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Vidkun Quisling

February 02, 2023

Vidkun Abraham Lauritz Jonssøn Quisling (/ˈkwɪzlɪŋ/, Norwegian: [ˈvɪ̂dkʉn ˈkvɪ̂slɪŋ] (listen); 18 July 1887 – 24 October 1945) was a Norwegian military officer, politician and Nazi collaborator who nominally headed the government of Norway during the country's occupation by Nazi Germany during World War II.

Vidkun Quisling
Quisling, c. 1919
Minister President of Norway
In office
1 February 1942 – 9 May 1945
Preceded byJohan Nygaardsvold
(as Prime Minister)
Succeeded byJohan Nygaardsvold
(as Prime Minister)
Minister of Defence
In office
12 May 1931 – 3 March 1933
Prime MinisterPeder Kolstad
Jens Hundseid
Preceded byTorgeir Anderssen-Rysst
Succeeded byJens Isak Kobro
Fører of the National Gathering
In office
13 May 1933 – 8 May 1945
Preceded byPosition established
Succeeded byPosition abolished
Personal details
Born
Vidkun Abraham Lauritz Jonssøn Quisling

(1887-07-18)18 July 1887
Fyresdal, Telemark, Sweden-Norway
Died24 October 1945(1945-10-24) (aged 58)
Akershus Fortress, Oslo, Norway
Cause of deathExecution by firing squad
Political party
Other political
affiliations
Spouses
ProfessionMilitary officer, politician
Signature

He first came to international prominence as a close collaborator of the explorer Fridtjof Nansen, and through organising humanitarian relief during the Russian famine of 1921 in Povolzhye. He was posted as a Norwegian diplomat to the Soviet Union and for some time also managed British diplomatic affairs there. He returned to Norway in 1929 and served as Minister of Defence in the governments of Peder Kolstad (1931–32) and Jens Hundseid (1932–33) in representing the Farmers' Party.

In 1933, Quisling left the Farmers' Party and founded the fascist Nasjonal Samling (National Union). Although he gained some popularity after his attacks on the political left, his party failed to win any seats in the Storting, and by 1940, it was still little more than peripheral. On 9 April 1940, with the German invasion of Norway in progress, he attempted to seize power in the world's first radio-broadcast coup d'état but failed since the Germans refused to support his government. From 1942 to 1945, he served as Prime Minister of Norway and headed the Norwegian state administration jointly with the German civilian administrator, Josef Terboven. His pro-Nazi puppet government, known as the Quisling regime, was dominated by ministers from Nasjonal Samling. The collaborationist government participated in Germany's war efforts, and sent Jews out of the country to concentration camps in occupied Poland (General Government).

Quisling was put on trial during the legal purge in Norway after World War II. He was found guilty of charges including embezzlement, murder and high treason against the Norwegian state, and was sentenced to death. He was executed by firing squad at Akershus Fortress, Oslo, on 24 October 1945.

Since his death, Quisling has become one of history's most infamous traitors due to his collaboration with Nazi Germany. The term "quisling" has become a byword for "collaborator" or "traitor" in several languages and reflects the contempt with which Quisling's conduct has been regarded both at the time and in the present day.

Early life

Background

Vidkun Abraham Lauritz Jonssøn Quisling ( Norwegian pronunciation (help·info)) was born on 18 July 1887 in Fyresdal, in the Norwegian county of Telemark. He was the son of Church of Norway pastor and genealogist Jon Lauritz Qvisling (1844–1930) and his wife Anna Caroline Bang (1860–1941),[1] the daughter of Jørgen Bang, ship-owner and at the time the richest man in the town of Grimstad in South Norway.[2] The elder Quisling had lectured in Grimstad in the 1870s; one of his pupils was Bang, whom he married on 28 May 1886, following a long engagement. The newly-wed couple promptly moved to Fyresdal, where Vidkun and his younger siblings were born.[2]

 
Vidkun Quisling (far left) with his family, c. 1915

The family name derives from Quislinus, a Latinised name invented by Quisling's ancestor Lauritz Ibsen Quislin (1634–1703), based on the village of Kvislemark near Slagelse, Denmark, whence he had emigrated.[3] Having two brothers and a sister,[4] the young Quisling was "shy and quiet but also loyal and helpful, always friendly, occasionally breaking into a warm smile."[5] Private letters later found by historians also indicate a warm and affectionate relationship between the family members.[6] From 1893 to 1900, his father was a chaplain for the Strømsø borough in Drammen. Here, Vidkun went to school for the first time. He was bullied by other students at the school for his Telemark dialect, but proved a successful student.[7] In 1900, the family moved to Skien when his father was appointed provost of the city.[8]

Academically Quisling proved talented in humanities, particularly history, and natural sciences; he specialised in mathematics. At this point, however, his life had no clear direction.[9] In 1905, Quisling enrolled at the Norwegian Military Academy, having received the highest entrance examination score of the 250 applicants that year.[9] Transferring in 1906 to the Norwegian Military College, he graduated with the highest score since the college's inception in 1817, and was rewarded by an audience with the King.[8][9] On 1 November 1911, he joined the army General Staff.[9] Norway was neutral in the First World War; Quisling detested the peace movement, though the high human cost of the war did temper his views.[10] In March 1918, he was sent to Russia as an attaché at the Norwegian legation in Petrograd, to take advantage of the five years he had spent studying the country.[8][11] Though dismayed at the living conditions he experienced, Quisling nonetheless concluded that "the Bolsheviks have got an extraordinarily strong hold on Russian society" and marvelled at how Leon Trotsky had managed to mobilise the Red Army forces so well;[11] he asserted that by contrast, in granting too many rights to the people of Russia, the Russian Provisional Government under Alexander Kerensky had brought about its own downfall. When the legation was recalled in December 1918, Quisling became the Norwegian military's expert on Russian affairs.[12]

Travels

Paris, Eastern Europe and Norway

In September 1919, Quisling departed Norway to become an intelligence officer with the Norwegian delegation in Helsinki, a post that combined diplomacy and politics.[13] In the autumn of 1921, Quisling left Norway once again, this time at the request of explorer and humanitarian Fridtjof Nansen, and in January 1922 arrived in the Ukrainian capital Kharkiv to help with the League of Nations humanitarian relief effort there.[14][15] Highlighting the massive mismanagement of the area and the death toll of approximately ten thousand a day, Quisling produced a report that attracted aid and demonstrated his administrative skills, as well as his dogged determination to get what he wanted.[16]

Quisling replied [that] the Russian people needed wise leadership and proper training [that they suffered from] indifference, a lack of clearly defined goals with conviction and a happy-go-lucky attitude [and that] it is impossible to accomplish anything without willpower, determination and concentration.

— Alexandra recounts a conversation with her soon-to-be husband, Yourieff 2007, p. 93

On 21 August 1922, he married the Russian Alexandra Andreevna Voronina.[17] Alexandra wrote in her memoirs that Quisling declared his love for her,[18] but from his letters home and investigations undertaken by his cousins, it appeared that there was no romantic involvement between the two, Quisling merely seemed to have wanted to lift the girl out of poverty by providing her with a Norwegian passport and financial security.[19]

Having left Ukraine in September 1922, Quisling and Alexandra returned to Kharkiv in February 1923 to prolong aid efforts, with Nansen describing Quisling's work as "absolutely indispensable."[19][20] In March 1923, Alexandra was pregnant, and Quisling insisted on her having an abortion, which greatly distressed her.[21] Quisling found the situation much improved and, with no fresh challenges, found it a more boring trip than his last. He did however meet Maria Vasiljevna Pasetchnikova (Russian: Мари́я Васи́льевна Па́сечникова), a Ukrainian more than ten years his junior. Her diaries from the time "indicate a blossoming love affair" during the summer of 1923, despite Quisling's marriage to Alexandra the year before.[19] She recalled that she was impressed by his fluent command of the Russian language, his Aryan appearance, and his gracious demeanour.[22] Quisling later claimed to have married Pasetchnikova in Kharkiv on 10 September 1923, although no legal documentation has been discovered. Quisling's biographer, Dahl, believes that in all likelihood the second marriage was never official.[23] Regardless, the couple behaved as though they were married, claimed Alexandra was their daughter, and celebrated their wedding anniversary. Soon after September 1923, the aid mission came to an end and the trio left Ukraine, planning to spend a year in Paris. Maria wanted to see Western Europe; Quisling wanted to get some rest following bouts of stomach pain that had lasted all winter.[23]

 
Quisling and his second wife, Maria

The stay in Paris required a temporary discharge from the army, which Quisling slowly grew to understand was permanent: army cutbacks meant that there would be no position available for him when he returned.[24][nb 1] Quisling devoted much of his time in the French capital to study, reading works of political theory and working on his philosophical project, which he called Universism. On 2 October 1923, he persuaded the Oslo daily newspaper Tidens Tegn to publish an article he had written calling for diplomatic recognition of the Soviet government.[25] Quisling's stay in Paris did not last as long as planned, and in late 1923 he started work on Nansen's new repatriation project in the Balkans, arriving in Sofia in November.

The next two months he spent traveling constantly with his wife Maria. In January, Maria returned to Paris to look after Alexandra, who took on the role of the couple's foster-daughter; Quisling joined them in February.[26] In the summer of 1924, the trio returned to Norway where Alexandra subsequently left to live with an aunt in Nice and never returned.[27] Although Quisling promised to provide for her well-being, his payments were irregular, and over the coming years he would miss a number of opportunities to visit.[28]

Back in Norway, and to his later embarrassment, Quisling found himself drawn into the communist Norwegian labour movement. Among other policies, he fruitlessly advocated a people's militia to protect the country against reactionary attacks,[27] and asked members of the movement whether they would like to know what information the General Staff had on them, but he got no response. Although this brief attachment to the far-left seems unlikely given Quisling's later political direction, Dahl suggests that, following a conservative childhood, he was by this time "unemployed and dispirited ... deeply resentful of the General Staff ... [and] in the process of becoming politically more radical."[29] Dahl adds that Quisling's political views at this time could be summarised as "a fusion of socialism and nationalism," with definite sympathies for the Soviets in Russia.[30]

Russia and the rouble scandal

 
The Armenia commission of the League of Nations. 19 June 1925. From left, sitting, are C.E. Dupuis, Fridtjof Nansen, and G. Carle; standing are Pio Le Savio, and Vidkun Quisling.

In June 1925, Nansen once again provided Quisling with employment. The pair began a tour of Armenia, where they hoped to help repatriate Armenians, including those who survived the Armenian Genocide, via a number of projects proposed for funding by the League of Nations. Despite Quisling's substantial efforts, however, the projects were all rejected. In May 1926, Quisling found another job with long-time friend and fellow Norwegian Frederik Prytz in Moscow, working as a liaison between Prytz and the Soviet authorities who owned half of Prytz's firm Onega Wood.[31] He stayed in the job until Prytz prepared to close down the business in early 1927, when Quisling found new employment as a diplomat. British diplomatic affairs in Russia were being managed by Norway, and he became their new legation secretary; Maria joined him late in 1928. A massive scandal broke when Quisling and Prytz were accused of using diplomatic channels to smuggle millions of roubles onto the black markets, a much-repeated claim that was later used to support a charge of "moral bankruptcy," but neither it nor the charge that Quisling spied for the British has ever been substantiated.[32]

The harder line now developing in Russian politics led Quisling to distance himself from Bolshevism. The Soviet government had rejected outright his Armenian proposals, and obstructed an attempt by Nansen to help with the 1928 Ukrainian famine. Quisling took these rebuffs as a personal insult; in 1929, with the British now keen to take back control of their own diplomatic affairs, he left Russia.[33] He was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for his services to Britain,[33] an honour revoked by King George VI in 1940.[34] By this time, Quisling had also been awarded the Romanian Crown Order and the Yugoslav Order of St. Sava for his earlier humanitarian efforts.[33]

Early political career

Final return to Norway

Having spent nine of the previous twelve years abroad, but with no practical experience in party politics outside the Norwegian Army, Quisling returned to Norway in December 1929, bringing with him a plan for change he termed Norsk Aktion, meaning "Norwegian Action."[35] The planned organisation consisted of national, regional and local units with the intention of recruiting in the style of the Soviet Communist Party. Like Action Française of the French right, it advocated radical constitutional changes. The Parliament of Norway, or Storting, was to become bicameral with the second chamber made up of Soviet-style elected representatives from the working population.[36] Quisling focused more on organisation than the practicalities of government; for instance, all members of Norsk Aktion were to have their own designation in a militaristic hierarchy.[37]

Quisling next sold a large number of antiques and works of art that he had acquired cheaply in post-revolutionary Russia.[38] His collection stretched to some 200 paintings, including works claimed to be by Rembrandt, Goya, Cézanne and numerous other masters. The collection, including "veritable treasures," had been insured for almost 300,000 kroner.[38] In the spring of 1930, he again joined up with Prytz, who was back in Norway. They participated in regular group meetings that included middle-aged officers and business people, since described as "the textbook definition of a Fascist initiative group," through which Prytz appeared determined to launch Quisling into politics.[39]

After Nansen died on 13 May 1930, Quisling used his friendship with the editor of the Tidens Tegn newspaper to get his analysis of Nansen onto the front page. The article was entitled "Politiske tanker ved Fridtjof Nansens død" ("Political Thoughts on the Death of Fridtjof Nansen") and was published on 24 May.[40] In the article, he outlined ten points that would complete Nansen's vision as applied to Norway, among them "strong and just government" and a "greater emphasis on race and heredity."[39] This theme was followed up in his new book, Russia and Ourselves (Norwegian: Russland og vi), which was serialised in Tidens Tegn during the autumn of 1930.[41] Advocating war against Bolshevism, the openly racist book catapulted Quisling into the political limelight.[39] Despite his earlier ambivalence, he took up a seat on the Oslo board of the previously Nansen-led Fatherland League. Meanwhile, he and Prytz founded a new political movement, Nordisk folkereisning i Norge, or "Nordic popular rising in Norway," with a central committee of 31 and Quisling as its fører – a one-man executive committee – though Quisling seemed to have had no particular attachment to the term.[42] The first meeting of the league took place on 17 March 1931, stating the purpose of the movement was to "eliminate the imported and depraved communist insurgency."[43]

Defence minister

 
Quisling (seated, right) as defence minister in the Kolstad government in 1931

Quisling left Nordisk folkereisning i Norge in May 1931 to serve as defence minister in the Agrarian government of Peder Kolstad, despite being neither an Agrarian nor a friend of Kolstad.[44] He had been suggested to Kolstad for the post by Thorvald Aadahl, editor of the Agrarian newspaper Nationen, who was in turn influenced by Prytz.[45] The appointment came as a surprise to many in the Parliament of Norway.[46] Quisling's first action in the post was to deal with the aftermath of the Battle of Menstad, an "extremely bitter" labour dispute, by sending in troops.[45][47][48] After narrowly avoiding criticism by the left wing over his handling of the dispute, and the revelation of his earlier "militia" plans, Quisling turned his attention to the perceived threat posed by communists.[49] He created a list of the Revolutionary Trade Union Opposition leadership, who had been the alleged agitators at Menstad; a number of them were eventually charged with subversion and violence against the police.[45] Quisling's policies also resulted in the establishment of a permanent militia called the Leidang which, unlike the body he had previously planned, was to be counter-revolutionary. Despite the ready availability of junior officers in the reserve following defence cuts, only seven units were established in 1934, and funding restrictions meant that the enterprise included less than a thousand men before it faded away.[50] Sometime during the period 1930–33, Quisling's first wife, Asja, received notice of the annulment of her marriage to him.[51]

