Georg Ferdinand Duckwitz

In November 1932, he met Gregor Strasser, the leader of the leftist branch of the German nationalistic Nazi Party, in Bremen.

Over the course of their conversation, Duckwitz found that "elements of Scandinavian socialism [were] connected with nationalistic feelings" and subsequently decided to enroll in the party.

In a 4 June 1935 letter to Alfred Rosenberg, the head of the office, he wrote, "My two-year employment in the Reichsleitung [i.e. executive branch] of the [Nazi Party] has made me realize that I am so fundamentally deceived in the nature and purpose of the National Socialist movement that I am no longer able to work within this movement as an honest person".

[3] Around the same time, the Gestapo (secret police) made its first notes on Duckwitz after he had sheltered three Jewish women in his Kurfürstendamm apartment during a local antisemitic Sturmabteilung event.

There, he contacted Swedish Prime Minister Per Albin Hansson and asked whether Sweden would be willing to receive Danish Jewish refugees.

[citation needed] Back in Denmark on 29 September, Duckwitz contacted the Danish Social Democrat Hans Hedtoft and notified him of the intended deportation.

Sympathetic Danes in all walks of life organized a mass escape of over 7,200 Jews and 700 of their non-Jewish relatives by sea to Sweden.