99 pages • 3 hours read
Phillip M. HooseThe Boys Who Challenged Hitler: Knud Pedersen and the Churchill Club
Nonfiction | Biography | YA | Published in 2015A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Chapters 2-3Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 2 Summary: “The RAF Club”
As an introduction to Chapter 2, Hoose explains that Hitler is interested in Denmark for its fertile farmlands and strategic geographical location between Germany, England, and Sweden, which provides iron ore essential to the Germany army. Hitler regards the blond and blue-eyed Danes as “model Aryans” (17), part of an elite master race that will rule alongside Germans once he conquers the world.
Knud’s peaceful family life changes. His father Edvard preaches anti-Nazi sermons and forbids Knud and his older brother Jens from joining the Boy Scouts, fearing that it will be taken over by Hitler Youth and become a funnel for the Germany Army. At night the family listens to news of the war on the English BBC radio. Knud, Jens, and their cousins read about the German slaughter of the Norwegians and are deeply ashamed of their own country’s non-resistance. Frustrated by the inaction of the adults, Knud and Jens meet with their cousin Hans, Knud’s best friend, Knud Hedelund (known as “Little Knud”), and a boy named Harald Holm to discuss forming a resistance unit. Jens wants to wait to start until they have more members, but is overruled by the other boys, who want to begin immediately. They call themselves the RAF Club in honor of the British Royal Air Force (RAF), which, though outnumbered, valiantly and successfully wages the Battle of Britain against Germany in the summer of 1940. Knud and his friends vow to use their bicycles as the British pilots use their planes.
The club’s first action is to vandalize German signs in the central square. They do it in broad daylight on their bicycles: “We struck lightning-fast and got out of there” (21). The next day, they cut German telephone lines. The RAF Club continues these acts of sabotage for several weeks, developing a reputation around Odense. Threatening to take over the Danish police, the Germans order the Danes to find and punish the saboteurs. Eight Odense police officers begin investigating, offering a large sum of money for any information about the perpetrators.
Later in the war, more Danes would commit acts of sabotage on bicycles, leading Hitler to order the confiscation of all unsold bikes from shops in 1944.
Chapter 3 Summary: “The Churchill Club”
In the spring of 1941, Edvard receives a new assignment from the church and the family moves to live in a medieval monastery in Aalborg. The city is swarming with German soldiers, stationed there in large numbers due to Aalborg’s airport, an important refueling station for them on the way to Norway.
Knud and Jens enroll at the Cathedral School. Knud befriends Helge Milo and Eigil Astrup-Frederiksen, and he invites them to join the RAF Club. He takes them on their first sabotage mission, cutting wires near German barracks. Helge and Eigil panic and retreat. On the way back, they shout the slur “field mattress”(30) at a Danish woman they see talking with German soldiers. The soldiers chase them down and nearly bayonet them, but the boys talk themselves out of the situation.
One day just before Christmas 1941, Knud, Jens, and a group of their friends are at the monastery. Having just returned from holiday shopping, they are in high spirits. The mood changes as they begin to discuss the killing of Norwegians. Knud is thrilled to discover that other boys are as angry as he is. He and Jens reveal their sabotage activities. Two of the older boys believe it is a crazy idea, but the rest are excited. They form the Churchill Club, an Aalborg version of the RAF Club.
The next day, the club meets in Jens’ room after school. They are joined by Børge, the younger brother of one of the older boys who was too scared to join the club the day before. Jens divides the club into three units: propaganda, technical, and sabotage. Knud volunteers for sabotage. Mogens Fjellerup (nicknamed “the Professor”),a brilliant physicist who has special access to the school’s physics lab, joins the technical department. The club also adds a “passive department”(36), made up of members unwilling to participate in sabotage who are nevertheless sympathetic to the club’s aims and help it by raising money and acquiring materials, such as the paint needed for propaganda work. The club lays down rules. Members are prohibited against telling adults of their activities and new members must “commit a serious act of sabotage such as stealing a German weapon” (37).
Chapters 2-3 Analysis
Just as wartime creates tension between Danes who want to resist and those who don’t, the boys’ formation of a resistance unit reveals the characters of their friends and classmates. While most are against the occupation, not all are brave enough for sabotage work. The first mission on which Knud invites Helge and Eigil is a significant episode for what it indicates about fear and bravery. Although both Helge and Eigil eventually become important members of the club, they panic when it is time to cut the wires at the German barracks. On their way back from their failed sabotage attempt, Eigil and Helge shout a sexist slur at a woman they see talking with Germans, a cowardly expression of resistance that stems from their embarrassment at having been overcome by fear at the barracks. The boys are not fearless, but both will show great courage by learning to act despite their fears.
The boys’ division of the club into its three units shows a striving for some organization and professionalism. Action-hungry Knud is naturally drawn to sabotage work. The formation of the technical department, responsible for building bombs, hints at the larger ambitions of the club for the future, while the propaganda section relates to one of the primary goals of the club, the awakening of Danish resistance. Compared to official German propaganda and censorship, the boys’ graffiti of their insignia is trivial, but they have faith in its power to affect the mentality of the local population.
The differences in the characters of Knud and Jens cause friction from the outset of their resistance work. They are equally determined to resist the Nazis, but their approaches vary. Jens, who is gifted at math, prefers to plan carefully, while Knud, the artist, is more of a doer than a planner and is inclined toward immediate action. These differences continue to lead to conflict between the brothers throughout their resistance work.
Occupied Denmark is in a somewhat unique position. Unlike countries like Poland and Britain, Hitler believes that Danes shared a racial affinity with Germans and wants them to occupy an elite place in his new world order. For this reason, the conquered Danish people are treated less harshly than the residents of some other occupied states. Although the Germans wanted the RAF and Churchill Clubs stopped and punished, their potential retribution was not as severe as they would have been in another place. For this reason, some Danes collaborated with the Nazis or simply did not think resistance was worth it. Despite the Danes’ relatively privileged position under the Nazis, the Pedersen family rejects Hitler’s vision and bravely resists it throughout the war.
The Holy Ghost Monastery, introduced in Chapter 3 as the new home of the Pedersen family, comes to serve as an important base for the Danish resistance. “Perfect for secret meetings” (52), the medieval building provides a base and a laboratory for the Churchill Club, and later serves as a hiding place for adult resisters.