In mid-1932 Nordisk folkereisning i Norge was forced to confirm that even though Quisling remained in the cabinet, he would not become a member of the party. They further stated that the party programme had no basis in fascism of any kind, including the National Socialism model.[50] This did not dampen criticism of Quisling, who remained constantly in the headlines, although he was gradually earning a reputation as a disciplined and efficient administrator.[50] After he was attacked in his office by a knife-wielding assailant who threw ground pepper in his face on 2 February 1932, some newspapers, instead of focusing on the attack itself, suggested that the assailant had been the jealous husband of one of Quisling's cleaners; others, especially those aligned with the Labour Party, posited that the whole thing had been staged.[52][53] In November 1932, Labour politician Johan Nygaardsvold put this theory to Parliament,[54] prompting suggestions that charges of slander be brought against him.[55] No charges were brought, and the identity of the assailant has never been confirmed. Quisling later indicated it was an attempt to steal military papers recently left by Swedish Lieutenant Colonel Wilhelm Kleen.[52][nb 2] The so-called "pepper affair" served to polarise opinion about Quisling, and government fears grew concerning reasonably open Soviet elements in Norway who had been active in promoting industrial unrest.[57]

Following Kolstad's death in March 1932, Quisling retained his post as defence minister in the second Agrarian government under Jens Hundseid for political reasons, though they remained in bitter opposition throughout.[58] Just as he had been under Kolstad, Quisling was involved in many of the spats that characterised Hundseid's government.[59] On 8 April that year, Quisling had a chance to defend himself over the pepper affair in Parliament, but instead used the opportunity to attack the Labour and Communist parties, claiming that named members were criminals and "enemies of our fatherland and our people."[57] Support for Quisling from right-wing elements in Norwegian society rocketed overnight, and 153 distinguished signatories called for Quisling's claims to be investigated. In the coming months, tens of thousands of Norwegians followed suit and Quisling's summer was full of speeches to packed political rallies.[57] In Parliament, however, Quisling's speech was viewed as political suicide; not only was his evidence weak, but questions were raised as to why the information had not been handed over much sooner if the revolutionary threat were so serious.[57]

Popular party leader

 
Vidkun Quisling together with some NS supporters

Over the course of 1932 and into 1933, Prytz's influence over Nordisk folkereisning i Norge weakened and lawyer Johan Bernhard Hjort assumed the leadership role. Hjort was keen to work with Quisling because of his new-found popularity, and they devised a new programme of right-wing policies including proscription of revolutionary parties including those funded by foreign bodies such as Comintern, the suspension of the voting rights for people in receipt of social welfare, agricultural debt relief, and an audit of public finances.[60] In 1932, during the Kullmann Affair, Quisling turned on the prime minister for questioning his hard-line stance over pacifist agitator Captain Olaf Kullmann. In a memorandum laying out his proposals for economic and social reform distributed to the entire cabinet, Quisling called for the prime minister to stand down.[61] As the government began to collapse, Quisling's personal popularity reached new heights; he was referred to as "man of the year," and there were expectations of forthcoming electoral success.[61]

Despite the new programme, some of Quisling's circle still favoured a cabinet coup. He later said he had even considered the use of force to overthrow the government but, in late February, it was the Liberal Party that brought them down. With the assistance of Hjort and Prytz, Nordisk folkereisning i Norge quickly became a political party, Nasjonal Samling, or NS, literally "National Unity," ready to contest the forthcoming October election. Quisling was mildly disappointed and would have preferred to head a national movement, not just one of seven political parties. Nasjonal Samling soon afterwards announced it would support candidates from other parties if they supported its key aim of "establishing a strong and stable national government independent of ordinary party politics." Although not an overnight success in the already crowded political spectrum, the party slowly gained support. With its Nazi-inspired belief in the central authority of a strong Führer, as well as its powerful propaganda elements, it gained support from many among the Oslo upper classes, and began to give the impression that "big money" lay behind it.[62]

Increased support also materialised when the Bygdefolkets Krisehjelp, the Norwegian Farmers' Aid Association, sought financial aid from Nasjonal Samling, who in turn gained political influence and a useful existing network of well-trained party officers. Quisling's party never managed a grand anti-socialist coalition, however, in part because of competition from the Conservative Party for right-wing votes.[63] Though Quisling remained unable to demonstrate any skill as an orator, his reputation for scandal nonetheless ensured that the electorate were aware of Nasjonal Samling's existence. As a result, the party showed only moderate success in the October elections, with 27,850 votes—approximately two per cent of the national vote, and about three and a half per cent of the vote in constituencies where it fielded candidates.[64] This made it the fifth largest party in Norway, out-polling the Communists but not the Conservative, Labour, Liberal or Agrarian parties, and failing to secure a single seat in Parliament.[64]

Fører of a party in decline

 
Quisling on the podium during a party meeting in the 1930s

After the underwhelming election results, Quisling's attitude to negotiation and compromise hardened.[65] A final attempt to form a coalition of the right in March 1934 came to nothing, and from late 1933, Quisling's Nasjonal Samling began to carve out its own form of national socialism. With no leader in Parliament, however, the party struggled to introduce the constitutional reform bill needed to achieve its lofty ambitions. When Quisling tried to introduce the bill directly, it was swiftly rejected,[65] and the party went into decline. In the summer of 1935, headlines quoted Quisling telling opponents that "heads [would] roll" as soon as he achieved power. The threat irreparably damaged the image of his party, and over the following few months several high-ranking members resigned, including Kai Fjell and Quisling's brother Jørgen.[66]

 

Quisling began to familiarise himself with the international fascist movement, attending the 1934 Montreux Fascist conference in December. For his party, the association with Italian fascism could not have come at a worse time, so soon after headlines of illegal Italian incursions into Abyssinia.[67] On his return trip from Montreux, he met Nazi ideologue and foreign policy theorist Alfred Rosenberg, and though he preferred to see his own policies as a synthesis of Italian fascism and German Nazism, by the time of the 1936 elections, Quisling had in part become the "Norwegian Hitler" that his opponents had long accused him of being.[68] Part of this was due to his hardening anti-Semitic stance, associating Judaism with Marxism, liberalism and, increasingly, anything else he found objectionable, and part as a result of Nasjonal Samling's growing similarity to the German Nazi Party. Despite receiving an unexpected boost when the Norwegian government acceded to Soviet demands to arrest Leon Trotsky, the party's election campaign never gained momentum. Although Quisling sincerely believed he had the support of around 100,000 voters, and declared to his party that they would win an absolute minimum of ten seats, Nasjonal Samling managed to poll just 26,577, fewer than in 1933 when they had fielded candidates in only half the districts.[69][70] Under this pressure, the party split in two, with Hjort leading the breakaway group; although fewer than fifty members left immediately, many more drifted away during 1937.[71]

Dwindling party membership created many problems for Quisling, especially financial ones. For years he had been in financial difficulties and reliant on his inheritance, while increasing numbers of his paintings were found to be copies when he tried to sell them. Vidkun and his brother Arne sold one Frans Hals painting for just four thousand dollars, believing it to be a copy and not the fifty-thousand-dollar artwork they had once thought it to be, only to see it reclassified as an original and revalued at a hundred thousand dollars. In the difficult circumstances of the Great Depression, even originals did not raise as much as Quisling had hoped.[72] His disillusionment with Norwegian society was furthered by news of the planned constitutional reform of 1938, which would extend the parliamentary term from three to four years with immediate effect, a move Quisling bitterly opposed.[73]

World War II

Coming of war

In 1939, Quisling turned his attention towards Norway's preparations for the anticipated European war, which he believed involved a drastic increase in the country's defence spending to guarantee its neutrality. Meanwhile, Quisling presented lectures entitled "The Jewish problem in Norway"[74] and supported Adolf Hitler in what appeared to be growing future conflict. Despite condemning Kristallnacht, he sent the German leader a fiftieth-birthday greeting thanking him for "saving Europe from Bolshevism and Jewish domination".[73] Quisling also contended that should an Anglo-Russian alliance make neutrality impossible, Norway would have "to go with Germany."[75] Invited to the country in the summer of 1939, he began a tour of a number of German and Danish cities. He was received particularly well in Germany, which promised funds to boost Nasjonal Samling's standing in Norway, and hence spread pro-Nazi sentiment. When war broke out on 1 September 1939, Quisling felt vindicated by both the event and the immediate superiority displayed by the German army. He remained outwardly confident that, despite its size, his party would soon become the centre of political attention.[75]

For the next nine months, Quisling continued to lead a party that was at best peripheral to Norwegian politics.[75] He was nonetheless active, and in October 1939 he worked with Prytz on an ultimately unsuccessful plan for peace between Britain, France and Germany and their eventual participation in a new economic union. Quisling also mused on how Germany ought to go on the offensive against its ally the Soviet Union, and on 9 December travelled to Germany to present his multi-faceted plans.[76] After impressing German officials, he won an audience with Hitler himself, scheduled for 14 December, whereupon he received firm advice from his contacts that the most useful thing he could do would be to ask for Hitler's help with a pro-German coup in Norway,[nb 3] that would let the Germans use Norway as a naval base. Thereafter, Norway would maintain official neutrality as long as possible, and finally the country would fall under German rather than British control.[78] It is not clear how much Quisling himself understood about the strategic implications of such a move, and he instead relied on his future Minister of Domestic Affairs, Albert Hagelin, who was fluent in German, to put the relevant arguments to German officials in Berlin during pre-meeting talks, even though Hagelin was prone to damaging exaggeration at times.[79] Quisling and his German contacts almost certainly went away with different views as to whether they had agreed upon the necessity of a German invasion.[80]

On 14 December 1939, Quisling met Hitler. The German leader promised to respond to any British invasion of Norway (Plan R 4), perhaps pre-emptively, with a German counter-invasion, but found Quisling's plans for both a Norwegian coup and an Anglo-German peace unduly optimistic. Nonetheless, Quisling would still receive funds to bolster Nasjonal Samling.[nb 4] The two men met again four days later, and afterwards Quisling wrote a memorandum that explicitly told Hitler that he did not consider himself a National Socialist.[80] As German machinations continued, Quisling was intentionally kept in the dark. He was also incapacitated by a severe bout of illness, probably nephritis in both kidneys, for which he refused hospitalisation. Though he returned to work on 13 March 1940, he remained ill for several weeks.[82] In the meantime, the Altmark incident complicated Norway's efforts to maintain its neutrality. Hitler himself remained in two minds over whether an occupation of Norway should require an invitation from the Norwegian government. Finally, Quisling received his summons on 31 March, and reluctantly travelled to Copenhagen to meet with Nazi intelligence officers who asked him for information on Norwegian defences and defence protocols. He returned to Norway on 6 April and, on 8 April, the British Operation Wilfred commenced, bringing Norway into the war. With Allied forces in Norway, Quisling expected a characteristically swift German response.[83]

German invasion and coup d'état

See also: Quisling regime § 1940 coup

In the early hours of 9 April 1940, Germany invaded Norway by air and sea, as "Operation Weserübung", or "Operation Weser Exercise", intending to capture King Haakon VII and the government of Prime Minister Johan Nygaardsvold. However, alert to the possibility of invasion, Conservative President of the Parliament C. J. Hambro arranged for their evacuation to Hamar in the east of the country.[84] The Blücher, a German cruiser which carried most of the personnel intended to take over Norway's administration, was sunk by cannon fire and torpedoes from Oscarsborg Fortress in the Oslofjord.[nb 5] The Germans had expected the government to surrender and to have its replacement ready; neither happened, although the invasion itself continued. After hours of discussion, Quisling and his German counterparts decided that an immediate coup was necessary, though this was not the preferred option of either Germany's ambassador Curt Bräuer or the German Foreign Ministry.[86]

In the afternoon, Quisling was told by German liaison Hans-Wilhelm Scheidt that should he set up a government, it would have Hitler's personal approval. Quisling drew up a list of ministers and, although it had merely relocated some 150 kilometres (93 mi) to Elverum, accused the legitimate government of having "fled".[nb 6]

Meanwhile, the Germans occupied Oslo and at 17:30 Norwegian radio ceased broadcasting at the request of the occupying forces.[89] With German support, at approximately 19:30, Quisling entered the NRK studios in Oslo and proclaimed the formation of a new government with himself as Prime Minister. He also revoked an earlier order to mobilise against the German invasion.[89][90] He still lacked legitimacy. Two orders—the first to his friend Colonel Hans Sommerfeldt Hiorth, the commanding officer of the army regiment at Elverum,[91] to arrest the government, and the second to Kristian Welhaven, Oslo's chief of police—were both ignored. At 22:00, Quisling resumed broadcasting, repeating his earlier message and reading out a list of new ministers. Hitler lent his support as promised, and recognised the new Norwegian government under Quisling within 24 hours.[89] Norwegian batteries were still firing on the German invasion force, and at 03:00 on 10 April, Quisling acceded to a German request to halt the resistance of the Bolærne fortress.[nb 7][93] As a result of actions such as these, it was claimed at the time that Quisling's seizure of power in a puppet government had been part of the German plan all along.[94]

Quisling now reached the high-water mark of his political power. On 10 April, Bräuer travelled to Elverum where the legitimate Nygaardsvold government now sat. On Hitler's orders, he demanded that King Haakon appoint Quisling head of a new government, thereby securing a peaceful transition of power. Haakon rejected this demand.[95] He went further in a meeting with his cabinet, letting it be known that he would sooner abdicate than appoint any government headed by Quisling. Hearing this, the government unanimously voted to support the king's stance,[96] and urged the people to continue their resistance.[95] With his popular support gone, Quisling ceased to be of use to Hitler. Germany retracted its support for his rival government, preferring instead to build up its own independent governing commission. In this way, Quisling was manoeuvred out of power by Bräuer and a coalition of his former allies, including Hjort, who now saw him as a liability. Even his political allies, including Prytz, deserted him.[95]

In return, Hitler wrote to Quisling thanking him for his efforts and guaranteeing him some sort of position in the new government. The transfer of power on these terms was duly enacted on 15 April, with Hitler still confident the Administrative Council would receive the backing of the king.[97] Quisling's domestic and international reputation both hit new lows, casting him as both a traitor and a failure.[98]

Head of the government

See also: Quisling regime
 
Quisling in Oslo in 1941

Once the king had declared the German commission unlawful, it became clear that he would never be won over. An impatient Hitler appointed a German, Josef Terboven, as the new Norwegian Reichskommissar, or Governor-General, on 24 April, reporting directly to him. Despite Hitler's assurances, Terboven wanted to make sure that there would be no room in the government for the Nasjonal Samling nor its leader Quisling, with whom he did not get along.[99] Terboven eventually accepted a certain Nasjonal Samling presence in the government during June, but remained unconvinced about Quisling. As a result, on 25 June, Terboven forced Quisling to step down as leader of the Nasjonal Samling and take a temporary leave of absence in Germany.[99] Quisling remained there until 20 August, while Rosenberg and Admiral Erich Raeder, whom he had met on his earlier visit to Berlin, negotiated on his behalf. In the end, Quisling returned "in triumph," having won Hitler over in a meeting on 16 August. The Reichskommissar would now have to accommodate Quisling as leader of the government, then allow him to rebuild the Nasjonal Samling and bring more of his men into the cabinet.[100] Terboven complied and addressed the Norwegian people in a radio broadcast in which he asserted that the Nasjonal Samling would be the only political party allowed.[101]

