The War Years

During the late 1930s, the Danish government had been slowly preparing for the threat from Nazi Germany, and building-up their own military forces in case of invasion. Included in those preparations was a plan to equip the Danish army with motorcycles - many of them would be Fisker and Nielsen's Nimbus solo's, and sidecar combinations fitted with machine guns. The Nimbus was particularly suited to war - being light in weight, easy to start, reliable, straightforward to repair and maintain - not requiring any specialist engineering skills to keep it on the move.

The Nazis invaded and occupied Denmark on 9th April 1940 in a lightning-like strike. Denmark was taken by surprise and completely over-run by the might of Hitler's forces in a multi-pronged air, land, and sea attack, the whole event lasting just a few hours.

As was the situation then, Danish engineering factories were 'persuaded' to manufacture goods for the Nazi war effort. Some of the Danish factories capitulated to this for an easy life (so to speak), and these factories themselves became the targets of a Danish 'underground resistance' movement through acts of sabotage and bombing.

In 1941, Fisker and Nielsen's entire stock of 100 previously completed and paid-for Nimbus motorcycles awaiting shipping to a customer were commandeered by the occupiers.

No, the Nimbus factory was not being co-operative with the Nazis - far from it. In passive non-cooperation, Fisker and Nielsen continued to make great vacuum cleaners, but they deliberately slowed-down the production of motorcycles almost to nothing, claiming labour and material shortages to be responsible. Secretly hidden among the myriad paraphernalia of vacuum manufacture, the factory produced a small, but constant trickle of Nimbus motorcycles and guns for the resistance movement in Copenhagen. Consequently, the Fisker and Nielsen manufacturing plant was never harmed by any 'underground' actions.

By 1945 Fisker and Nielsen had made just 637 motorcycles in the whole of the war period 1940 to 45 - including the 100 'stolen' in 1940. Nimbus motorcycles of this period are particularly desirable by collectors, especially those fitted with period wartime accessories such as German army convoy lighting systems or machine gun mountings.