The Blekinge Street Gang () was a Danish far-left criminal group. Between December 1972 and May 1989, they committed robberies and sent the money to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. One police officer was killed by the group during exchange of gunfire during their final robbery in 1988. The 1989 discovery of a large cache of their weapons and explosives in a hideout on Blekingegade ("Blekinge Street") gave the gang its press name. The gang referred to themselves as the inner core of three organizations named , Kommunistisk Ungdoms Forbund, and .Peter Øvig Knudsen, Blekingegadebanden 1: Den danske celle, Gyldendal 2007, (in Danish)Peter Øvig Knudsen, Blekingegadebanden 2: Den hårde kerne, Gyldendal 2007, (in Danish). The timeline on pages 516 to 523 was especially usefulJørgen Moos as told to Jeppe Facious and Anders Peter Mathiasen, Blekingegadebetjenten, Peoples's Press 2007, (Police memoirs in Danish)Niels Jørgensen, Torkil Lauesen and Jan Weimann: (It is About Politics) in Social Kritik Issue 117, Volume 21, March 2009, ISSN 0904-3535, pp 4-61, includes four pages of references.
Modus operandi All crimes after 1972 were committed to provide money or weapons to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).
During the preparation phase, they maintained absolute secrecy, never said anything on the phone, made sure they were not followed, and did not tell their families. Each big heist was usually preceded by weeks or months of detailed planning, preparations and surveillance. The surveillance and stakeouts were usually done on foot or from the back of small, closed vans. When renting cars or apartments, they used stolen identities and false driver licenses, and made sure to avoid using the stolen identities in ways that would be noticed by the victims (such as spending their money). They routinely used professional countersurveillance techniques including spotting unmarked police cars, evasive driving and calling between payphones.
They concealed their identity by using full disguises, which included masks and theatrical makeup. They did not reveal their political affiliation or motives, nor perform public demonstrations of force or terror. During a crime, they never carried any identifying documents. They used freshly stolen getaway vehicles equipped with previously stolen unrelated license plates.
They used a quick in-out approach during robberies: most crimes were completed in a matter of seconds or minutes. They were extremely brutal during the crime to intimidate the victims and avoid casualties. Their goal was to take the loot and getaway cars without relying on the victims to do anything but flee or freeze.
1963—1970
Political activities In 1963, as a result of the Sino-Soviet split, the world's national communist parties split into pro-China (Maoist) and pro-USSR factions. The official Communist Party of Denmark (DKP) sided with Moscow. That year, Gotfred Appel unofficially founded the Communist Task Force (KAK, ) to move the DKP towards Marxist-Leninist-Maoist ideology, and he was expelled from the DKP in September 1963. That same month, Appel founded the publishing and printing company Futura, which took over a lucrative contract to translate and print the Danish language publications of the Chinese embassy. This contract was formerly held by the DKP newspaper Land og Folk, with Appel as the primary contact. Futura also became the publisher of the party newspaper Communist Briefing () and other publications of KAK. Futura's biggest commercial success is the official Danish translation of Mao Zedong's Quotations from Chairman Mao Zedong. In December 1963, Appel formally founded KAK as a new independent "party". On February 8, 1965, KAK organized the first Danish "Vietnam demonstration" against the Vietnam War, and founded the first Danish "Vietnam committee" on January 14, 1966.
Appel's ideological theory was published in an extensive series of articles in Communist Briefing during 1966 and 1967. His "leech state theory" theorized that the rich countries make so much money by exploiting third world countries that even their "poorest" citizens are so rich they are effectively "bribed" into being part of the capitalist bourgeoisie and unlikely to participate in any Communist revolution until this source of wealth dried out due to liberation of the third world. Accordingly, western communists who really wanted a communist ideal state must first help liberate third world countries from western exploitation. This theory was the basis of all future activities in both the party and the gang. The theory was later published as a book.Gotfred Appel: Perspektiver for socialismen i Danmark, Futura 1967 or 1968 During the fall of 1967, Jens Holger Jensen became acquainted with Appel during a small one-man KAK-demonstration and almost immediately began helping out and soon joined KAK.
In September 1967, the Maoists left the youth wing of the DKP, (Communist Youth of Denmark, ), and KAK created its own youth chapter, KUF, with its own newspaper The Young Communist (), on March 26, 1968. During 1968, the Maoists left KAK and formed the Communist Association Marxists - Lenininsts (KFML; ), later renamed to the Communist Workers Party (KAP; ). The Chinese embassy cancelled the publishing contract with Futura on July 30, 1969, as Appel insisted that the various student uprisings in the west were not the start of a new communist revolution, but merely internal strife in the bourgeoisie, from which new communists could be recruited. The official National People's Congress had passed a resolution to the contrary. From this point on, KAK was solely based on Marxism-Leninism and Appel's theories.
Criminal activities
KUF was a main participant in violent demonstrations against the Vietnam War on April 27, 1968, and against the John Wayne movie The Green Berets on May 5, 1969. PFLP was founded in the Middle East in December 1967, with a communist agenda for post-liberation Palestine. In October 1969, two KUF members were the first Westerners to train in PFLP training camps in Jordan: blacksmith Gert Rasmussen and toolsmith Hans "Xander" Truelsen. When PFLP wanted to train them for a specific operation, Rasmussen fled home to Denmark and was expelled from the KUF for "unreliable and indecent behaviour". Xander left the KUF before the real gang activity began in 1972.