As a result, by the end of 1940 the monarchy had been suspended, although the Parliament of Norway and a body resembling a cabinet remained. The Nasjonal Samling, the only pro-German party, would be cultivated, but Terboven's Reichskommissariat would keep power in the meantime. Quisling would serve as acting prime minister and ten of the thirteen "cabinet" ministers were to come from his party.[102] He set out on a programme of wiping out "the destructive principles of the French Revolution," including pluralism and parliamentary rule. This reached into local politics, whereby mayors who switched their allegiance to the Nasjonal Samling were rewarded with much greater powers. Investments were made in heavily censored cultural programmes, though the press remained theoretically free. To bolster the survival chances of the Nordic genotype, contraception was severely restricted.[103] Quisling's party experienced a rise in membership to a little over 30,000, but despite his optimism it was never to pass the 40,000 mark.[104]

On 5 December 1940, Quisling flew to Berlin to negotiate the future of Norway's independence. By the time he returned on 13 December, he had agreed to raise volunteers to fight with the German Schutzstaffel (SS). In January, SS head Heinrich Himmler travelled to Norway to oversee preparations. Quisling clearly believed that if Norway supported Nazi Germany on the battlefield, there would be no reason for Germany to annex it. To this end, he opposed plans to have a German SS brigade loyal only to Hitler installed in Norway.[105] In the process, he also toughened his attitude to the country harbouring the exiled king, the United Kingdom, which he no longer saw as a Nordic ally. Finally, Quisling aligned Norwegian policy on Jews with that of Germany, giving a speech in Frankfurt on 26 March 1941 in which he argued for compulsory exile, but warned against extermination.[105]

In May, Quisling was shattered by the death of his mother Anna, as the two had been particularly close. At the same time, the political crisis over Norwegian independence deepened, with Quisling threatening Terboven with his resignation over the issue of finance. In the end, the Reichskommissar agreed to compromise on the issue, but Quisling had to concede on the SS issue: A brigade was formed, but as a branch of the Nasjonal Samling.[105]

Meanwhile, the government line hardened, with Communist Party leaders arrested and trade unionists intimidated. On 10 September 1941, Viggo Hansteen and Rolf Wickstrøm were executed and many more imprisoned following the milk strike in Oslo. Hansteen's execution was later seen as a watershed moment, dividing the occupation into its more innocent and more deadly phases.[106] The same year Statspolitiet ("the State Police"), abolished in 1937, was reestablished to assist the Gestapo in Norway, and radio sets were confiscated across the country. Though these were all Terboven's decisions, Quisling agreed with them and went on to denounce the government-in-exile as "traitors." As a result of the toughened stance, an informal "ice front" emerged, with Nasjonal Samling supporters ostracised from society.[106] Quisling remained convinced this was an anti-German sentiment that would fade away once Berlin had handed power over to Nasjonal Samling. However, the only concessions he won in 1941 were having the heads of ministries promoted to official ministers of the government and independence for the party secretariat.[107]

 
Two girls in Bunad greet Reichskommissar Josef Terboven and Minister President Vidkun Quisling on 1 February 1942.

In January 1942, Terboven announced the German administration would be wound down. Soon afterwards he told Quisling that Hitler had approved the transfer of power, scheduled for 30 January. Quisling remained doubtful it would happen, since Germany and Norway were in the midst of complex peace negotiations that could not be completed until peace had been reached on the Eastern Front, while Terboven insisted that the Reichskommissariat would remain in power until such peace came about.[107] Quisling could nevertheless be reasonably confident that his position within the party and with Berlin was unassailable, even if he was unpopular within Norway, something of which he was well aware.[108]

After a brief postponement, an announcement was made on 1 February 1942, detailing how the cabinet had elected Quisling to the post of Minister-President of the national government.[109][110] The appointment was accompanied by a banquet, rallying, and other celebrations by the Nasjonal Samling members. In his first speech, Quisling committed the government to closer ties with Germany. The only change to the Constitution was the reinstatement of the ban on Jewish entry into Norway, which had been abolished in 1851.[110]

Minister President

 
Quisling signing an autograph, 1943
 
Quisling with Norwegian volunteers on the eastern front in 1942
 
Quisling's office at the Royal Palace, into which he moved in February 1942
 
Quisling's residence, Villa Grande, in 1945, which he called "Gimlé", a name taken from Norse mythology

His new position gave Quisling a security of tenure he had not previously enjoyed, although the Reichskommissariat remained outside his control. A month later, in February 1942, Quisling made his first state visit to Berlin. It was a productive trip, in which all key issues of Norwegian independence were discussed—but Joseph Goebbels in particular remained unconvinced of Quisling's credentials, noting that it was "unlikely" he would "... ever make a great statesman."[111]

Back at home, Quisling was now less concerned about Nasjonal Samling's membership and even wanted action to clean up the membership list, including purging it of drunkards. On 12 March 1942, Norway officially became a one-party state. In time, criticism of, and resistance to, the party was criminalised, though Quisling expressed regret for having to take this step, hoping that every Norwegian would freely come around to accept his government.[111]

This optimism was short-lived. In the course of the summer of 1942, Quisling lost any ability he might have had to sway public opinion by attempting to force children into the Nasjonal Samlings Ungdomsfylking youth organisation, which was modelled on the Hitler Youth. This move prompted a mass resignation of teachers from their professional body and churchmen from their posts, along with large-scale civil unrest. His attempted indictment of Bishop Eivind Berggrav proved similarly controversial, even amongst his German allies. Quisling now toughened his stance, telling Norwegians that they would have the new regime forced upon them "whether they like it or not." On 1 May 1942, the German High Command noted that "organised resistance to Quisling has started" and Norway's peace talks with Germany stalled as a result.[112] On 11 August 1942, Hitler postponed any further peace negotiations until the war ended. Quisling was admonished and learned that Norway would not get the independence he so greatly yearned for. As an added insult, for the first time he was forbidden to write letters directly to Hitler.[113]

Quisling had earlier pushed for a corporate alternative to the Parliament of Norway, the Storting, which he called a Riksting. It would comprise two chambers, the Næringsting (Economic Chamber) and Kulturting (Cultural Chamber). Now, in advance of Nasjonal Samling's eighth and last national convention on 25 September 1942 and becoming increasingly distrustful of professional bodies, he changed his mind. The Riksting became an advisory body while the Førerting, or Leader Council, and parliamentary chambers were now to be independent bodies subordinate to their respective ministries.[nb 8]

After the convention, support for Nasjonal Samling, and Quisling personally, ebbed away. Increased factionalism and personal losses, including the accidental death of fellow politician Gulbrand Lunde, were compounded by heavy-handed German tactics, such as the shooting of ten well-known residents of Trøndelag and its environs in October 1942. In addition, the lex Eilifsen ex-post facto law of August 1943, which led to the first death sentence passed by the regime, was widely seen as a blatant violation of the Constitution and a sign of Norway's increasing role in the Final Solution, would destroy everything the convention had achieved in terms of boosting party morale.[116]

With government abatement and Quisling's personal engagement, Jews were registered in a German initiative of January 1942. On 26 October 1942, German forces, with help from the Norwegian police, arrested 300 registered male Jews in Norway and sent them to concentration camps, most in Berg and manned by Hirden, the paramilitary wing of Nasjonal Samling.[117] Most controversially, the Jews' property was confiscated by the state.[nb 9]

On 26 November, the detainees were deported, along with their families. Although this was an entirely German initiative—Quisling himself was left unaware of it, although government assistance was provided—Quisling led the Norwegian public to believe that the first deportation of Jews, to camps in Nazi-German occupied Poland, was his idea.[116] A further 250 were deported in February 1943, and it remains unclear what the party's official position was on the eventual fate of the 759 Norwegian deportees. There is evidence to suggest that Quisling honestly believed the official line throughout 1943 and 1944 that they were awaiting repatriation to a new Jewish homeland in Madagascar.[119][nb 10]

At the same time, Quisling believed that the only way he could win back Hitler's respect would be to raise volunteers for the now-faltering German war effort,[121] and he committed Norway wholeheartedly to German plans to wage total war.[122] For him at least, after the German defeat at Stalingrad in February 1943, Norway now had a part to play in keeping the German empire strong. In April 1943, Quisling delivered a scathing speech attacking Germany's refusal to outline its plans for post-war Europe. When he put this to Hitler in person, the Nazi leader remained unmoved despite Norway's contributions to the war effort. Quisling felt betrayed over this postponement of Norwegian freedom,[123] an attitude that waned only when Hitler eventually committed to a free post-war Norway in September 1943.[124]

Quisling tired during the final years of the war. In 1942 he passed 231 laws, 166 in 1943, and 139 in 1944. Social policy was the one area that still received significant attention. By that autumn, Quisling and Mussert in the Netherlands could be satisfied they had at least survived.[125] In 1944, the weight problems Quisling had been having during the preceding two years also eased.[126]

Despite the increasingly dire military outlook in 1943 and 1944, Nasjonal Samling's position at the head of the government, albeit with its ambiguous relationship to the Reichskommissariat, remained unassailable.[125] Nevertheless, the Germans exerted increasing control over law and order in Norway. Following the deportation of the Jews, Germany deported Norwegian officers and finally attempted to deport students from the University of Oslo. Even Hitler was incensed by the scale of the arrests.[127] Quisling became entangled in a similar debacle in early 1944 when he forced compulsory military service on elements of the Hirden, causing a number of members to resign to avoid being drafted.[128]

On 20 January 1945, Quisling made what would be his final trip to visit Hitler. He promised Norwegian support in the final phase of the war if Germany agreed to a peace deal that would remove Norway's affairs from German intervention. This proposal grew out of a fear that as German forces retreated southwards through Norway, the occupation government would have to struggle to keep control in northern Norway. To the horror of the Quisling regime, the Nazis instead decided on a scorched earth policy in northern Norway, going so far as to shoot Norwegian civilians who refused to evacuate the region.[128] The period was also marked by increasing civilian casualties from Allied air raids, and mounting resistance to the government within occupied Norway. The meeting with the German leader proved unsuccessful and upon being asked to sign the execution order of thousands of Norwegian "saboteurs," Quisling refused, an act of defiance that so enraged Terboven, acting on Hitler's orders, that he stormed out of the negotiations.[128] On recounting the events of the trip to a friend, Quisling broke down in tears, convinced the Nazi refusal to sign a peace agreement would seal his reputation as a traitor.[129]

Quisling spent the last months of the war trying to prevent Norwegian deaths in the showdown that was developing between German and Allied forces in Norway. The regime worked for the safe repatriation of Norwegians held in German prisoner-of-war camps. Privately, Quisling had long accepted that National Socialism would be defeated. Hitler's suicide on 30 April 1945 left him free to pursue publicly his chosen end-game, a naïve offer of a transition to a power-sharing government with the government-in-exile.[130]

On 7 May, Quisling ordered police not to offer armed resistance to the Allied advance except in self-defence or against overt members of the Norwegian resistance movement. The same day, Germany announced it would surrender unconditionally, making Quisling's position untenable.[131] A realist, Quisling met military leaders of the resistance on the following day to discuss how he would be arrested. Quisling declared whilst he did not want to be treated as a common criminal, he did not want preferential treatment compared to his Nasjonal Samling colleagues. He argued he could have kept his forces fighting until the end, but had chosen not to so as to avoid turning "Norway into a battlefield." Instead, he tried to ensure a peaceful transition. In return, the resistance offered full trials for all accused Nasjonal Samling members after the war, and its leadership agreed he could be incarcerated in a house rather than a prison complex.[131]

Arrest

 
Vidkun Quisling in custody at Akershus fortress, 1945.
See also: Legal purge in Norway after World War II

The civil leadership of the resistance, represented by lawyer Sven Arntzen, demanded Quisling be treated like any other murder suspect and, on 9 May 1945, Quisling and his ministers turned themselves in to police.[132] Quisling was transferred to Cell 12 in Møllergata 19, the main police station in Oslo. The cell was equipped with a tiny table, a basin, and a hole in the wall for a toilet bucket.[133]

After ten weeks being constantly watched to prevent suicide attempts in police custody, he was transferred to Akershus Fortress and awaited trial as part of the legal purge.[132] He soon started working on his case with Henrik Bergh, a lawyer with a good track record but largely unsympathetic, at least initially, to Quisling's plight. Bergh did, however, believe Quisling's testimony that he tried to act in the best interests of Norway and decided to use this as a starting point for the defence.[134]

Initially, Quisling's charges related to the coup, including his revocation of the mobilisation order, to his time as Nasjonal Samling leader and to his actions as Minister President, such as assisting the enemy and illegally attempting to alter the constitution. Finally, he was accused of Gunnar Eilifsen's murder. Whilst not contesting the key facts, he denied all charges on the grounds that he had always worked for a free and prosperous Norway, and submitted a sixty-page response.[134] On 11 July 1945, a further indictment was brought, adding a raft of new charges, including more murders, theft, embezzlement and, most worrying of all for Quisling, the charge of conspiring with Hitler over the invasion and occupation of Norway.[135]

Trial and execution

I know that the Norwegian people have sentenced me to death, and that the easiest course for me would be to take my own life. But I want to let history reach its own verdict. Believe me, in ten years' time I will have become another Saint Olav.

— Quisling to Bjørn Foss, 8 May 1945, Dahl 1999, p. 367

The trial opened on 20 August 1945.[135] Quisling's defence rested on downplaying his unity with Germany and stressing that he had fought for total independence, something that seemed completely contrary to the recollections of many Norwegians. From that point on, wrote biographer Dahl, Quisling had to tread a "fine line between truth and falsehood," and emerged from it "an elusive and often pitiful figure."[135] He misrepresented the truth on several occasions and the truthful majority of his statements won him few advocates in the country at large, where he remained almost universally despised.[136]

In the later days of the trial, Quisling's health suffered, largely as a result of the number of medical tests to which he was subjected,[136] and his defence faltered.[136] The prosecution's final speech placed responsibility for the Final Solution being carried out in Norway at the feet of Quisling, using the testimony of German officials. The prosecutor Annæus Schjødt called for the death penalty, using laws introduced by the government-in-exile in October 1941 and January 1942.[136][137]

Speeches by both Bergh and Quisling himself could not change the outcome. When the verdict was announced on 10 September 1945, Quisling was convicted on all but a handful of minor charges and sentenced to death.

