered from the injustice he felt wasinflicted on him. Harald Bergstedt, the social-democratic poet whoin 1942 joined the Danish Nazi party, was among those interrogated

63 N. Blædel, Gudmund Hatt e den store forsker død, Politiken, Copenhagen, 28 Januar64 Report from interrogation of Harald Bergstedt, 5 February 1947, T.225. Bergstedt workto contact Hatt.

during preparations for the Hatt trial. He was hardly a reliablewitness. But from the prison, where he was serving a sentence fornational disloyalty, Bergstedt was likely close to being right whenhe said: ‘Hatt was not German-friendly or English-friendly orRussian-friendly. He was rather sceptical towards everythinghuman, and this scepticism he himself felt as somewhat aburden.’64

y 1960; Kuml: Årbog for Jysk Arkæologisk Selskab 1959, Århus, 1959.ed for Globus and according to this report it was he who had encouraged the editor