Vidkun Quisling
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| Vidkun Abraham Lauritz Jonssøn Quisling | |
| Date of birth | July 18, 1887 (Telemark, Norway) |
| Date of death | October 24, 1945) (Oslo, Norway) |
| Political Party | Nasjonal Samling |
Vidkun Abraham Lauritz Jonssøn Quisling, (July 18, 1887 – October 24, 1945) was a Norwegian army officer and fascist politician.
He held the office of Minister President in occupied Norway from February 1942 to the end of World War II, while the elected social democratic cabinet of Johan Nygaardsvold was exiled in London. After the war he was tried for high treason and subsequently executed by firing squad. His surname has become an eponym for "traitor", especially a collaborationist.[1]
Contents |
[edit] Early life
| Norway and World War II |
| Key events |
|---|
| Norwegian Campaign · Weserübung Elverum Authorization Midtskogen · Vinjesvingen |
| People |
| Haakon VII · Nygaardsvold · CJ Hambro CG Fleischer · Otto Ruge · Max Manus Jens Chr. Hauge · Gunnar Sønsteby |
| Quisling · Jonas Lie · Henry Rinnan Josef Terboven · Wilhelm Rediess von Falkenhorst |
| Organizations |
| Milorg · XU · Linge · Nortraship |
| Nasjonal Samling |
Quisling was the son of a Church of Norway pastor and genealogist Jon Lauritz Qvisling from Fyresdal, and both of his parents belonged to some of the oldest and most distinguished families of Telemark.
His early life was mixed and successful; he became the country's best ever war academy cadet upon graduation in 1911, and achieved the rank of major in the Norwegian army. He worked with Fridtjof Nansen in the Soviet Union during the famine of the 1920s. For his services in looking after British interests after diplomatic relations were broken with the Bolshevik government, Great Britain awarded him the C.B.E.. He later served as defence minister in the Agrarian governments 1931-1933.
[edit] The Nasjonal Samling party
On May 17, 1933, Norwegian Constitution Day, Quisling and lawyer Johan Bernhard Hjort formed Nasjonal Samling ("National Unity"), the Norwegian fascist political party. Nasjonal Samling had an anti-democratic, Führerprinzip-based political structure, and Quisling was to be the party's Fører (Norwegian: "leader", equivalent of the German "Führer"). He was sometimes referred to as "the Hitler of Norway". The party went on to have modest successes; in the election of 1933, four months after the party was formed, it garnered 27,850 votes (approximately 2%), following support from the Norwegian Farmers' Aid Association, with which Quisling had connections from his time as a member of the Agrarian government. However, as the party line changed from a religiously rooted one to a more pro-Nazi and anti-Semitic policy from 1935, the support from the Church waned, and in the 1936 elections the party received fewer votes than in 1933. The party became increasingly extremist, and party membership dwindled to an estimated 2,000 members before the German invasion, but under the German occupation by 1945 some 45,000 Norwegians were members of the party.
[edit] German invasion and coup d'etat
When Germany invaded Norway on April 9, 1940, Quisling became the first person in history to announce a coup d'etat during a news broadcast, declaring an ad-hoc government during the confusion of the invasion, hoping that Hitler would support it. The background for this action was the flight northwards of the king and government, resulting in a temporary power vacuum. Quisling had visited Adolf Hitler in Germany the year before, but Hitler thought Quisling was of "no use" to him. Quisling had low popular support, and the Quisling government lasted only five days, after which Josef Terboven was installed as Reichskommissar, the highest official in Norway, reporting directly to Hitler. The relationship between Quisling and Terboven was tense, although Terboven, presumably seeing an advantage in having a Norwegian in an apparent position of power to reduce resentment in the population, named Quisling to the post of Minister President in 1942, a position the self-appointed Fører assumed on February 1, 1942.
[edit] Arrest and trial
Quisling stayed in power until he was arrested on May 9, 1945, in a mansion on Bygdøy in Oslo that he called "Gimle" after the place in Norse mythology where the survivors of Ragnarok were to live. The house, now called Villa Grande, is today a Holocaust museum.
In the course of the treason trials following the war, Quisling, along with two other Nasjonal Samling leaders, Albert Viljam Hagelin and Ragnar Skancke, was convicted of high treason and executed by firing squad at Akershus Fortress. The charge was mainly based on his actions during the war: his coup d'etat in April 1940, his revocation of the mobilisation order, his many encouragements to Norwegians to serve as volunteers in the Norwegian SS division, his collaboration in the deportation of Jews, his responsibility for the execution of Norwegian patriots and a number of other charges.
Subsequently, these sentences have been controversial, since capital punishment was reintroduced to the Norwegian legal system by the exiled government at the end of the war, in anticipation of the post-war trials.
Maria Vasilijevna, Quisling's Russian widow, lived in Oslo until her death in 1980. They had no children.
[edit] 'Quisling'
In some European languages, the term "quisling" has become a synonym for traitor, particularly one who collaborates with invaders. The term was coined by the British newspaper The Times in its leader of April 15, 1940, which was entitled "Quislings everywhere" The article asserted: "There are Quislings in every country in Europe."
[edit] Order of the British Empire
Quisling was appointed Commander of the British Empire for his services in maintaining the interests of the British government in the Soviet Union in 1929. The appointment was revoked in 1940 as this transcript from proceedings in the House of Commons, reported in The Times on 13 June 1940, the following day, shows:
- Mr Mander (Wolverhampton E., L.) asked the Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs the reasons for and the date on which Major Quisling was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire, and whether he still remained a member.
- Mr Butler (Saffron Walden, U.)— Captain Vidkun Quisling was appointed to be an honorary Commander of the Order of the British Empire — (laughter) — on November 22, 1929 in recognition of services rendered to his Majesty's government in connection with the protection of British interests in the Soviet Union while serving on the staff of the Norwegian Legation in Moscow. He is no longer a member of the Order. (Cheers)
- Mr Mander — When was this notorious traitor to his own country and the Allied cause removed from the Order?
- Mr Butler — Very recently. (Laughter)
[edit] Footnotes
- ^ 'Quisling,' in its form as a noun meaning traitor, was Dictionary.com's Word of the Day on July 9, 2006.
[edit] Further reading
In Norwegian:
- Dahl, Hans Fredrik (1991). "Quisling - En fører blir til." Oslo: Aschehoug. (BIBSYS)
- Dahl, Hans Fredrik (1992). "Quisling - En fører for fall." Oslo: Aschehoug. (BIBSYS)
- Borgen, Per Otto (1999). "Norges statsministre." Oslo: Aschehoug. (BIBSYS)
In English:
- QUISLING - A Study in Treason, 1989, Norwegian University Press (Universitetsforlaget) by Oddvar K. Høidal, ISBN 82-00-18400-5
[edit] See also
- Operation Weserübung
- Norwegian campaign
- British campaign in Norway
- Norwegian resistance movement
- Benedict Arnold
[edit] External links
- "The World According to Quisling" by Gisle Tangenes, BitsofNews.com, 19 September 2006
- "The Norwegian SS Volunteers" A webpage with information in English about the Norwegians who volunteered for service in the Waffen SS.
Categories: 1887 births | 1945 deaths | Norwegian politicians | Government ministers of Norway | Commanders of the Order of the British Empire | Norwegian people of World War II | World War II political leaders | Fascists | Nazi collaborators | Executed politicians | Deaths by firearm | People executed by firing squad | People executed for treason | People executed by Norway | Executed Nazi leaders