An October appeal to the Supreme Court was rejected.[138] The court process was judged to be "a model of fairness" in a commentary by author Maynard Cohen.[139] After giving testimony in a number of other trials of Nasjonal Samling members, Quisling was executed by firing squad at Akershus Fortress at 02:40 on 24 October 1945.[140][141] His last words before being shot were, "I'm convicted unfairly and I die innocent."[142] After his death his body was cremated, leaving the ashes to be interred in Fyresdal.[143]

Legacy

His wife Maria lived in Oslo until her death in 1980.[144] They had no children. Upon her death, she donated all their Russian antiques to a charitable fund that still operated in Oslo as of August 2017.[145] For most of his later political career, Quisling lived in a mansion on Bygdøy in Oslo that he called "Gimle," after the place in Norse mythology where survivors of the great battle of Ragnarök were to live.[146] The house, later renamed Villa Grande, in time became a Holocaust museum.[147] The Nasjonal Samling movement was wiped out as a political force in Norway and Quisling has become one of the most written-about Norwegians of all time.[148] The word quisling became a synonym for traitor.[149] The term was coined by the British newspaper The Times in its lead of 15 April 1940, titled "Quislings everywhere."[150] The noun survived, and for a while during and after World War II, the back-formed verb to quisle /ˈkwɪzəl/ was used. One who was quisling was in the act of committing treason.[151]

Personality

To his supporters, Quisling was regarded as a conscientious administrator of the highest order, knowledgeable and with an eye for detail. He was believed to care deeply about his people and maintained high moral standards throughout.[152] To his opponents, Quisling was unstable and undisciplined, abrupt, even threatening. Quite possibly he was both, at ease among friends and under pressure when confronted with his political opponents, and generally shy and retiring with both. During formal dinners he often said nothing at all except for the occasional cascade of dramatic rhetoric. Indeed, he did not react well to pressure and would often let slip over-dramatic sentiments when put on the spot. Normally open to criticism, he was prone to assuming larger groups were conspiratorial.[152]

Post-war interpretations of Quisling's character are similarly mixed. After the war, collaborationist behaviour was popularly viewed as a result of mental deficiency, leaving the personality of the clearly more intelligent Quisling an "enigma." He was instead seen as weak, paranoid, intellectually sterile and power-hungry: ultimately "muddled rather than thoroughly corrupted."[153]

As quoted by Dahl, psychiatrist Professor Gabriel Langfeldt stated Quisling's ultimate philosophical goals "fitted the classic description of the paranoid megalomaniac more exactly than any other case [he had] ever encountered."[154]

During his time in office, Quisling arose early, often having completed several hours of work before arriving at the office between 9:30 and 10:00. He liked to intervene in virtually all government matters, reading all letters addressed to him or his chancellery personally and marking a surprising number for action.[155] Quisling was independent minded, made several key decisions on the spot and, unlike his German counterpart, he liked to follow procedure to ensure that government remained "a dignified and civilised" affair throughout.[155] He took a personal interest in the administration of Fyresdal, where he was born.[152]

He rejected German racial supremacy and instead saw the Norwegian race as the progenitor of Northern Europe, tracing his own family tree in his spare time.[152] Party members did not receive preferential treatment,[155] though Quisling did not himself share in the wartime hardships of his fellow Norwegians. Nevertheless, many gifts went unused and he did not live extravagantly.[152]

Religious and philosophical views

 
Quisling's library included the works of a number of eminent philosophers.

Quisling was interested in science, eastern religions and metaphysics, eventually building up a library that included the works of Spinoza, Kant, Hegel and Schopenhauer. He kept up with developments in the realm of quantum physics, but did not keep up with more current philosophical ideas.[156] He blended philosophy and science into what he called Universism, or Universalism, which was a unified explanation of everything. His original writings stretched to a claimed two thousand pages.[156] He rejected the basic teachings of orthodox Christianity and established a new theory of life, which he called Universism, a term borrowed from a textbook which Jan Jakob Maria de Groot had written on Chinese philosophy. De Groot's book argued that Taoism, Confucianism and Buddhism were all part of a world religion that De Groot called Universism. Quisling described how his philosophy "... followed from the universal theory of relativity, of which the specific and general theories of relativity are special instances."

His magnum opus was divided into four parts: an introduction, a description of mankind's apparent progression from individual to increasing complex consciousnesses, a section on his tenets of morality and law, and a final section on science, art, politics, history, race and religion. The conclusion was to be titled The World's Organic Classification and Organisation, but the work remained unfinished. Generally, Quisling worked on it infrequently during his time in politics. The biographer Hans Fredrik Dahl describes this as "fortunate" since Quisling would "never have won recognition" as a philosopher.[156]

During his trial and particularly after being sentenced, Quisling became interested once more in Universism. He saw the events of the war as part of the move towards the establishment of God's kingdom on earth and justified his actions in those terms. During the first week of October, he wrote a fifty-page document titled Universistic Aphorisms, which represented "... an almost ecstatic revelation of truth and the light to come, which bore the mark of nothing less than a prophet."[157] The document was also notable for its attack on the materialism of Nazism. In addition, he simultaneously worked on a sermon, Eternal Justice, which reiterated his key beliefs, including reincarnation.[157]

Works

  • Quisling, Vidkun (1931). Russia and Ourselves. Hodder & Stoughton.

In Norwegian

  • Quisling, Vidkun (1941). Russland og vi. Blix forlag.

Articles and speeches

  • Quisling har sagt — I. Citater fra taler og avisartikler. J. M. Stenersens forlag. 1940.
  • Quisling har sagt — II. Ti års kamp mot katastrofepolitikken. Gunnar Stenersens forlag. 1941.
  • Quisling har sagt — IV. Mot nytt land. Artikler og taler av Vidkun Quisling 1941–1943. Blix forlag. 1943.
  • For Norges frihet og selvstendighet. Artikler og taler 9. april 1940 — 23. juni 1941. Gunnar Stenersens forlag. 1941.

See also

  • Førergarde, Quisling's personal guard
  • Philippe Pétain, French Marshal whose name has been used to mean "traitor"
  • Andrey Vlasov, Soviet general whose name has been used to mean "traitor"
  • Mir Jafar, ruler of Bengal whose name has been used to mean "traitor"
  • Robert Lundy, Scottish army officer whose name has been used to mean "traitor"
  • Wang Jingwei, Chinese politician whose name has been used to mean "traitor"
  • Benedict Arnold, American officer whose name has been used to mean "traitor"
  • Judas, Apostle whose name has been used to mean "traitor"

Further reading

  • Hewins, Ralph. (1965). Quisling, Prophet without Honour. London: W. H. Allen.
  • Block, Maxine, ed. (1940). Current Biography Yearbook. New York, United States: H. W. Wilson.
  • Borgersrud, Lars. "9 April revised: on the Norwegian history tradition after Magne Skodvin on Quisling and the invasion of Norway in 19401." Scandinavian Journal of History 39.3 (2014): 353–397, historiography
  • Hamre, Martin Kristoffer. "Norwegian Fascism in a Transnational Perspective: The Influence of German National Socialism and Italian Fascism on the Nasjonal Samling, 1933–1936." Fascism 8.1 (2019): 36–60. online
  • Hayes, Paul M. "Vidkun Quisling," History Today (May 1966), Vol. 16 Issue 5, p332-340, onlune
  • Hayes, Paul M. (1966). "Quisling's Political Ideas". Journal of Contemporary History. 1 (1): 145–157. doi:10.1177/002200946600100109. JSTOR 259653. S2CID 152904669.
  • Hayes, Paul M. (1971). Quisling: the career and political ideas of Vidkun Quisling, 1887–1945. Newton Abbot, United Kingdom: David & Charles. OCLC 320725.
  • Høidal, Oddvar K. "Vidkun Quisling and the Deportation of Norway's Jews." Scandinavian Studies; 88.3 (2016): 270–294. online
  • Larsen, Stein Ugelvik. "Charisma from Below? The Quisling Case in Norway." Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions 7#2 (2006): 235–244.
  • Larsen, Stein Ugelvik, "The Social Foundations of Norwegian Fascism 1933–1945: An Analysis of Membership Data" in Stein Ugelvik Larsen, Bernt Hagtvet, and Jan Petter Myklebust, eds. Who were the fascists: social roots of European fascism (Columbia University Press, 1980).

In Norwegian

  • Barth, E. M. (1996). Gud, det er meg: Vidkun Quisling som politisk filosof (in Norwegian). Oslo, Norway: Pax Forlag. ISBN 82-530-1803-7.
  • Borgen, Per Otto (1999). Norges statsministre (in Norwegian). Oslo, Norway: Aschehoug. ISBN 82-03-22389-3.
  • Bratteli, Tone; Myhre, Hans B. (1992). Quislings siste dager (in Norwegian). Oslo, Norway: Cappelen. ISBN 82-02-13345-9.
  • Hartmann, Sverre (1970) [1959]. Fører uten folk. Forsvarsminister Quisling – hans bakgrunn og vei inn i norsk politikk (in Norwegian) (2nd revised ed.). Oslo, Norway: Tiden Norsk Forlag. OCLC 7812651.
  • Juritzen, Arve (1988). Privatmennesket Quisling og hans to kvinner (in Norwegian). Oslo, Norway: Aventura. ISBN 82-588-0500-2.
  • Ringdal, Nils Johan (1989). Gal mann til rett tid: NS-minister Sverre Riisnæs – en psykobiografi (in Norwegian). Oslo, Norway: Aschehoug. ISBN 82-03-16584-2.
  • Quisling, Maria (1980). Parmann, Øistein (ed.). Dagbok og andre efterlatte papirer (in Norwegian). Oslo, Norway: Dreyer. ISBN 82-09-01877-9.

Primary sources

  • Dahl, Hans Fredrik (1999). Quisling: A Study in Treachery. Stanton-Ife, Anne-Marie (trans.). Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-49697-7.
  • Cohen, Maynard M. (2000). A stand against tyranny: Norway's physicians and the Nazis. Detroit, United States: Wayne State University Press. ISBN 978-0-8143-2934-4.
  • Høidal, Oddvar K. (1989). Quisling: A study in treason. Oslo, Norway: Universitetsforlaget. ISBN 82-00-18400-5.
  • Yourieff, Alexandra Andreevna Voronine; Yourieff, W. George; Seaver, Kirsten A. (2007). In Quisling's shadow: the memoirs of Vidkun Quisling's first wife, Alexandra. Stanford, United States: Hoover Institution Press. ISBN 978-0-8179-4832-0.

Footnotes

  1. ^ Increasingly bitter over the treatment he had received from the military, he eventually took up a post in the reserves on the reduced salary of a captain, and received a promotion to major in 1930.[24]
  2. ^ Attempts to establish exactly what the Oslo authorities managed to achieve in trying to find the assailant have been hampered by the loss of the original case file. Quisling himself seemed to have rejected the idea that the plot had been masterminded by an important military power such as the Russians or Germans.[56]
  3. ^ Quisling considered the fourth and constitutionally dubious session of the Parliament of Norway, due to open on 10 January 1940, as the mostly likely time for Nasjonal Samling to face an exploitable crisis. During 1939 he had firmed up a list of candidates for an incoming government.[77]
  4. ^ Immediately after the meeting on 14 December, Hitler ordered his staff to draw up preparations for an invasion of Norway.[81]
  5. ^ Dahl suggests that the mix-up was in part due to Quisling's earlier statement to the Germans that he "did not believe" the Norwegian sea defences would open fire without previous orders to do so.[85]
  6. ^ The option of a "Danish solution"—welcoming the invaders in order to avoid conflict—was still on the table. In this way, the Nazis were avoiding choosing between the rival centres of power.[87] This became impossible only after Quisling's announcement at 19:30.[88]
  7. ^ Though now accepted, this charge was later one of the few for which the jury at Quisling's trial did not find sufficient evidence.[92]
  8. ^ Only the Cultural Chamber actually came into being with the Economic Chamber postponed because of unrest within the professional bodies it was supposed to represent.[114][115]
  9. ^ Property confiscations were enabled by a law of 26 October 1942. Quisling's motivations in passing such a law have proved controversial, alternately labelled as collaborationist[117] and an actively anti-collaborationist attempt to stop the occupiers from confiscating Jewish property.[118]
  10. ^ In reality, their destination was the extermination camp at Auschwitz. That Quisling understood the realities of the final solution is suggested by authors such as Høidal, but this has never been proven.[120]

References

  1. ^ Borgen 1999, p. 273.
  2. ^ a b Juritzen 1988, p. 11
  3. ^ Juritzen 1988, p. 12.
  4. ^ Dahl 1999, pp. 6, 13–14.
  5. ^ Dahl 1999, p. 21.
  6. ^ Juritzen 1988, p. 15.
  7. ^ Hartmann 1970, p. 10.
  8. ^ a b c Borgen 1999, p. 275.
  9. ^ a b c d Dahl 1999, pp. 6–7.
  10. ^ Dahl 1999, p. 25.
  11. ^ a b Dahl 1999, pp. 28–29.
  12. ^ Dahl 1999, pp. 32–34, 38.
  13. ^ Dahl 1999, pp. 38–39.
  14. ^ Maynard M. Cohen (2000). A Stand Against Tyranny: Norway's Physicians and the Nazis. Wayne State University Press. pp. 49–. ISBN 0-8143-2934-9.
  15. ^ Dahl 1999, pp. 40–42.
  16. ^ Dahl 1999, pp. 43–44.
  17. ^ Yourieff 2007, p. 172.
  18. ^ Yourieff 2007, p. 100.
  19. ^ a b c Dahl 1999, pp. 45–47.
  20. ^ Hartmann 1970, p. 33.
  21. ^ Alexandra Voronin Yourieff, In Quisling's Shadow (1999), Chapter 14, "The Child"
  22. ^ Quisling 1980, pp. 30–31
  23. ^ a b Dahl 1999, pp. 48–49.
  24. ^ a b Dahl 1999, p. 50.
  25. ^ Hartmann 1970, p. 30.
  26. ^ Dahl 1999, pp. 53–54.
  27. ^ a b Dahl 1999, pp. 54–56.
  28. ^ Yourieff 2007, pp. 450–452.
  29. ^ Dahl 1999, p. 57.
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Political offices
Preceded by Minister of Defence of Norway
1931–1933 		Succeeded by
Preceded by
Office created
 Minister President of Norway
1942–1945 		Succeeded by
Office abolished