From June to July 1970, Jensen, Peter Døllner and Jørgen Poulsen were in PFLP training camps in Lebanon and Jordan. During those months Carlos the Jackal was also trained in PFLP camps in Lebanon and Jordan, but may not have met the KUF members. Around the same time founders of the German RAF were also trained in Palestinian camps in the near Middle East, and Oevig said they also trained in PFLP camps, while later sources clarified that the RAF founders had rather trained in Fatah camps in Jordan. Appel and Ulla Hauton visited the PFLP in Jordan from September 1 to 22, 1970, including a visit to the site of the infamous triple Dawson's Field hijackings. They escaped the country just as the Jordan government struck back during Black September.
While Appel and Hauton were abroad, KUF attempted arson with Molotov cocktails on the Bella Center on September 8, 1970, in an unsuccessful attempt to prevent the 1970 World Bank Summit, and spearheaded violent demonstrations against the World Bank Summit from September 20 to 25. Gotfred Appel only avoided arrest as he could prove he was in Jordan at the time. Hans "Xander" Truelsen spent three weeks in prison. On November 21, 1970, Niels Jørgensen was arrested for pro-PFLP graffiti.
1970 to 1977
Political activities Inspired by the Canadian Liberation Support Movement, KAK founded the charity Clothes to Africa (TTA, ) in July 1972, collecting used clothing and other used items which they cleaned up and sent to refugee camps run by like-minded third-world liberation movements. The first shipment weighed 0.9 tons, and was shipped to the MPLA from Angola in 1972. They sent a further 8.7 tons to FRELIMO in Mozambique and PFLOAG in Oman in 1973, 4.7 tons to FRELIMO in 1974, 13.3 tons to MPLA, PFLO in Oman, and ZANU in Zimbabwe in 1975, 9.1 tons ZANU in 1976, and 27.3 tons to ZANU in 1977.
Criminal activities To avoid further troubles with the police, KAK/KUF was converted from a very active group of violent demonstrators to a very secret underground cell in late 1970; led by Appel, Hauton and Jensen. The former top activist Hans "Xander" Truelsen refused to participate and left the organisation.
The gang allegedly staged a number of coups, and is suspected of robbing a transport of cash to the local branch of the unemployment fund of the Unskilled Workers Union on December 9, 1975. The amount robbed was DKK 0.5 million (US$81,000).U.S. Federal Reserve: Historic exchange rates before 1989, retrieved on May 22, 2008 On September 2, 1976, the gang allegedly robbed a transport of cash from a post office, which yielded DKK 0.55 million (US$91,000). The gang allegedly used fake duplicate tax return money orders (each with a small realistic amount) and fake drivers licenses to defraud the Postal service of a total amount of DKK 1.4 million (US$240,000) on November 8, 1976).
Appel, Hauton, Jensen, and possibly another KAK member negotiated with Wadi Haddad in Baghdad, Iraq, in February 1977. There are two conflicting versions of these negotiations: In 1988–1989 Gottfred Appel told the police that those present were himself, Ulla Hauton, Jens Holger Jensen and Wadi Haddad (of those, only Gottfred Appel was alive at the time of the interrogation), and claimed that Wadi Haddad wanted KAK to assist in terrorist operations, but that KAK refused, although Jens Holger Jensen wanted to participate. In 2009, the gang claimed that this version of the story was intended to make the police believe that Appel would never participate in any crimes, but that the young breakaways in KA might do such things, while not incriminating any living persons. In 2008–2009, the gang claimed that those present were an undisclosed gang member, Gottfred Appel, Ulla Hauton, Jens Holger Jensen and Wadi Haddad (of those, only the undisclosed member was alive in 2008/2009). The meeting was to evaluate the political relevance of cooperating with Wadi Haddad's PFLP-EO in addition to George Habash's PFLP. Wadi Hadded did not want to discuss politics at all and all four KAK members agreed that PFLP-EO was too elitist and not rooted in the Palestinian people, and thus not worthy of KAK's cooperation.
In 1977, Jensen may have staked out Palma de Mallorca Airport in preparation of the joint PFLP/RAF Landshut Hijacking, according to the Appel account of the meeting with Haddad in February 1977.
1977 to 1988 Collective Liberation Support
Political activities A grand meeting of the KAK membership expelled Hauton on May 4, 1978, and due to his insistence, also Appel. In the aftermath, Appel secured the legal rights to the name KAK, and the majority changed the name to Communist Workgroup (KA, or M-KA, ), the publishing company was renamed from Futura to Manifest, and the newspaper from Communist Briefing to Manifest. Where KAK had a single unchallenged leader, KA installed a collective leadership roughly consisting of active gang members. In August 1978, the majority split into two groups: KA focused on resuming interrupted legal and illegal activity, while the Marxist Workgroup (MAG, ) focused on analysing the organisational failure and dissolved in 1980. KA was formally established on September 3, 1978.