The sculpture is both a piece of art and a historic monument from World War II.

‘The Girder’ is testimony of the night between January 14th and 15th 1945, when the electronics factory Bang & Olufsen was blown up by the Schalburg Corps (Danish Nazis working for the Germans).

The reason for this dramatic event was that many of the factory workers were part of the Danish resistance movement, and helped printing illegal magazines, as well as hiding weapons in the factory.

The deformed girder is proof of how powerful the explosive charge was (80 kilos of explosives were detonated). It has been told that the explosion could be heard all the way to Herning.

However, Bang & Olufsen was not to be destroyed – they were back on their feet in no time like a phoenix. Cleaning was begun the day after Schalburg Day, and the first division of the factory was ready on September 22nd 1945. Total reconstruction was finished only a year later.

‘The Girder’ stands in front of the new factory, and is a sculptural memory of that fateful night during World War II.

Copyright Struer Museum