February 02, 2023
vidkun, quisling, vidkun, abraham, lauritz, jonssøn, quisling, norwegian, ˈvɪ, dkʉn, ˈkvɪ, slɪŋ, listen, july, 1887, october, 1945, norwegian, military, officer, politician, nazi, collaborator, nominally, headed, government, norway, during, country, occupation. Vidkun Abraham Lauritz Jonsson Quisling ˈ k w ɪ z l ɪ ŋ Norwegian ˈvɪ dkʉn ˈkvɪ slɪŋ listen 18 July 1887 24 October 1945 was a Norwegian military officer politician and Nazi collaborator who nominally headed the government of Norway during the country s occupation by Nazi Germany during World War II Vidkun QuislingQuisling c 1919Minister President of NorwayIn office 1 February 1942 9 May 1945Serving with Reichskommissar Josef TerbovenPreceded byJohan Nygaardsvold as Prime Minister Succeeded byJohan Nygaardsvold as Prime Minister Minister of DefenceIn office 12 May 1931 3 March 1933Prime MinisterPeder KolstadJens HundseidPreceded byTorgeir Anderssen RysstSucceeded byJens Isak KobroForer of the National GatheringIn office 13 May 1933 8 May 1945Preceded byPosition establishedSucceeded byPosition abolishedPersonal detailsBornVidkun Abraham Lauritz Jonsson Quisling 1887 07 18 18 July 1887Fyresdal Telemark Sweden NorwayDied24 October 1945 1945 10 24 aged 58 Akershus Fortress Oslo NorwayCause of deathExecution by firing squadPolitical partyNasjonal Samling 1933 45 Other politicalaffiliationsFatherland League 1930 31 Nordic People s Awakening in Norway 1930 31 Agrarian Party 1931 33 SpousesAlexandra Andreevna Voronina Maria Vasilijevna Quisling disputed ProfessionMilitary officer politicianSignatureHe first came to international prominence as a close collaborator of the explorer Fridtjof Nansen and through organising humanitarian relief during the Russian famine of 1921 in Povolzhye He was posted as a Norwegian diplomat to the Soviet Union and for some time also managed British diplomatic affairs there He returned to Norway in 1929 and served as Minister of Defence in the governments of Peder Kolstad 1931 32 and Jens Hundseid 1932 33 in representing the Farmers Party In 1933 Quisling left the Farmers Party and founded the fascist Nasjonal Samling National Union Although he gained some popularity after his attacks on the political left his party failed to win any seats in the Storting and by 1940 it was still little more than peripheral On 9 April 1940 with the German invasion of Norway in progress he attempted to seize power in the world s first radio broadcast coup d etat but failed since the Germans refused to support his government From 1942 to 1945 he served as Prime Minister of Norway and headed the Norwegian state administration jointly with the German civilian administrator Josef Terboven His pro Nazi puppet government known as the Quisling regime was dominated by ministers from Nasjonal Samling The collaborationist government participated in Germany s war efforts and sent Jews out of the country to concentration camps in occupied Poland General Government Quisling was put on trial during the legal purge in Norway after World War II He was found guilty of charges including embezzlement murder and high treason against the Norwegian state and was sentenced to death He was executed by firing squad at Akershus Fortress Oslo on 24 October 1945 Since his death Quisling has become one of history s most infamous traitors due to his collaboration with Nazi Germany The term quisling has become a byword for collaborator or traitor in several languages and reflects the contempt with which Quisling s conduct has been regarded both at the time and in the present day Contents 1 Early life 1 1 Background 2 Travels 2 1 Paris Eastern Europe and Norway 2 2 Russia and the rouble scandal 3 Early political career 3 1 Final return to Norway 3 2 Defence minister 3 3 Popular party leader 3 4 Forer of a party in decline 4 World War II 4 1 Coming of war 4 2 German invasion and coup d etat 4 3 Head of the government 4 4 Minister President 5 Arrest 6 Trial and execution 7 Legacy 8 Personality 9 Religious and philosophical views 10 Works 10 1 In Norwegian 10 1 1 Articles and speeches 11 See also 12 Further reading 12 1 In Norwegian 12 2 Primary sources 13 Footnotes 14 References 15 External linksEarly life EditBackground Edit Vidkun Abraham Lauritz Jonsson Quisling Norwegian pronunciation help info was born on 18 July 1887 in Fyresdal in the Norwegian county of Telemark He was the son of Church of Norway pastor and genealogist Jon Lauritz Qvisling 1844 1930 and his wife Anna Caroline Bang 1860 1941 1 the daughter of Jorgen Bang ship owner and at the time the richest man in the town of Grimstad in South Norway 2 The elder Quisling had lectured in Grimstad in the 1870s one of his pupils was Bang whom he married on 28 May 1886 following a long engagement The newly wed couple promptly moved to Fyresdal where Vidkun and his younger siblings were born 2 Vidkun Quisling far left with his family c 1915 The family name derives from Quislinus a Latinised name invented by Quisling s ancestor Lauritz Ibsen Quislin 1634 1703 based on the village of Kvislemark near Slagelse Denmark whence he had emigrated 3 Having two brothers and a sister 4 the young Quisling was shy and quiet but also loyal and helpful always friendly occasionally breaking into a warm smile 5 Private letters later found by historians also indicate a warm and affectionate relationship between the family members 6 From 1893 to 1900 his father was a chaplain for the Stromso borough in Drammen Here Vidkun went to school for the first time He was bullied by other students at the school for his Telemark dialect but proved a successful student 7 In 1900 the family moved to Skien when his father was appointed provost of the city 8 Academically Quisling proved talented in humanities particularly history and natural sciences he specialised in mathematics At this point however his life had no clear direction 9 In 1905 Quisling enrolled at the Norwegian Military Academy having received the highest entrance examination score of the 250 applicants that year 9 Transferring in 1906 to the Norwegian Military College he graduated with the highest score since the college s inception in 1817 and was rewarded by an audience with the King 8 9 On 1 November 1911 he joined the army General Staff 9 Norway was neutral in the First World War Quisling detested the peace movement though the high human cost of the war did temper his views 10 In March 1918 he was sent to Russia as an attache at the Norwegian legation in Petrograd to take advantage of the five years he had spent studying the country 8 11 Though dismayed at the living conditions he experienced Quisling nonetheless concluded that the Bolsheviks have got an extraordinarily strong hold on Russian society and marvelled at how Leon Trotsky had managed to mobilise the Red Army forces so well 11 he asserted that by contrast in granting too many rights to the people of Russia the Russian Provisional Government under Alexander Kerensky had brought about its own downfall When the legation was recalled in December 1918 Quisling became the Norwegian military s expert on Russian affairs 12 Travels EditParis Eastern Europe and Norway Edit In September 1919 Quisling departed Norway to become an intelligence officer with the Norwegian delegation in Helsinki a post that combined diplomacy and politics 13 In the autumn of 1921 Quisling left Norway once again this time at the request of explorer and humanitarian Fridtjof Nansen and in January 1922 arrived in the Ukrainian capital Kharkiv to help with the League of Nations humanitarian relief effort there 14 15 Highlighting the massive mismanagement of the area and the death toll of approximately ten thousand a day Quisling produced a report that attracted aid and demonstrated his administrative skills as well as his dogged determination to get what he wanted 16 Quisling replied that the Russian people needed wise leadership and proper training that they suffered from indifference a lack of clearly defined goals with conviction and a happy go lucky attitude and that it is impossible to accomplish anything without willpower determination and concentration Alexandra recounts a conversation with her soon to be husband Yourieff 2007 p 93 On 21 August 1922 he married the Russian Alexandra Andreevna Voronina 17 Alexandra wrote in her memoirs that Quisling declared his love for her 18 but from his letters home and investigations undertaken by his cousins it appeared that there was no romantic involvement between the two Quisling merely seemed to have wanted to lift the girl out of poverty by providing her with a Norwegian passport and financial security 19 Having left Ukraine in September 1922 Quisling and Alexandra returned to Kharkiv in February 1923 to prolong aid efforts with Nansen describing Quisling s work as absolutely indispensable 19 20 In March 1923 Alexandra was pregnant and Quisling insisted on her having an abortion which greatly distressed her 21 Quisling found the situation much improved and with no fresh challenges found it a more boring trip than his last He did however meet Maria Vasiljevna Pasetchnikova Russian Mari ya Vasi levna Pa sechnikova a Ukrainian more than ten years his junior Her diaries from the time indicate a blossoming love affair during the summer of 1923 despite Quisling s marriage to Alexandra the year before 19 She recalled that she was impressed by his fluent command of the Russian language his Aryan appearance and his gracious demeanour 22 Quisling later claimed to have married Pasetchnikova in Kharkiv on 10 September 1923 although no legal documentation has been discovered Quisling s biographer Dahl believes that in all likelihood the second marriage was never official 23 Regardless the couple behaved as though they were married claimed Alexandra was their daughter and celebrated their wedding anniversary Soon after September 1923 the aid mission came to an end and the trio left Ukraine planning to spend a year in Paris Maria wanted to see Western Europe Quisling wanted to get some rest following bouts of stomach pain that had lasted all winter 23 Quisling and his second wife Maria The stay in Paris required a temporary discharge from the army which Quisling slowly grew to understand was permanent army cutbacks meant that there would be no position available for him when he returned 24 nb 1 Quisling devoted much of his time in the French capital to study reading works of political theory and working on his philosophical project which he called Universism On 2 October 1923 he persuaded the Oslo daily newspaper Tidens Tegn to publish an article he had written calling for diplomatic recognition of the Soviet government 25 Quisling s stay in Paris did not last as long as planned and in late 1923 he started work on Nansen s new repatriation project in the Balkans arriving in Sofia in November The next two months he spent traveling constantly with his wife Maria In January Maria returned to Paris to look after Alexandra who took on the role of the couple s foster daughter Quisling joined them in February 26 In the summer of 1924 the trio returned to Norway where Alexandra subsequently left to live with an aunt in Nice and never returned 27 Although Quisling promised to provide for her well being his payments were irregular and over the coming years he would miss a number of opportunities to visit 28 Back in Norway and to his later embarrassment Quisling found himself drawn into the communist Norwegian labour movement Among other policies he fruitlessly advocated a people s militia to protect the country against reactionary attacks 27 and asked members of the movement whether they would like to know what information the General Staff had on them but he got no response Although this brief attachment to the far left seems unlikely given Quisling s later political direction Dahl suggests that following a conservative childhood he was by this time unemployed and dispirited deeply resentful of the General Staff and in the process of becoming politically more radical 29 Dahl adds that Quisling s political views at this time could be summarised as a fusion of socialism and nationalism with definite sympathies for the Soviets in Russia 30 Russia and the rouble scandal Edit The Armenia commission of the League of Nations 19 June 1925 From left sitting are C E Dupuis Fridtjof Nansen and G Carle standing are Pio Le Savio and Vidkun Quisling In June 1925 Nansen once again provided Quisling with employment The pair began a tour of Armenia where they hoped to help repatriate Armenians including those who survived the Armenian Genocide via a number of projects proposed for funding by the League of Nations Despite Quisling s substantial efforts however the projects were all rejected In May 1926 Quisling found another job with long time friend and fellow Norwegian Frederik Prytz in Moscow working as a liaison between Prytz and the Soviet authorities who owned half of Prytz s firm Onega Wood 31 He stayed in the job until Prytz prepared to close down the business in early 1927 when Quisling found new employment as a diplomat British diplomatic affairs in Russia were being managed by Norway and he became their new legation secretary Maria joined him late in 1928 A massive scandal broke when Quisling and Prytz were accused of using diplomatic channels to smuggle millions of roubles onto the black markets a much repeated claim that was later used to support a charge of moral bankruptcy but neither it nor the charge that Quisling spied for the British has ever been substantiated 32 The harder line now developing in Russian politics led Quisling to distance himself from Bolshevism The Soviet government had rejected outright his Armenian proposals and obstructed an attempt by Nansen to help with the 1928 Ukrainian famine Quisling took these rebuffs as a personal insult in 1929 with the British now keen to take back control of their own diplomatic affairs he left Russia 33 He was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire CBE for his services to Britain 33 an honour revoked by King George VI in 1940 34 By this time Quisling had also been awarded the Romanian Crown Order and the Yugoslav Order of St Sava for his earlier humanitarian efforts 33 Early political career EditFinal return to Norway Edit Having spent nine of the previous twelve years abroad but with no practical experience in party politics outside the Norwegian Army Quisling returned to Norway in December 1929 bringing with him a plan for change he termed Norsk Aktion meaning Norwegian Action 35 The planned organisation consisted of national regional and local units with the intention of recruiting in the style of the Soviet Communist Party Like Action Francaise of the French right it advocated radical constitutional changes The Parliament of Norway or Storting was to become bicameral with the second chamber made up of Soviet style elected representatives from the working population 36 Quisling focused more on organisation than the practicalities of government for instance all members of Norsk Aktion were to have their own designation in a militaristic hierarchy 37 Quisling next sold a large number of antiques and works of art that he had acquired cheaply in post revolutionary Russia 38 His collection stretched to some 200 paintings including works claimed to be by Rembrandt Goya Cezanne and numerous other masters The collection including veritable treasures had been insured for almost 300 000 kroner 38 In the spring of 1930 he again joined up with Prytz who was back in Norway They participated in regular group meetings that included middle aged officers and business people since described as the textbook definition of a Fascist initiative group through which Prytz appeared determined to launch Quisling into politics 39 After Nansen died on 13 May 1930 Quisling used his friendship with the editor of the Tidens Tegn newspaper to get his analysis of Nansen onto the front page The article was entitled Politiske tanker ved Fridtjof Nansens dod Political Thoughts on the Death of Fridtjof Nansen and was published on 24 May 40 In the article he outlined ten points that would complete Nansen s vision as applied to Norway among them strong and just government and a greater emphasis on race and heredity 39 This theme was followed up in his new book Russia and Ourselves Norwegian Russland og vi which was serialised in Tidens Tegn during the autumn of 1930 41 Advocating war against Bolshevism the openly racist book catapulted Quisling into the political limelight 39 Despite his earlier ambivalence he took up a seat on the Oslo board of the previously Nansen led Fatherland League Meanwhile he and Prytz founded a new political movement Nordisk folkereisning i Norge or Nordic popular rising in Norway with a central committee of 31 and Quisling as its forer a one man executive committee though Quisling seemed to have had no particular attachment to the term 42 The first meeting of the league took place on 17 March 1931 stating the purpose of the movement was to eliminate the imported and depraved communist insurgency 43 Defence minister Edit Quisling seated right as defence minister in the Kolstad government in 1931 Quisling left Nordisk folkereisning i Norge in May 1931 to serve as defence minister in the Agrarian government of Peder Kolstad despite being neither an Agrarian nor a friend of Kolstad 44 He had been suggested to Kolstad for the post by Thorvald Aadahl editor of the Agrarian newspaper Nationen who was in turn influenced by Prytz 45 The appointment came as a surprise to many in the Parliament of Norway 46 Quisling s first action in the post was to deal with the aftermath of the Battle of Menstad an extremely bitter labour dispute by sending in troops 45 47 48 After narrowly avoiding criticism by the left wing over his handling of the dispute and the revelation of his earlier militia plans Quisling turned his attention to