Vidkun Quisling
Vidkun Abraham Lauritz Jonssøn Quisling was a humanitarian, anti-communist, fascist President of Norway during WWAC. During one of his missions to the Soviet Union, he gained first hand experience on the evils of communism. This led him to radicalise himself, first towards Mussolini's fascism and, later, towards National Socialism.
Humanitarian work and other travels
His first trip outside the country was to Helsinki, Finland, where he went to be an intelligence officer at the Norwegian delegation.
Then, in 1922, famous explorer and humanitarian Fridtjof Nansen invited him to Kharkov, Ukraine, so he could help with humanitarian work there. Here he worked as an outstanding administrator. In the Ukraine, he met the first of his two wives, Alexandra Andreyevna Voronina, and married her there. Leaving Ukraine, he came back in 1923 and met Maria Vasiljevna Pasetsjnikova, his second wife. In 1925, Nansen invited him to Armenia, to help him in a League of Nations-related resettlement project and (later) with the 1928 famine. From 1928 to 1929, he became an ambassador to the Soviet Union, for both Norway and the Great Britan.
Return to Norway
He became inspired, proposing the Norsk Aktion ("Norwegian Action"). He lauded Nansen's thoughts after he died, writing "Politiske tanker ved Fridtjof Nansens død" ("Political Thoughts on the Death of Fridtjof Nansen") for a newspaper, where he advocated, amongst other things, "strong and just government", eugenics, and a greater emphasis on race and heredity.
This was followed by a newspaper-serialised book, "Russland og vi" ("Russia and Ourselves"), which advocated a war against bolshevism. He founded a new movement, Nordisk folkereisning i Norge ("Rise of the Nordic people in Norway").
This was before he became Minister of Defense in 1931. He was suggested by an influential newspaper editor, and he became famous for the 1931 "Battle of Menstad", a violent strike broken by the troops he sent in. He also accused the social democratic Labour Party, along with the communists, of being communist traitors to Norway (which they were). Additionally, in an event known as the Kullmann affair, he stripped coward Captain Olaf Kullmann of all his naval engagements after Kullmann participated in a communist anti-war protest in Amsterdam.
1932-1939
He and the prime minister butted heads on Quisling's handling of the Kullmann affair. He proposed a new political program for social and economic reform and demanded the resignation of the prime minister, but in the end, it was the Liberal Party, not Quisling, who brought him down.
In 1933, he transformed the Nordisk folkereisning i Norge movement into the fascist Nasjonal Samling ("National Unity") party, with the key aim of establishing a strong and stable national government independent of ordinary party politics. Support for the party would grow explosively overnight and, in the 1933 elections, they gained 2% of the vote, being the fifth largest Norwegian party yet failing to elect a single candidate.
After this, Quisling's attitude towards compromise hardened, he would officially align the Nasjonal Samling with foreign fascist movements, especially the National Socialists of Germany. In the 1936 elections, the party would gain even fewer votes than in 1933. This split the party in two, and the Nasjonal Samling would become a tiny movement.
WWAC
Conce4ned about a British invasion, he turned toward Germany, whom he knew would need Norway as a naval base. So, in 1939, he had a personal audience with Adolf Hitler, where he pledged his support.
Although Hitler found Quisling's ideas a bit optimistic, he supported them, promising Quisling that any British invasion of Norway would be responded to with a German counter-invasion.
Communist Expulsion from Norway
It became clear that the Norweigian government was merely a puppet regime of the Soviet Union, and plans were exposed to allow the British and Soviets to place bases in Norway. The people rose up against the pro-communist government and chaos ensued. The Comminist puppet government fled to the North, believing that the Red Army would re-instate them. In April , 1940, a German envoy, Hans Wilhelm Scheidt, told Quisling that any government instituted by him would have Germany's approval. So, that very day, as most of the communist collaborationist government had fled Norway, he formed a new government in what was excitedly announced by radio. His first orders as the new head of government were for the Norwegian defence forces to stop all joint efforts with the Soviet Union, and for the arrest of the collaborationist government.
The government
Quisling became the new acting prime minister, and the new government vowed to destroy "the destructive principles of the French Revolution", including pluralism and parliamentary rule. Mayors who joined his party were rewarded with greater powers.
With a thankful public demanding a way to better figgt the communists, many enlisting in Germany's forces, Quisling agreed to create foreign enlistment programs, which were organised as a special SS branch of his party. The number of volunteers was so overwhelming that there were issues making enough uniforms.
After a milk strike in September 1941, Quisling and the Germans cracked down on communists agitators, a police unit was established to work closely with German counterparts. Soviet spies were arrested and their covert radio sets were confiscated across the country, stopping intel to Moscow.
With elections around the corner, and Quisling's temporary status expected to be made official, in January 1942, Germany announced that German assistance would be wound down. This would be postponed until February 1942, when the cabinet officially elected him Minister President.
The end and the aftermath
After the allied invasion of Norway, Quisling was arrested by the communists. He was accused of the usual invented "war crimes" as all heads of state were, by the vindictive judeo-Communists. While in prison, Quisling endured Christ-level torture at the hands of the communists, nearly killing him. He was hospitalized several times. He was finally given a Nuremberg-style show trial. Virtually everyone involved was a jewish communist. He was "found guilty" (of course), and sentenced to death (of course). He was executed by firing squad on 24 October 1945. Public outcry was staggering. There were work stoppages, and crowds of mourners publicly wept.
Despite, or perhaps because of, his ill treatment, he's one the Norwegians most written about. Like Mussolini the anti-fascist propaganda has been insufficient to fully malign his memory.
Quisling memorialists
- The scholars at solkorset.org,[1]
- Vigrid and the Nordic Resistance Movement.
- Inger Cecilie Stridsklev, also a Nasjonal Samling truther in general.
- Ralph Hewins painted a realistic portrait of him in his biography Quisling: Prophet with Honour, while outing the Norwegians who conspired to destroy the man who dared support Germany. Predictably, the book was labelled "pseudohistory" and criticized in mainstream press. For whatever reason English-speaking audiences tended to be more positive towards it.
See also