The Danish film "Flame and Lemons," also known as " Fleming and Hithern," released in 2008 was a box-office miracle in the country, and it also caused an uproar. The film is based on the true story of two members of the Danish underground resistance who were killed in 1944, their code names were Fire and Lemon. shootout.
In this epic battle, the wounded Lemon, armed with various weapons, fought with about 200 German soldiers and policemen who came to round up for three hours. The number of casualties recorded in the German Gestapo archives was 8 dead and 4 However, according to the information disclosed after the war, the number of German military and police casualties exceeded 30.
Lemon's real name is Jorgen Smith, and his identity is an ordinary car factory worker. He has no service record, but the casualties caused are enough to make the German Gestapo in Copenhagen difficult to talk about. They concealed the details of Lemon's sacrifice in the report: he was not He was shot dead in the room, but after several failed attacks by the Germans, he had to set fire to the house. Lemon in pajamas rushed out of the room with a Sten submachine gun. He was shot to death on the lawn in front of the courtyard. .
In 1982, lawn workers found a pistol used by Lemons whose magazine had exploded in the 1944 fire, leaving a huge hole.
After the film was released, the people of Denmark did not seem to be as tolerant as Chinese audiences to the drama. They made almost critical comments on the historical details in the film. Some people thought that any jokes were disrespectful to history. A former member of the resistance group in his 90s publicly criticized a scene in the film of ambushing a German car. He recalled that he also participated in the operation that day. They killed a German in plainclothes, but there was no film. A German minor represented in was killed.
A bigger controversy arose over the culprit, who betrayed the flames and lemons. Karl Hoffmann, the prototype Gestapo commander in the film, was sentenced to death by a Danish court in 1946, but was quickly commuted to a term of imprisonment. Released in 1951, Hoffman lived in Germany until his death in 1975. In the interrogation recordings or texts he left behind, there was no mention of the spy who betrayed Fire and Lemon, let alone the female spy Katie in the film. Selmer's name.
Katie Selmer was also a member of the Danish underground resistance organization. She had a close relationship with Lemon. After the war, she returned to Denmark from Sweden and lived not far from Lemon's martyrdom. After the war, Denmark's liquidation movement against traitors, Katie was not arrested or censored, she lived to be 74 years old, and died in 1989 (not 90 years old as the film's Chinese subtitles).
The only thing that is suspicious is that, according to Katie's family, she never mentioned what happened in those years. She hardly interacted with outsiders for decades after the war. She always wore a pair of sunglasses when she went out, and she was taciturn at home.
However, this may be due to character and cannot be used as direct evidence.
So what exactly happened on October 15, 1944?
By 1944 Lemon and partner Flame had become the most wanted criminals by the Nazi authorities, carrying out more than one hundred assassinations and sabotage, killing at least two hundred German military police and Danish collaborators. This forced the German authorities, who had always been tolerant of Denmark, to take severe measures. Since the two often disguised themselves as Danish police officers to perform tasks, in September 1944, the Gestapo launched the "Morway" operation to screen the Danish police in Copenhagen one by one. That morning, the police car driven by Flame and Lemon was pulled over.
The Gestapo seized imperial submachine guns and grenades from their car, but did not immediately identify them. They were taken to a school playground to await interrogation. Lemon took advantage of guards and attempted to escape over a wall. A bullet shot through him. lungs, the flames escaped in the chaos.
Lemon was carried into an ambulance, and a German police officer was in charge of escorting him. Lemon, who was seriously injured, sneaked out a pistol hidden in his trousers and shot the policeman three times in a row. The resistance group who came to respond sent him to a hospital for surgery, and was then transferred to 184 Jaegersburg Street in the northern suburbs of Copenhagen to recover.
A nurse named Ellen Marie looked after her, and she became the only witness to the incident. According to her post-war recollections, in the early morning of October 15, 1944, she suddenly heard someone knocking on the door, she opened the door, and three German policemen in leather jackets signaled her to escape, so they broke up and rushed upstairs. She heard the stairs Gunshots rang out, and one policeman rolled in the shoulder, while others helped him escape.
Soon several more German policemen rushed in. Mary deliberately shouted in horror, reminding the location of the Lemon enemy upstairs. After a few seconds, there was the sound of machine guns bursting from upstairs, and Mary saw the door on the first floor. The room was immediately covered with bullet holes, and the room was filled with smoke. She took the opportunity to jump into the garden from the window, and through the bushes saw three Germans, clutching their stomachs, limping out of the house, one of them suddenly planted Stop moving.
A large number of German military police with live ammunition appeared on the highway. Mary fled to a place a few hundred meters away from the building. She could see the grenade exploding on the lawn, the flashes of German machine gun fire, and the smoke from the building getting more and more. concentrated.
Since then, some people have doubted Mary, but her life experience had to make these people shut up. Mary was not only the bravest partisan during World War II, but in the decades after the war, during the Greek Civil War in 1946, and in 1967 During the Six-Day War in Israel, she was always desperate to save the wounded. She devoted herself to the humanitarian relief work of the World Red Cross and won the Nightingale Medal, the highest honor of the International Red Cross.
For this killing operation, the German Gestapo commander Hoffmann explained after the war that they did not know that the lemon was hidden here, and the object of the arrest was the landlord of the building who accidentally discovered the lemon.
However, just three days later, Lemon's partner, Flame, was also rounded up. He committed suicide by taking poison a few minutes before he was caught. Could it be a coincidence? A tall German policeman was seen dragging his body and cursing as he walked, apparently knowing who he was.
For this reason, experts from the Danish Archives and film director Madsen have had a public debate. He believes that relying on subjective whistleblowers is an irresponsible and even defamatory act, but director Madsen insists that the above-mentioned Katie Searle Mo was a whistleblower. He said that just a week after the death of Flame and Lemon, the woman's Swedish account received 20,000 kroner from Denmark, which was exactly the amount of the reward for Flame and Lemon. She refused to mention Flame and Lemon for the rest of her life. verified this.
The director Madsen wants to tell people through this film that the real World War II is not what everyone imagined. Many people are fighting against foreign enemies, but they are also making various small calculations. Even the role of three-sided spies, most of the agents in the film are not really that "serious", only fire and lemons are serious.
Today's 184 Jaegersburg Street still maintains the original appearance before the shootout, but there is no bullet hole to be found. It was completely renovated after the fire in 1944. The current landlord told reporters that he has lived in 30 years and has never Having seen ghosts, times have changed, and people and things in those days have passed away. The questionable Katie Selmer and Gestapo leader Hoffman also passed away after their old age. In another hundred years, no one will remember them, and yet, in another hundred years, the Danes will still remember lemons and flames.
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