the perceived threat posed by communists 49 He created a list of the Revolutionary Trade Union Opposition leadership who had been the alleged agitators at Menstad a number of them were eventually charged with subversion and violence against the police 45 Quisling s policies also resulted in the establishment of a permanent militia called the Leidang which unlike the body he had previously planned was to be counter revolutionary Despite the ready availability of junior officers in the reserve following defence cuts only seven units were established in 1934 and funding restrictions meant that the enterprise included less than a thousand men before it faded away 50 Sometime during the period 1930 33 Quisling s first wife Asja received notice of the annulment of her marriage to him 51 In mid 1932 Nordisk folkereisning i Norge was forced to confirm that even though Quisling remained in the cabinet he would not become a member of the party They further stated that the party programme had no basis in fascism of any kind including the National Socialism model 50 This did not dampen criticism of Quisling who remained constantly in the headlines although he was gradually earning a reputation as a disciplined and efficient administrator 50 After he was attacked in his office by a knife wielding assailant who threw ground pepper in his face on 2 February 1932 some newspapers instead of focusing on the attack itself suggested that the assailant had been the jealous husband of one of Quisling s cleaners others especially those aligned with the Labour Party posited that the whole thing had been staged 52 53 In November 1932 Labour politician Johan Nygaardsvold put this theory to Parliament 54 prompting suggestions that charges of slander be brought against him 55 No charges were brought and the identity of the assailant has never been confirmed Quisling later indicated it was an attempt to steal military papers recently left by Swedish Lieutenant Colonel Wilhelm Kleen 52 nb 2 The so called pepper affair served to polarise opinion about Quisling and government fears grew concerning reasonably open Soviet elements in Norway who had been active in promoting industrial unrest 57 Following Kolstad s death in March 1932 Quisling retained his post as defence minister in the second Agrarian government under Jens Hundseid for political reasons though they remained in bitter opposition throughout 58 Just as he had been under Kolstad Quisling was involved in many of the spats that characterised Hundseid s government 59 On 8 April that year Quisling had a chance to defend himself over the pepper affair in Parliament but instead used the opportunity to attack the Labour and Communist parties claiming that named members were criminals and enemies of our fatherland and our people 57 Support for Quisling from right wing elements in Norwegian society rocketed overnight and 153 distinguished signatories called for Quisling s claims to be investigated In the coming months tens of thousands of Norwegians followed suit and Quisling s summer was full of speeches to packed political rallies 57 In Parliament however Quisling s speech was viewed as political suicide not only was his evidence weak but questions were raised as to why the information had not been handed over much sooner if the revolutionary threat were so serious 57 Popular party leader Edit Vidkun Quisling together with some NS supporters Over the course of 1932 and into 1933 Prytz s influence over Nordisk folkereisning i Norge weakened and lawyer Johan Bernhard Hjort assumed the leadership role Hjort was keen to work with Quisling because of his new found popularity and they devised a new programme of right wing policies including proscription of revolutionary parties including those funded by foreign bodies such as Comintern the suspension of the voting rights for people in receipt of social welfare agricultural debt relief and an audit of public finances 60 In 1932 during the Kullmann Affair Quisling turned on the prime minister for questioning his hard line stance over pacifist agitator Captain Olaf Kullmann In a memorandum laying out his proposals for economic and social reform distributed to the entire cabinet Quisling called for the prime minister to stand down 61 As the government began to collapse Quisling s personal popularity reached new heights he was referred to as man of the year and there were expectations of forthcoming electoral success 61 Despite the new programme some of Quisling s circle still favoured a cabinet coup He later said he had even considered the use of force to overthrow the government but in late February it was the Liberal Party that brought them down With the assistance of Hjort and Prytz Nordisk folkereisning i Norge quickly became a political party Nasjonal Samling or NS literally National Unity ready to contest the forthcoming October election Quisling was mildly disappointed and would have preferred to head a national movement not just one of seven political parties Nasjonal Samling soon afterwards announced it would support candidates from other parties if they supported its key aim of establishing a strong and stable national government independent of ordinary party politics Although not an overnight success in the already crowded political spectrum the party slowly gained support With its Nazi inspired belief in the central authority of a strong Fuhrer as well as its powerful propaganda elements it gained support from many among the Oslo upper classes and began to give the impression that big money lay behind it 62 Increased support also materialised when the Bygdefolkets Krisehjelp the Norwegian Farmers Aid Association sought financial aid from Nasjonal Samling who in turn gained political influence and a useful existing network of well trained party officers Quisling s party never managed a grand anti socialist coalition however in part because of competition from the Conservative Party for right wing votes 63 Though Quisling remained unable to demonstrate any skill as an orator his reputation for scandal nonetheless ensured that the electorate were aware of Nasjonal Samling s existence As a result the party showed only moderate success in the October elections with 27 850 votes approximately two per cent of the national vote and about three and a half per cent of the vote in constituencies where it fielded candidates 64 This made it the fifth largest party in Norway out polling the Communists but not the Conservative Labour Liberal or Agrarian parties and failing to secure a single seat in Parliament 64 Forer of a party in decline Edit Quisling on the podium during a party meeting in the 1930s After the underwhelming election results Quisling s attitude to negotiation and compromise hardened 65 A final attempt to form a coalition of the right in March 1934 came to nothing and from late 1933 Quisling s Nasjonal Samling began to carve out its own form of national socialism With no leader in Parliament however the party struggled to introduce the constitutional reform bill needed to achieve its lofty ambitions When Quisling tried to introduce the bill directly it was swiftly rejected 65 and the party went into decline In the summer of 1935 headlines quoted Quisling telling opponents that heads would roll as soon as he achieved power The threat irreparably damaged the image of his party and over the following few months several high ranking members resigned including Kai Fjell and Quisling s brother Jorgen 66 Quisling began to familiarise himself with the international fascist movement attending the 1934 Montreux Fascist conference in December For his party the association with Italian fascism could not have come at a worse time so soon after headlines of illegal Italian incursions into Abyssinia 67 On his return trip from Montreux he met Nazi ideologue and foreign policy theorist Alfred Rosenberg and though he preferred to see his own policies as a synthesis of Italian fascism and German Nazism by the time of the 1936 elections Quisling had in part become the Norwegian Hitler that his opponents had long accused him of being 68 Part of this was due to his hardening anti Semitic stance associating Judaism with Marxism liberalism and increasingly anything else he found objectionable and part as a result of Nasjonal Samling s growing similarity to the German Nazi Party Despite receiving an unexpected boost when the Norwegian government acceded to Soviet demands to arrest Leon Trotsky the party s election campaign never gained momentum Although Quisling sincerely believed he had the support of around 100 000 voters and declared to his party that they would win an absolute minimum of ten seats Nasjonal Samling managed to poll just 26 577 fewer than in 1933 when they had fielded candidates in only half the districts 69 70 Under this pressure the party split in two with Hjort leading the breakaway group although fewer than fifty members left immediately many more drifted away during 1937 71 Dwindling party membership created many problems for Quisling especially financial ones For years he had been in financial difficulties and reliant on his inheritance while increasing numbers of his paintings were found to be copies when he tried to sell them Vidkun and his brother Arne sold one Frans Hals painting for just four thousand dollars believing it to be a copy and not the fifty thousand dollar artwork they had once thought it to be only to see it reclassified as an original and revalued at a hundred thousand dollars In the difficult circumstances of the Great Depression even originals did not raise as much as Quisling had hoped 72 His disillusionment with Norwegian society was furthered by news of the planned constitutional reform of 1938 which would extend the parliamentary term from three to four years with immediate effect a move Quisling bitterly opposed 73 World War II EditComing of war Edit In 1939 Quisling turned his attention towards Norway s preparations for the anticipated European war which he believed involved a drastic increase in the country s defence spending to guarantee its neutrality Meanwhile Quisling presented lectures entitled The Jewish problem in Norway 74 and supported Adolf Hitler in what appeared to be growing future conflict Despite condemning Kristallnacht he sent the German leader a fiftieth birthday greeting thanking him for saving Europe from Bolshevism and Jewish domination 73 Quisling also contended that should an Anglo Russian alliance make neutrality impossible Norway would have to go with Germany 75 Invited to the country in the summer of 1939 he began a tour of a number of German and Danish cities He was received particularly well in Germany which promised funds to boost Nasjonal Samling s standing in Norway and hence spread pro Nazi sentiment When war broke out on 1 September 1939 Quisling felt vindicated by both the event and the immediate superiority displayed by the German army He remained outwardly confident that despite its size his party would soon become the centre of political attention 75 For the next nine months Quisling continued to lead a party that was at best peripheral to Norwegian politics 75 He was nonetheless active and in October 1939 he worked with Prytz on an ultimately unsuccessful plan for peace between Britain France and Germany and their eventual participation in a new economic union Quisling also mused on how Germany ought to go on the offensive against its ally the Soviet Union and on 9 December travelled to Germany to present his multi faceted plans 76 After impressing German officials he won an audience with Hitler himself scheduled for 14 December whereupon he received firm advice from his contacts that the most useful thing he could do would be to ask for Hitler s help with a pro German coup in Norway nb 3 that would let the Germans use Norway as a naval base Thereafter Norway would maintain official neutrality as long as possible and finally the country would fall under German rather than British control 78 It is not clear how much Quisling himself understood about the strategic implications of such a move and he instead relied on his future Minister of Domestic Affairs Albert Hagelin who was fluent in German to put the relevant arguments to German officials in Berlin during pre meeting talks even though Hagelin was prone to damaging exaggeration at times 79 Quisling and his German contacts almost certainly went away with different views as to whether they had agreed upon the necessity of a German invasion 80 On 14 December 1939 Quisling met Hitler The German leader promised to respond to any British invasion of Norway Plan R 4 perhaps pre emptively with a German counter invasion but found Quisling s plans for both a Norwegian coup and an Anglo German peace unduly optimistic Nonetheless Quisling would still receive funds to bolster Nasjonal Samling nb 4 The two men met again four days later and afterwards Quisling wrote a memorandum that explicitly told Hitler that he did not consider himself a National Socialist 80 As German machinations continued Quisling was intentionally kept in the dark He was also incapacitated by a severe bout of illness probably nephritis in both kidneys for which he refused hospitalisation Though he returned to work on 13 March 1940 he remained ill for several weeks 82 In the meantime the Altmark incident complicated Norway s efforts to maintain its neutrality Hitler himself remained in two minds over whether an occupation of Norway should require an invitation from the Norwegian government Finally Quisling received his summons on 31 March and reluctantly travelled to Copenhagen to meet with Nazi intelligence officers who asked him for information on Norwegian defences and defence protocols He returned to Norway on 6 April and on 8 April the British Operation Wilfred commenced bringing Norway into the war With Allied forces in Norway Quisling expected a characteristically swift German response 83 German invasion and coup d etat Edit See also Quisling regime 1940 coup In the early hours of 9 April 1940 Germany invaded Norway by air and sea as Operation Weserubung or Operation Weser Exercise intending to capture King Haakon VII and the government of Prime Minister Johan Nygaardsvold However alert to the possibility of invasion Conservative President of the Parliament C J Hambro arranged for their evacuation to Hamar in the east of the country 84 The Blucher a German cruiser which carried most of the personnel intended to take over Norway s administration was sunk by cannon fire and torpedoes from Oscarsborg Fortress in the Oslofjord nb 5 The Germans had expected the government to surrender and to have its replacement ready neither happened although the invasion itself continued After hours of discussion Quisling and his German counterparts decided that an immediate coup was necessary though this was not the preferred option of either Germany s ambassador Curt Brauer or the German Foreign Ministry 86 In the afternoon Quisling was told by German liaison Hans Wilhelm Scheidt that should he set up a government it would have Hitler s personal approval Quisling drew up a list of ministers and although it had merely relocated some 150 kilometres 93 mi to Elverum accused the legitimate government of having fled nb 6 Meanwhile the Germans occupied Oslo and at 17 30 Norwegian radio ceased broadcasting at the request of the occupying forces 89 With German support at approximately 19 30 Quisling entered the NRK studios in Oslo and proclaimed the formation of a new government with himself as Prime Minister He also revoked an earlier order to mobilise against the German invasion 89 90 He still lacked legitimacy Two orders the first to his friend Colonel Hans Sommerfeldt Hiorth the commanding officer of the army regiment at Elverum 91 to arrest the government and the second to Kristian Welhaven Oslo s chief of police were both ignored At 22 00 Quisling resumed broadcasting repeating his earlier message and reading out a list of new ministers Hitler lent his support as promised and recognised the new Norwegian government under Quisling within 24 hours 89 Norwegian batteries were still firing on the German invasion force and at 03 00 on 10 April Quisling acceded to a German request to halt the resistance of the Bolaerne fortress nb 7 93 As a result of actions such as these it was claimed at the time that Quisling s seizure of power in a puppet government had been part of the German plan all along 94 Quisling now reached the high water mark of his political power On 10 April Brauer travelled to Elverum where the legitimate Nygaardsvold government now sat On Hitler s orders he demanded that King Haakon appoint Quisling head of a new government thereby securing a peaceful transition of power Haakon rejected this demand 95 He went further in a meeting with his cabinet letting it be known that he would sooner abdicate than appoint any government headed by Quisling Hearing this the government unanimously voted to support the king s stance 96 and urged the people to continue their resistance 95 With his popular support gone Quisling ceased to be of use to Hitler Germany retracted its support for his rival government preferring instead to build up its own independent governing commission In this way Quisling was manoeuvred out of power by Brauer and a coalition of his former allies including Hjort who now saw him as a liability Even his political allies including Prytz deserted him 95 In return Hitler wrote to Quisling thanking him for his efforts and guaranteeing him some sort of position in the new government The transfer of power on these terms was duly enacted on 15 April with Hitler still confident the Administrative Council would receive the backing of the king 97 Quisling s domestic and international reputation both hit new lows casting him as both a traitor and a failure 98 Head of the government Edit See also Quisling regime