Kjeld Toft-Christensen (10 March 1910 – 27 November 1945) MC was a

Special Operations Executive The Special Operations Executive (SOE) was a secret British World War II organisation. It was officially formed on 22 July 1940 under Minister of Economic Warfare Hugh Dalton, from the amalgamation of three existing secret organisations. Its pu ...

officer and Danish resistance fighter during the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. Toft-Christensen was born in

Copenhagen Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan ar ...

to Aage and Elna Elise (née Bonnelycke) Toft-Christensen but later emigrated and joined the

French Foreign Legion The French Foreign Legion (french: Légion étrangère) is a corps of the French Army which comprises several specialties: infantry, Armoured Cavalry Arm, cavalry, Military engineering, engineers, Airborne forces, airborne troops. It was created ...

. During the Second World War he served with the

Free French Free France (french: France Libre) was a political entity that claimed to be the legitimate government of France following the dissolution of the Third Republic. Led by French general , Free France was established as a government-in-exile ...

North Africa North Africa, or Northern Africa is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region, and it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of Mauritania in ...

before he left for

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

where he joined the

British Army The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurk ...

. He was trained as a parachutist and in sabotage tactics in the Buffs (

Royal East Kent Regiment The Buffs (Royal East Kent Regiment), formerly the 3rd Regiment of Foot, was a line infantry regiment of the British Army traditionally raised in the English county of Kent and garrisoned at Canterbury. It had a history dating back to 1572 and ...

) and obtained the rank of Lieutenant. On 4 April 1944 he was dropped into Skive in Denmark to assist the local resistance under the codename "Dahl". Kjeld Toft-Christensen joined the resistance in

Aarhus Aarhus (, , ; officially spelled Århus from 1948 until 1 January 2011) is the second-largest city in Denmark and the seat of Aarhus Municipality. It is located on the eastern shore of Jutland in the Kattegat sea and approximately northwest ...

as a liaison and intelligence officer. He became a part of the newly formed

L-groups The L-groups (Danish: L-gruppe) was a resistance group tasked with assassination of Danish collaborators and German forces occupying Denmark during the Second World War. The precursor to the group was established in 1940, but it was most active fr ...

, focused on assassinations, and worked primarily in and around Aarhus. On 29 April 1945 the Danish interpreter and informant Olaf Christian Quist (Dr. Peters) walked from his room at the

Gestapo The (), abbreviated Gestapo (; ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one organi ...

headquarters in the Old City Hall to the restaurant in Hotel Royal with three Gestapo officers. Christian Quist worked as interpreter during interrogations of resistance fighters and had long been wanted dead by the resistance. Kjeld Toft-Christensen happened to be in the hotel when Christian Quist was seated. Toft-Christensen approached the table and shot Christian Quist twice in the head and then opened fire on the 3 German officers who were incapacitated, wounded or killed. Toft-Christensen subsequently left the hotel and went to a scheduled meeting with his resistance group. The episode earned Kjeld Toft-Christensen some fame and admiration among fellow resistance fighters and it stands as one of the more daring operations in Aarhus during the war. Kjeld Toft-Christensen survived the war but committed suicide on 27 November 1945. He was posthumously awarded the British

Military Cross The Military Cross (MC) is the third-level (second-level pre-1993) military decoration awarded to officers and (since 1993) other ranks of the British Armed Forces, and formerly awarded to officers of other Commonwealth countries. The MC i ...

in 1946.

References

;Publications * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Toft-Christensen, Kjeld 1910 births 1945 deaths Special Operations Executive personnel Recipients of the Military Cross People from Copenhagen 1945 suicides Suicides in Denmark Free French military personnel of World War II British Army personnel of World War II Buffs (Royal East Kent Regiment) officers