Day 25. Uafhængighedsdag.

Today there were no morning parades, no afternoon barbecues, no nighttime fireworks. Still, I felt my patriotic obligation to do something at least semi-American on Independence Day -- or Uafhængighedsdag in Danish. Around noon, I made a pilgrimage to the FDR memorial statue, which sits on a leafy boulevard along Sankt Annes Plads.

The bronze disembodied head of Mr. Roosevelt is, to my knowledge, the only statue of an American in Copenhagen (Randers, in the west, has an entire Elvis Presley museum). That FDR would have this singular honor makes sense. In 1940, the Nazis marched north into Denmark, quickly establishing a puppet government and planning an attack on the far more strategically-valuable Norway. Though the occupation was relatively bloodless, the Germans nonetheless tossed Danish sovereignty aside. 

Denmark therefore benefited when the Allied forces prevailed in 1945. I suppose this sculpture is a thank-you, though I'm not certain. The Danes gave the American government a former Nazi-owned mansion as a token of gratitude for the liberation; that same mansion is now the US ambassador's residence.