Quisling in Oslo in 1941 Once the king had declared the German commission unlawful it became clear that he would never be won over An impatient Hitler appointed a German Josef Terboven as the new Norwegian Reichskommissar or Governor General on 24 April reporting directly to him Despite Hitler s assurances Terboven wanted to make sure that there would be no room in the government for the Nasjonal Samling nor its leader Quisling with whom he did not get along 99 Terboven eventually accepted a certain Nasjonal Samling presence in the government during June but remained unconvinced about Quisling As a result on 25 June Terboven forced Quisling to step down as leader of the Nasjonal Samling and take a temporary leave of absence in Germany 99 Quisling remained there until 20 August while Rosenberg and Admiral Erich Raeder whom he had met on his earlier visit to Berlin negotiated on his behalf In the end Quisling returned in triumph having won Hitler over in a meeting on 16 August The Reichskommissar would now have to accommodate Quisling as leader of the government then allow him to rebuild the Nasjonal Samling and bring more of his men into the cabinet 100 Terboven complied and addressed the Norwegian people in a radio broadcast in which he asserted that the Nasjonal Samling would be the only political party allowed 101 As a result by the end of 1940 the monarchy had been suspended although the Parliament of Norway and a body resembling a cabinet remained The Nasjonal Samling the only pro German party would be cultivated but Terboven s Reichskommissariat would keep power in the meantime Quisling would serve as acting prime minister and ten of the thirteen cabinet ministers were to come from his party 102 He set out on a programme of wiping out the destructive principles of the French Revolution including pluralism and parliamentary rule This reached into local politics whereby mayors who switched their allegiance to the Nasjonal Samling were rewarded with much greater powers Investments were made in heavily censored cultural programmes though the press remained theoretically free To bolster the survival chances of the Nordic genotype contraception was severely restricted 103 Quisling s party experienced a rise in membership to a little over 30 000 but despite his optimism it was never to pass the 40 000 mark 104 On 5 December 1940 Quisling flew to Berlin to negotiate the future of Norway s independence By the time he returned on 13 December he had agreed to raise volunteers to fight with the German Schutzstaffel SS In January SS head Heinrich Himmler travelled to Norway to oversee preparations Quisling clearly believed that if Norway supported Nazi Germany on the battlefield there would be no reason for Germany to annex it To this end he opposed plans to have a German SS brigade loyal only to Hitler installed in Norway 105 In the process he also toughened his attitude to the country harbouring the exiled king the United Kingdom which he no longer saw as a Nordic ally Finally Quisling aligned Norwegian policy on Jews with that of Germany giving a speech in Frankfurt on 26 March 1941 in which he argued for compulsory exile but warned against extermination 105 In May Quisling was shattered by the death of his mother Anna as the two had been particularly close At the same time the political crisis over Norwegian independence deepened with Quisling threatening Terboven with his resignation over the issue of finance In the end the Reichskommissar agreed to compromise on the issue but Quisling had to concede on the SS issue A brigade was formed but as a branch of the Nasjonal Samling 105 Meanwhile the government line hardened with Communist Party leaders arrested and trade unionists intimidated On 10 September 1941 Viggo Hansteen and Rolf Wickstrom were executed and many more imprisoned following the milk strike in Oslo Hansteen s execution was later seen as a watershed moment dividing the occupation into its more innocent and more deadly phases 106 The same year Statspolitiet the State Police abolished in 1937 was reestablished to assist the Gestapo in Norway and radio sets were confiscated across the country Though these were all Terboven s decisions Quisling agreed with them and went on to denounce the government in exile as traitors As a result of the toughened stance an informal ice front emerged with Nasjonal Samling supporters ostracised from society 106 Quisling remained convinced this was an anti German sentiment that would fade away once Berlin had handed power over to Nasjonal Samling However the only concessions he won in 1941 were having the heads of ministries promoted to official ministers of the government and independence for the party secretariat 107 Two girls in Bunad greet Reichskommissar Josef Terboven and Minister President Vidkun Quisling on 1 February 1942 In January 1942 Terboven announced the German administration would be wound down Soon afterwards he told Quisling that Hitler had approved the transfer of power scheduled for 30 January Quisling remained doubtful it would happen since Germany and Norway were in the midst of complex peace negotiations that could not be completed until peace had been reached on the Eastern Front while Terboven insisted that the Reichskommissariat would remain in power until such peace came about 107 Quisling could nevertheless be reasonably confident that his position within the party and with Berlin was unassailable even if he was unpopular within Norway something of which he was well aware 108 After a brief postponement an announcement was made on 1 February 1942 detailing how the cabinet had elected Quisling to the post of Minister President of the national government 109 110 The appointment was accompanied by a banquet rallying and other celebrations by the Nasjonal Samling members In his first speech Quisling committed the government to closer ties with Germany The only change to the Constitution was the reinstatement of the ban on Jewish entry into Norway which had been abolished in 1851 110 Minister President Edit Quisling signing an autograph 1943 Quisling with Norwegian volunteers on the eastern front in 1942 Quisling s office at the Royal Palace into which he moved in February 1942 Quisling s residence Villa Grande in 1945 which he called Gimle a name taken from Norse mythology His new position gave Quisling a security of tenure he had not previously enjoyed although the Reichskommissariat remained outside his control A month later in February 1942 Quisling made his first state visit to Berlin It was a productive trip in which all key issues of Norwegian independence were discussed but Joseph Goebbels in particular remained unconvinced of Quisling s credentials noting that it was unlikely he would ever make a great statesman 111 Back at home Quisling was now less concerned about Nasjonal Samling s membership and even wanted action to clean up the membership list including purging it of drunkards On 12 March 1942 Norway officially became a one party state In time criticism of and resistance to the party was criminalised though Quisling expressed regret for having to take this step hoping that every Norwegian would freely come around to accept his government 111 This optimism was short lived In the course of the summer of 1942 Quisling lost any ability he might have had to sway public opinion by attempting to force children into the Nasjonal Samlings Ungdomsfylking youth organisation which was modelled on the Hitler Youth This move prompted a mass resignation of teachers from their professional body and churchmen from their posts along with large scale civil unrest His attempted indictment of Bishop Eivind Berggrav proved similarly controversial even amongst his German allies Quisling now toughened his stance telling Norwegians that they would have the new regime forced upon them whether they like it or not On 1 May 1942 the German High Command noted that organised resistance to Quisling has started and Norway s peace talks with Germany stalled as a result 112 On 11 August 1942 Hitler postponed any further peace negotiations until the war ended Quisling was admonished and learned that Norway would not get the independence he so greatly yearned for As an added insult for the first time he was forbidden to write letters directly to Hitler 113 Quisling had earlier pushed for a corporate alternative to the Parliament of Norway the Storting which he called a Riksting It would comprise two chambers the Naeringsting Economic Chamber and Kulturting Cultural Chamber Now in advance of Nasjonal Samling s eighth and last national convention on 25 September 1942 and becoming increasingly distrustful of professional bodies he changed his mind The Riksting became an advisory body while the Forerting or Leader Council and parliamentary chambers were now to be independent bodies subordinate to their respective ministries nb 8 After the convention support for Nasjonal Samling and Quisling personally ebbed away Increased factionalism and personal losses including the accidental death of fellow politician Gulbrand Lunde were compounded by heavy handed German tactics such as the shooting of ten well known residents of Trondelag and its environs in October 1942 In addition the lex Eilifsen ex post facto law of August 1943 which led to the first death sentence passed by the regime was widely seen as a blatant violation of the Constitution and a sign of Norway s increasing role in the Final Solution would destroy everything the convention had achieved in terms of boosting party morale 116 With government abatement and Quisling s personal engagement Jews were registered in a German initiative of January 1942 On 26 October 1942 German forces with help from the Norwegian police arrested 300 registered male Jews in Norway and sent them to concentration camps most in Berg and manned by Hirden the paramilitary wing of Nasjonal Samling 117 Most controversially the Jews property was confiscated by the state nb 9 On 26 November the detainees were deported along with their families Although this was an entirely German initiative Quisling himself was left unaware of it although government assistance was provided Quisling led the Norwegian public to believe that the first deportation of Jews to camps in Nazi German occupied Poland was his idea 116 A further 250 were deported in February 1943 and it remains unclear what the party s official position was on the eventual fate of the 759 Norwegian deportees There is evidence to suggest that Quisling honestly believed the official line throughout 1943 and 1944 that they were awaiting repatriation to a new Jewish homeland in Madagascar 119 nb 10 At the same time Quisling believed that the only way he could win back Hitler s respect would be to raise volunteers for the now faltering German war effort 121 and he committed Norway wholeheartedly to German plans to wage total war 122 For him at least after the German defeat at Stalingrad in February 1943 Norway now had a part to play in keeping the German empire strong In April 1943 Quisling delivered a scathing speech attacking Germany s refusal to outline its plans for post war Europe When he put this to Hitler in person the Nazi leader remained unmoved despite Norway s contributions to the war effort Quisling felt betrayed over this postponement of Norwegian freedom 123 an attitude that waned only when Hitler eventually committed to a free post war Norway in September 1943 124 Quisling tired during the final years of the war In 1942 he passed 231 laws 166 in 1943 and 139 in 1944 Social policy was the one area that still received significant attention By that autumn Quisling and Mussert in the Netherlands could be satisfied they had at least survived 125 In 1944 the weight problems Quisling had been having during the preceding two years also eased 126 Despite the increasingly dire military outlook in 1943 and 1944 Nasjonal Samling s position at the head of the government albeit with its ambiguous relationship to the Reichskommissariat remained unassailable 125 Nevertheless the Germans exerted increasing control over law and order in Norway Following the deportation of the Jews Germany deported Norwegian officers and finally attempted to deport students from the University of Oslo Even Hitler was incensed by the scale of the arrests 127 Quisling became entangled in a similar debacle in early 1944 when he forced compulsory military service on elements of the Hirden causing a number of members to resign to avoid being drafted 128 On 20 January 1945 Quisling made what would be his final trip to visit Hitler He promised Norwegian support in the final phase of the war if Germany agreed to a peace deal that would remove Norway s affairs from German intervention This proposal grew out of a fear that as German forces retreated southwards through Norway the occupation government would have to struggle to keep control in northern Norway To the horror of the Quisling regime the Nazis instead decided on a scorched earth policy in northern Norway going so far as to shoot Norwegian civilians who refused to evacuate the region 128 The period was also marked by increasing civilian casualties from Allied air raids and mounting resistance to the government within occupied Norway The meeting with the German leader proved unsuccessful and upon being asked to sign the execution order of thousands of Norwegian saboteurs Quisling refused an act of defiance that so enraged Terboven acting on Hitler s orders that he stormed out of the negotiations 128 On recounting the events of the trip to a friend Quisling broke down in tears convinced the Nazi refusal to sign a peace agreement would seal his reputation as a traitor 129 Quisling spent the last months of the war trying to prevent Norwegian deaths in the showdown that was developing between German and Allied forces in Norway The regime worked for the safe repatriation of Norwegians held in German prisoner of war camps Privately Quisling had long accepted that National Socialism would be defeated Hitler s suicide on 30 April 1945 left him free to pursue publicly his chosen end game a naive offer of a transition to a power sharing government with the government in exile 130 On 7 May Quisling ordered police not to offer armed resistance to the Allied advance except in self defence or against overt members of the Norwegian resistance movement The same day Germany announced it would surrender unconditionally making Quisling s position untenable 131 A realist Quisling met military leaders of the resistance on the following day to discuss how he would be arrested Quisling declared whilst he did not want to be treated as a common criminal he did not want preferential treatment compared to his Nasjonal Samling colleagues He argued he could have kept his forces fighting until the end but had chosen not to so as to avoid turning Norway into a battlefield Instead he tried to ensure a peaceful transition In return the resistance offered full trials for all accused Nasjonal Samling members after the war and its leadership agreed he could be incarcerated in a house rather than a prison complex 131 Arrest Edit Vidkun Quisling in custody at Akershus fortress 1945 See also Legal purge in Norway after World War II The civil leadership of the resistance represented by lawyer Sven Arntzen demanded Quisling be treated like any other murder suspect and on 9 May 1945 Quisling and his ministers turned themselves in to police 132 Quisling was transferred to Cell 12 in Mollergata 19 the main police station in Oslo The cell was equipped with a tiny table a basin and a hole in the wall for a toilet bucket 133 After ten weeks being constantly watched to prevent suicide attempts in police custody he was transferred to Akershus Fortress and awaited trial as part of the legal purge 132 He soon started working on his case with Henrik Bergh a lawyer with a good track record but largely unsympathetic at least initially to Quisling s plight Bergh did however believe Quisling s testimony that he tried to act in the best interests of Norway and decided to use this as a starting point for the defence 134 Initially Quisling s charges related to the coup including his revocation of the mobilisation order to his time as Nasjonal Samling leader and to his actions as Minister President such as assisting the enemy and illegally attempting to alter the constitution Finally he was accused of Gunnar Eilifsen s murder Whilst not contesting the key facts he denied all charges on the grounds that he had always worked for a free and prosperous Norway and submitted a sixty page response 134 On 11 July 1945 a further indictment was brought adding a raft of new charges including more murders theft embezzlement and most worrying of all for Quisling the charge of conspiring with Hitler over the invasion and occupation of Norway 135 Trial and execution EditI know that the Norwegian people have sentenced me to death and that the easiest course for me would be to take my own life But I want to let history reach its own verdict Believe me in ten years time I will have become another Saint Olav Quisling to Bjorn Foss 8 May 1945 Dahl 1999 p 367 The trial opened on 20 August 1945 135 Quisling s defence rested on downplaying his unity with Germany and stressing that he had fought for total independence something that seemed completely contrary to the recollections of many Norwegians From that point on wrote biographer Dahl Quisling had to tread a fine line between truth and falsehood and emerged from it an elusive and often pitiful figure 135 He misrepresented the truth on several occasions and the truthful majority of his statements won him few advocates in the country at large where he remained almost universally despised 136 In the later days of the trial Quisling s health suffered largely as a result of the number of medical tests to which he was subjected 136 and his defence faltered 