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.
Introduction-Chapter 1Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Introduction Summary
In the summer of 2000, Phillip Hoose goes on a bicycle tour of Denmark. In Copenhagen, he visits the Museum of Danish Resistance, where he learns about the Churchill Club, a group of teenage boys who committed acts of vandalism, arson, and property destruction between December 1941 and May 1942 to resist the German occupation of Denmark. Hoose explains that while Denmark’s resistance to the Nazi invasion is famous, the Danes struggled to get it started for the first two years of the occupation, which lasted between 1940 and 1945. The Churchill Club played an important role in inspiring their countrymen to revolt against Hitler.
Hoose learns from the curator that some of the boys are still alive. He contacts Knud Pedersen, the most famous and knowledgeable member of the club, who replies that another American writer has already contracted the story. Hoose files away the email correspondence for nearly a decade. In 2012, Hoose is looking for a project and comes upon the emails in his file. He writes to Knud, inquiring about the other American’s book. Knud replies that the other book project has fallen through, and that now Hoose is free to write the story of the Churchill Club. Knud wants to begin working with Hoose immediately.
After picking up Hoose from the airport in Copenhagen, Knud drives him to his art library, which loans paintings to patrons for several weeks at a time. Founded by Pedersen in 1957, the art library is now beloved by Danes and is famous around the world.
Hoose interviews Knud about the Churchill Club for a week. Ashamed of Denmark’s immediate surrender to the German invasion and inspired by the fierce resistance of the Norwegians, Knud assembled a group of boys to conduct sabotage against the Nazis. They called themselves the Churchill Club in honor of Winston Churchill, the wartime leader of Great Britain. The Germans eventually ordered the Danish authorities to capture and punish the boys. The Churchill Club’s sabotage activities and the subsequent persecution of its members inspired Danes to start openly resisting their Nazi occupiers.
Chapter 1 Summary: “OPROP!”
Knud Pedersen, a 14-year-old boy, is having breakfast with his family on April 9, 1940 when low-flying German warplanes drop leaflets on their city of Odense. In a jumble of German, Danish, and Norwegian, the leaflets declare that Denmark is now a “protectorate” (6) of Germany. Knud looks around at his neighbors. Some are furious while others welcome the Germans. On the same day, German soldiers conduct Operation Weserübung, a military invasion of Denmark that is complete by noon. They sneak into Copenhagen on a merchant ship and spread through the city, seizing control of key buildings. They invade other cities in airplanes, ships, trains, and with paratroopers.
The following day Prime Minister Thorvald Stauning and King Christian X officially agree to the occupation. Sixteen thousand more German soldiers arrive. In Odense, they set up barracks and command centers in “hotels, factories, and schools” (11). They also erect street signs in German and string up miles of telephone lines for the army’s use. At night, the troops explore Odense and march through the streets singing folk songs, which Knud finds ridiculous.
Knud is a good student who loves drawing and painting. The son of a reverend, he has a happy childhood surrounded by a large loving family and many friends. Every morning, he meets his cousin Hans at the library, where they practice drawing. Prior to the invasion, Knud does not know or care much about politics. The Pedersen family visited Germany in 1937 and were impressed with the way Hitler’s Nazi regime had pulled the country out of the worldwide economic depression.
When Germany invades Denmark, Knud starts to pay attention to news of politics and war. He is deeply ashamed of Denmark’s leaders for surrendering to Hitler so easily, especially in contrast to Norway, which fought Germany for two months before surrendering on land and continuing the fight at sea. In Denmark, Knud sees Nazi propaganda about happy Hitler Youth infiltrates the schools: “It was easy to see that it was all crap” (15). Many of Knud’s teachers are Nazi sympathizers, and the occupation, which is on everyone’s mind, is nevertheless a taboo subject at school.
Introduction-Chapter 1 Analysis
In April 1940, when Hitler invades Denmark and Norway, World War II is already well underway. The Nazis invaded Poland and officially declared war on Britain and France the previous fall. Still, Knud is only distantly aware of the war until it comes to Denmark. His life, until that point, is idyllic. He is absorbed in his artistic pursuits and happily ensconced in a tightly knit community based in his family’s church.
The occupation marks an important stage in Knud’s transition from his happily oblivious childhood to adulthood, a process that continues throughout the arc of The Boys Who Challenged Hitler. After April 9, 1940, Knud becomes keenly interested in politics and war. He is also forced to grapple with the failure of his country’s adults to protect his homeland. The invasion reveals that, at 14 years old, Knud already has a defined moral compass and strong sense of patriotism. Despite his young age, he is astute enough to see through the German propaganda. His realization of the fallibility of the adult authorities disillusions him and prompts him to take initiative on his own to act against the Germans.
The Pedersen family at first admired Hitler and the Nazi party. After a 1937 trip to Germany, they even pinned a swastika to their car, which may seem incongruous with their later opposition to the Nazis. Like many others in the 1930s, the Pedersens admired Germany’s recovery from the depression and were misled about Hitler’s plans for world domination.
Hoose employs a unique mix of third-person narrative and Knud’s first-person storytelling for his account of the Churchill Club. The ongoing shift in perspective allows Hoose to provide factual context alongside Knud’s memories of his thoughts, emotions, and actions. This structure has the effect of bringing the historical account to life, making it vivid and relatable. In historiographical terms, Knud’s account is a primary source, an account from a first-hand witness of historical events, while Hoose’s third-person passages are a secondary source that provide analysis and context.
