Grethe Bartram

Maren Margrethe Thomsen, known as Maren Margrethe "Grethe" Bartram and "Thora" (23 February 1924 – 23 January 2017), was a Danish woman who informed on at least 53 people from the Danish resistance movement during the Second World War, resulting in the early communist resistance groups being dismantled and many of their members being sent to Nazi concentration camps. Bartram informed on her brother, husband and close acquaintances.

Bartram was sentenced to death for treason after the war. The sentence was commuted to life in prison in 1947. In 1956 she was released and moved to Halland in Sweden where she lived under her married name.

Background Grethe Bartram was born in Aarhus, and grew up in a poor household, the second of eight children; both her parents were members of the Communist Party of Denmark (DKP), as were the social circles of the family. Her father, Niels Peter Christopher Bartram (born 1896), was from southern Jutland and participated in World War I on the German side. He suffered from shellshock from the war and found it difficult to work but managed to operate a small bicycle repair shop in Midtbyen, Aarhus.

Thereafter, Bartram participated in illegal activities with people involved with the resistance movement. In March–April 1944, she was hired as an agent by the Gestapo and in June the Samsing Group and an affiliated group of University students were arrested and eventually deported to Neuengamme concentration camp. The communist resistance groups in Aarhus and across central Jutland were essentially neutralized.

Resistance members still had high confidence in Bartram at the time and in August 1944 she was sent to Copenhagen as a representative to establish new leadership for the resistance in Aarhus. The resistance subsequently became suspicious of her, so she arranged to be arrested and imprisoned in Frøslev Prison Camp to allay this. It did not help and the resistance attempted to kill her on several occasions, succeeding in wounding her. She was sent to Germany to recover. In March 1945 she was hired by the Gestapo in Kolding where she worked until the surrender of German forces in Denmark. On the day of surrender, 5 May, she was in the Gestapo headquarters in Esbjerg where she was wounded when the resistance detonated bombs there. She recovered quickly and went by bicycle to Kolding to get help but the Gestapo had already evacuated. Bartram then went to Brejning where she was arrested on 10 May.