136 The prosecution s final speech placed responsibility for the Final Solution being carried out in Norway at the feet of Quisling using the testimony of German officials The prosecutor Annaeus Schjodt called for the death penalty using laws introduced by the government in exile in October 1941 and January 1942 136 137 Speeches by both Bergh and Quisling himself could not change the outcome When the verdict was announced on 10 September 1945 Quisling was convicted on all but a handful of minor charges and sentenced to death An October appeal to the Supreme Court was rejected 138 The court process was judged to be a model of fairness in a commentary by author Maynard Cohen 139 After giving testimony in a number of other trials of Nasjonal Samling members Quisling was executed by firing squad at Akershus Fortress at 02 40 on 24 October 1945 140 141 His last words before being shot were I m convicted unfairly and I die innocent 142 After his death his body was cremated leaving the ashes to be interred in Fyresdal 143 Legacy EditHis wife Maria lived in Oslo until her death in 1980 144 They had no children Upon her death she donated all their Russian antiques to a charitable fund that still operated in Oslo as of August 2017 145 For most of his later political career Quisling lived in a mansion on Bygdoy in Oslo that he called Gimle after the place in Norse mythology where survivors of the great battle of Ragnarok were to live 146 The house later renamed Villa Grande in time became a Holocaust museum 147 The Nasjonal Samling movement was wiped out as a political force in Norway and Quisling has become one of the most written about Norwegians of all time 148 The word quisling became a synonym for traitor 149 The term was coined by the British newspaper The Times in its lead of 15 April 1940 titled Quislings everywhere 150 The noun survived and for a while during and after World War II the back formed verb to quisle ˈ k w ɪ z el was used One who was quisling was in the act of committing treason 151 Personality EditTo his supporters Quisling was regarded as a conscientious administrator of the highest order knowledgeable and with an eye for detail He was believed to care deeply about his people and maintained high moral standards throughout 152 To his opponents Quisling was unstable and undisciplined abrupt even threatening Quite possibly he was both at ease among friends and under pressure when confronted with his political opponents and generally shy and retiring with both During formal dinners he often said nothing at all except for the occasional cascade of dramatic rhetoric Indeed he did not react well to pressure and would often let slip over dramatic sentiments when put on the spot Normally open to criticism he was prone to assuming larger groups were conspiratorial 152 Post war interpretations of Quisling s character are similarly mixed After the war collaborationist behaviour was popularly viewed as a result of mental deficiency leaving the personality of the clearly more intelligent Quisling an enigma He was instead seen as weak paranoid intellectually sterile and power hungry ultimately muddled rather than thoroughly corrupted 153 As quoted by Dahl psychiatrist Professor Gabriel Langfeldt stated Quisling s ultimate philosophical goals fitted the classic description of the paranoid megalomaniac more exactly than any other case he had ever encountered 154 During his time in office Quisling arose early often having completed several hours of work before arriving at the office between 9 30 and 10 00 He liked to intervene in virtually all government matters reading all letters addressed to him or his chancellery personally and marking a surprising number for action 155 Quisling was independent minded made several key decisions on the spot and unlike his German counterpart he liked to follow procedure to ensure that government remained a dignified and civilised affair throughout 155 He took a personal interest in the administration of Fyresdal where he was born 152 He rejected German racial supremacy and instead saw the Norwegian race as the progenitor of Northern Europe tracing his own family tree in his spare time 152 Party members did not receive preferential treatment 155 though Quisling did not himself share in the wartime hardships of his fellow Norwegians Nevertheless many gifts went unused and he did not live extravagantly 152 Religious and philosophical views Edit Quisling s library included the works of a number of eminent philosophers Quisling was interested in science eastern religions and metaphysics eventually building up a library that included the works of Spinoza Kant Hegel and Schopenhauer He kept up with developments in the realm of quantum physics but did not keep up with more current philosophical ideas 156 He blended philosophy and science into what he called Universism or Universalism which was a unified explanation of everything His original writings stretched to a claimed two thousand pages 156 He rejected the basic teachings of orthodox Christianity and established a new theory of life which he called Universism a term borrowed from a textbook which Jan Jakob Maria de Groot had written on Chinese philosophy De Groot s book argued that Taoism Confucianism and Buddhism were all part of a world religion that De Groot called Universism Quisling described how his philosophy followed from the universal theory of relativity of which the specific and general theories of relativity are special instances His magnum opus was divided into four parts an introduction a description of mankind s apparent progression from individual to increasing complex consciousnesses a section on his tenets of morality and law and a final section on science art politics history race and religion The conclusion was to be titled The World s Organic Classification and Organisation but the work remained unfinished Generally Quisling worked on it infrequently during his time in politics The biographer Hans Fredrik Dahl describes this as fortunate since Quisling would never have won recognition as a philosopher 156 During his trial and particularly after being sentenced Quisling became interested once more in Universism He saw the events of the war as part of the move towards the establishment of God s kingdom on earth and justified his actions in those terms During the first week of October he wrote a fifty page document titled Universistic Aphorisms which represented an almost ecstatic revelation of truth and the light to come which bore the mark of nothing less than a prophet 157 The document was also notable for its attack on the materialism of Nazism In addition he simultaneously worked on a sermon Eternal Justice which reiterated his key beliefs including reincarnation 157 Works EditQuisling Vidkun 1931 Russia and Ourselves Hodder amp Stoughton In Norwegian Edit Quisling Vidkun 1941 Russland og vi Blix forlag Articles and speeches Edit Quisling har sagt I Citater fra taler og avisartikler J M Stenersens forlag 1940 Quisling har sagt II Ti ars kamp mot katastrofepolitikken Gunnar Stenersens forlag 1941 Quisling har sagt IV Mot nytt land Artikler og taler av Vidkun Quisling 1941 1943 Blix forlag 1943 For Norges frihet og selvstendighet Artikler og taler 9 april 1940 23 juni 1941 Gunnar Stenersens forlag 1941 See also EditForergarde Quisling s personal guard Philippe Petain French Marshal whose name has been used to mean traitor Andrey Vlasov Soviet general whose name has been used to mean traitor Mir Jafar ruler of Bengal whose name has been used to mean traitor Robert Lundy Scottish army officer whose name has been used to mean traitor Wang Jingwei Chinese politician whose name has been used to mean traitor Benedict Arnold American officer whose name has been used to mean traitor Judas Apostle whose name has been used to mean traitor Further reading EditHewins Ralph 1965 Quisling Prophet without Honour London W H Allen Block Maxine ed 1940 Current Biography Yearbook New York United States H W Wilson Borgersrud Lars 9 April revised on the Norwegian history tradition after Magne Skodvin on Quisling and the invasion of Norway in 19401 Scandinavian Journal of History 39 3 2014 353 397 historiography Hamre Martin Kristoffer Norwegian Fascism in a Transnational Perspective The Influence of German National Socialism and Italian Fascism on the Nasjonal Samling 1933 1936 Fascism 8 1 2019 36 60 online Hayes Paul M Vidkun Quisling History Today May 1966 Vol 16 Issue 5 p332 340 onlune Hayes Paul M 1966 Quisling s Political Ideas Journal of Contemporary History 1 1 145 157 doi 10 1177 002200946600100109 JSTOR 259653 S2CID 152904669 Hayes Paul M 1971 Quisling the career and political ideas of Vidkun Quisling 1887 1945 Newton Abbot United Kingdom David amp Charles OCLC 320725 Hoidal Oddvar K Vidkun Quisling and the Deportation of Norway s Jews Scandinavian Studies 88 3 2016 270 294 online Larsen Stein Ugelvik Charisma from Below The Quisling Case in Norway Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions 7 2 2006 235 244 Larsen Stein Ugelvik The Social Foundations of Norwegian Fascism 1933 1945 An Analysis of Membership Data in Stein Ugelvik Larsen Bernt Hagtvet and Jan Petter Myklebust eds Who were the fascists social roots of European fascism Columbia University Press 1980 In Norwegian Edit Barth E M 1996 Gud det er meg Vidkun Quisling som politisk filosof in Norwegian Oslo Norway Pax Forlag ISBN 82 530 1803 7 Borgen Per Otto 1999 Norges statsministre in Norwegian Oslo Norway Aschehoug ISBN 82 03 22389 3 Bratteli Tone Myhre Hans B 1992 Quislings siste dager in Norwegian Oslo Norway Cappelen ISBN 82 02 13345 9 Hartmann Sverre 1970 1959 Forer uten folk Forsvarsminister Quisling hans bakgrunn og vei inn i norsk politikk in Norwegian 2nd revised ed Oslo Norway Tiden Norsk Forlag OCLC 7812651 Juritzen Arve 1988 Privatmennesket Quisling og hans to kvinner in Norwegian Oslo Norway Aventura ISBN 82 588 0500 2 Ringdal Nils Johan 1989 Gal mann til rett tid NS minister Sverre Riisnaes en psykobiografi in Norwegian Oslo Norway Aschehoug ISBN 82 03 16584 2 Quisling Maria 1980 Parmann Oistein ed Dagbok og andre efterlatte papirer in Norwegian Oslo Norway Dreyer ISBN 82 09 01877 9 Primary sources Edit Dahl Hans Fredrik 1999 Quisling A Study in Treachery Stanton Ife Anne Marie trans Cambridge United Kingdom Cambridge University Press ISBN 0 521 49697 7 Cohen Maynard M 2000 A stand against tyranny Norway s physicians and the Nazis Detroit United States Wayne State University Press ISBN 978 0 8143 2934 4 Hoidal Oddvar K 1989 Quisling A study in treason Oslo Norway Universitetsforlaget ISBN 82 00 18400 5 Yourieff Alexandra Andreevna Voronine Yourieff W George Seaver Kirsten A 2007 In Quisling s shadow the memoirs of Vidkun Quisling s first wife Alexandra Stanford United States Hoover Institution Press ISBN 978 0 8179 4832 0 Footnotes Edit Increasingly bitter over the treatment he had received from the military he eventually took up a post in the reserves on the reduced salary of a captain and received a promotion to major in 1930 24 Attempts to establish exactly what the Oslo authorities managed to achieve in trying to find the assailant have been hampered by the loss of the original case file Quisling himself seemed to have rejected the idea that the plot had been masterminded by an important military power such as the Russians or Germans 56 Quisling considered the fourth and constitutionally dubious session of the Parliament of Norway due to open on 10 January 1940 as the mostly likely time for Nasjonal Samling to face an exploitable crisis During 1939 he had firmed up a list of candidates for an incoming government 77 Immediately after the meeting on 14 December Hitler ordered his staff to draw up preparations for an invasion of Norway 81 Dahl suggests that the mix up was in part due to Quisling s earlier statement to the Germans that he did not believe the Norwegian sea defences would open fire without previous orders to do so 85 The option of a Danish solution welcoming the invaders in order to avoid conflict was still on the table In this way the Nazis were avoiding choosing between the rival centres of power 87 This became impossible only after Quisling s announcement at 19 30 88 Though now accepted this charge was later one of the few for which the jury at Quisling s trial did not find sufficient evidence 92 Only the Cultural Chamber actually came into being with the Economic Chamber postponed because of unrest within the professional bodies it was supposed to represent 114 115 Property confiscations were enabled by a law of 26 October 1942 Quisling s motivations in passing such a law have proved controversial alternately labelled as collaborationist 117 and an actively anti collaborationist attempt to stop the occupiers from confiscating Jewish property 118 In reality their destination was the extermination camp at Auschwitz That Quisling understood the realities of the final solution is suggested by authors such as Hoidal but this has never been proven 120 References Edit Borgen 1999 p 273 a b Juritzen 1988 p 11 Juritzen 1988 p 12 Dahl 1999 pp 6 13 14 Dahl 1999 p 21 Juritzen 1988 p 15 Hartmann 1970 p 10 a b c Borgen 1999 p 275 a b c d Dahl 1999 pp 6 7 Dahl 1999 p 25 a b Dahl 1999 pp 28 29 Dahl 1999 pp 32 34 38 Dahl 1999 pp 38 39 Maynard M Cohen 2000 A Stand Against Tyranny Norway s Physicians and the Nazis Wayne State University Press pp 49 ISBN 0 8143 2934 9 Dahl 1999 pp 40 42 Dahl 1999 pp 43 44 Yourieff 2007 p 172 Yourieff 2007 p 100 a b c Dahl 1999 pp 45 47 Hartmann 1970 p 33 Alexandra Voronin Yourieff In Quisling s Shadow 1999 Chapter 14 The Child Quisling 1980 pp 30 31 a b Dahl 1999 pp 48 49 a b Dahl 1999 p 50 Hartmann 1970 p 30 Dahl 1999 pp 53 54 a b Dahl 1999 pp 54 56 Yourieff 2007 pp 450 452 Dahl 1999 p 57 Dahl 1999 p 58 Dahl 1999 pp 59 62 Dahl 1999 pp 62 66 a b c Dahl 1999 pp 67 69 People Time Magazine 24 June 1940 p 1 Archived from the original on 3 February 2008 Retrieved 28 April 2011 Borgen 1999 p 278 Dahl 1999 pp 4 5 Dahl 1999 p 7 a b Dahl 1999 pp 12 13 a b c Dahl 1999 pp 70 73 Hartmann 1970 p 45 Hartmann 1970 pp 48 49 Dahl 1999 pp 73 76 Hartmann 1970 pp 54 55 Hartmann 1970 p 64 a b c Dahl 1999 pp 76 78 Cohen 2000 p 51 Ringdal 1989 p 31 Hoidal 1989 pp 85 87 Hartmann 1970 pp 76 80 a b c Dahl 1999 pp 78 81 Yourieff 2007 p 467 a b Dahl 1999 pp 80 83 Hartmann 1970 pp 83 84 Hayes 1971 p 86 Hoidal 1989 p 109 Dahl 1999 p 83 a b c d Dahl 1999 pp 83 89 Cohen 2000 pp 52 53 Hoidal 1989 p 91 Dahl 1999 pp 89 90 a b Dahl 1999 pp 92 93 Dahl 1999 pp 93 97 Dahl 1999 pp 97 99 a b Dahl 1999 pp 99 100 a b Dahl 1999 pp 100 105 Dahl 1999 pp 105 109 Hoidal 1989 pp 204 205 Dahl 1999 pp 110 117 Dahl 1999 pp 117 126 Hoidal 1989 p 236 Dahl 1999 p 128 Dahl 1999 pp 130 133 a b Dahl 1999 pp 134 137 Maynard M Cohen 1 September 2000 A Stand Against Tyranny Norway s Physicians and the Nazis Wayne State University Press pp 53 ISBN 0 8143 2934 9 a b c Dahl 1999 pp 137 142 Dahl 1999 pp 142 149 Dahl 1999 p 153 The German Northern Theater of Operations 1940 1945 Brill Archive 1959 pp 8 GGKEY BQN0CQURHS1 Dahl 1999 pp 149 152 a b Dahl 1999 pp 153 156 Dahl 1999 p 157 Dahl 1999 pp 160 162 Dahl 1999 pp 162 170 Hayes 1971 p 211 Dahl 1999 pp 166 171 Dahl 1999 pp 170 172 Dahl 1999 p 173 Hayes 1971 pp 212 217 a b c Dahl 1999 pp 172 175 Ringdal 1989 p 58 Hoidal 1989 p 377 Hoidal 1989 p 755 Hayes 1971 p 221 Block ed 1940 pp 669 670 a b c Dahl 1999 pp 175 178 Hoidal 1989 p 384 Dahl 1999 p 183 Dahl 1999 pp 183 188 a b Dahl 1999 pp 188 194 Dahl 1999 pp 194 200 Norway Commission State Time Magazine 7 October 1940 p 1 Archived from the original on 7 November 2012 Retrieved 31 May 2011 Dahl 1999 pp 200 207 Dahl 1999 pp 207 212 Dahl 1999 p 215 a b c Dahl 1999 pp 219 225 a b Dahl 1999 pp 225 232 a b Dahl 1999 pp 232 237 Dahl 1999 pp 240 242 Borgen 1999 p 284 a b Dahl 1999 pp 247 249 a b Dahl 1999 pp 250 255 Dahl 1999 pp 255 264 Dahl 1999 pp 269 271 Dahl 1999 pp 271 276 Dahl 1999 pp 275 276 a b Dahl 1999 pp 279 287 a b Hoidal 1989 p 597 Dahl 1999 p 285 Dahl 1999 pp 288 289 Dahl 1999 p 289 Hayes 1971 p 289 Hoidal 1989 p 609 Dahl 1999 pp 297 305 Dahl 1999 p 316 a b Dahl 1999 pp 306 308 325 Dahl 1999 p 328 Dahl 1999 p 319 a b c Dahl 1999 pp 345 350 Dahl 1999 p 353 Dahl 1999 pp 358 360 a b Dahl 1999 pp 364 366 a b Dahl 1999 pp 371 373 Bratteli amp Myhre 1992 p 43 a b Dahl 1999 pp 374 378 a b c Dahl 1999 pp 380 390 a b c d Dahl 1999 pp 390 400 Cohen 2000 p 274 Dahl 1999 pp 400 407 Cohen 2000 p 276 Justice I Time Magazine 5 November 1945 Archived from the original on 5 September 2008 Retrieved 28 April 2011 Dahl 1999 pp 414 415 Bratteli amp Myhre 1992 p 198 Cohen 2000 p 279 Yourieff 2007 p 457 Dahl 1999 pp 129 418 Bratteli amp Myhre 1992 pp 50 51 Norway turns traitor Quisling s home into symbol of tolerance Highbeam Research archived from Associated Press 30 August 2005 Archived from the original on 25 October 2012 Retrieved 28 April 2011 Dahl 1999 p 417 Yourieff 2007 p xi Quislers Time Magazine 29 April 1940 p 1 Archived from the original on 20 October 2011 Retrieved 28 April 2011 Block ed 1940 p 669 a b c d e Dahl 1999 pp 328 331 Hoberman John M 1974 Vidkun Quisling s Psychological Image Scandinavian Studies 46 3 242 264 PMID 11635923 Dahl 1999 p 10 a b c Dahl 1999 pp 321 322 a b c Dahl 1999 pp 8 9 a b Dahl 1999 pp 410 412 External links Edit Wikimedia Commons has media related to Vidkun Quisling Vidkun Quisling at IMDb Newspaper clippings about Vidkun Quisling in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBWPolitical officesPreceded byTorgeir Anderssen Rysst Minister of Defence of Norway1931 1933 Succeeded byJens Isak de Lange KobroPreceded byOffice created Minister President of Norway1942 1945 Succeeded byOffice abolished Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Vidkun Quisling amp oldid 1137003995, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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