Vidkun Quisling
Vidkun Quisling was a Norwegian military officer and politician, born in 1887 into a respected family in Telemark, Norway. He served in the Norwegian military and became a commander of the Order of the British Empire for his humanitarian efforts in Russia. In 1933, he co-founded the National Unity Party, a fascist political group that aligned itself with Nazi ideologies. Quisling's notoriety grew during World War II when he declared a coup on the day of the German invasion of Norway in 1940, establishing himself as the head of a short-lived collaborationist government. Despite his efforts to gain authority, his regime faced significant resistance from the Norwegian population and ultimately collapsed after five days. Quisling was arrested following Norway's liberation and was executed for high treason in 1945. His name has since become synonymous with betrayal, particularly in the context of collaboration with foreign invasions, and he has been depicted as a historical figure embodying treachery. His life and actions continue to evoke strong sentiments and discussions around collaboration, nationalism, and resistance during one of Norway's most challenging periods.
Subject Terms
Vidkun Quisling
Norwegian fascist leader (1933-1945)
- Born: July 18, 1887
- Birthplace: Fyresdal, Norway
- Died: October 24, 1945
- Place of death: Oslo, Norway
Major offense: High treason against the kingdom of Norway
Active: 1940-1945
Locale: Norway, mainly Oslo
Sentence: Death by firing squad
Early Life
Vidkun Quisling (VIHD-kewn KWIHS-lihng) was the son of Jon Lauritz Quisling, a Lutheran minister and genealogist, and Anna Karoline Bang, both of whom were tied to respected families in the Telemark region of southern Norway. The family had three sons, Vidkun, Jorgen, and Arne, and one daughter, Esther. Vidkun was a talented and energetic student who received high marks as a war academy cadet, excelling in mathematics. He served in the Norwegian military between 1918 and 1921, where he achieved the rank of major. In his early career he served as a military attaché in Petrograd, Russia (1918-1919), and Helsinki, Finland (1919-1921), and as a relief worker in Russia with the famed Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen.
Quisling was made a commander of the Order of the British Empire for his humanitarian work in Russia, the Ukraine, and the Caucasus region. From 1931 to 1933 he was defense minister in the Karlstad government, led by the Agrarian Party. While defense minister, Quisling exposed the Labor Party’s plan to set up a Bolshevik regime in Norway which would have been backed by Russia. He was forced to resign as defense minister, however, after setting his office ablaze in imitation of the Reichstag fire.
In 1933, on Norway’s Constitution Day, May 17, Quisling and Johan Hjort organized the Norwegian fascist party, known as the National Unity Party or Nasjonal Samling. The party was anticommunist, strongly nationalistic, and based on the Nazi principles of governance. A golden Saint Olav’s cross on a red background was adopted as the party’s primary symbol. As the party developed an extremist pro-German and anti-Semitic stance, it lost support from its early agrarian power base as well as that of the Lutheran state church.
Criminal Career
Quisling was a fascist politician and traitor who admired Adolf Hitler’s so-called new order and aided the Nazi conquest and occupation of Norway in World War II. On the day German forces invaded Norway, April 9, 1940, Quisling declared a coup d’état in a news broadcast, announcing his creation of an ad hoc government. His announcement coincided with the flight of King Haakon VII and the Norwegian government out of the country. All political parties were banned except for Quisling’s fascist National Unity Party, which undertook intelligence efforts similar to the Nazi Schutzstaffel (SS) to detect and arrest persons active in the Norwegian underground.
Quisling appointed himself head of government, but this government collapsed after five days, and Josef Terboven was installed as Reichskommissar, Hitler’s highest-ranking authority in Norway. A thirteen-man commission, largely Quisling’s followers, was established to handle most of the details of governance. Quisling was appointed minister president in 1942 and assumed power on February 1, 1943, in a calculated move by Hitler and Terboven to diffuse Norwegian public resentment against the Nazis by placing a Norwegian in a prominent post. Quisling was never popular within his party, however, and also had a difficult association with Hitler and other Nazi masters. He managed to hold power until he was arrested on May 9, 1945, at Gimle, a mansion on Bygd y in Oslo.
Legal Action and Outcome
Quisling was charged with and convicted of high treason and executed by firing squad along with two other National Unity Party members on the grounds of Akershus Fortress on October 24, 1945. The exiled Norwegian government had reinstated capital punishment in order to execute those convicted in the postwar trials, a controversial issue in a country that had not used the death penalty for many years. Quisling’s Russian wife, Maria Vasilijevna Pasetskjnikova, was not charged with crimes of any kind and lived out her life in Oslo, dying in 1980. The Quislings had no children.
Impact
When Vidkun Quisling appointed himself the fascist leader of Norway, it was the first time in history that a coup was announced in a public news broadcast. Quisling’s collaboration with Hitler facilitated the Nazi occupation of Norway for five tense and difficult years. The Norwegian resistance movement was well organized and strong, however, and hindered the Nazis on many fronts, making it virtually impossible for them to win broad support among the Norwegian people. Quisling had visited Hitler in Germany as early as 1939, warning him of Joseph Stalin’s plans for aggression, but Hitler did not like him and dismissed him as a man of little use to the Nazi effort.
Like Brutus and Benedict Arnold, the Quisling name became synonymous with “traitor,” especially one who aids a foreign invader. The British press coined the term shortly after the Nazi invasion, and the BBC broadcast it around the world. Quisling authored several books, including Russland og vi (1931; Russia and Ourselves, 1931); his writings were strongly anticommunist and fueled a growing suspicion and fear of communist ideology. The Quisling mansion on Bygd y, now called Villa Grande, has been converted to a museum in remembrance of Holocaust victims.
Bibliography
Barth, Else M. A Nazi Interior: Quisling’s Hidden Philosophy. New York: Peter Lang, 2004. An in-depth analysis of Quisling’s thinking, which had roots in Christian fundamentalism and Universalism and was greatly influenced by his admiration of Hitler’s new order.
Dahl, Hans Fredrik. Quisling: A Study in Treachery. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Tells the story of Quisling’s treason with particular emphasis on the roots of his philosophy, his internal struggles, and tensions within his National Unity Party.
H idal, Oddvar K. Quisling: A Study in Treason. Oslo: Norwegian University Press, 1989. A comprehensive biography of Quisling and his role as a collaborator in the Nazi occupation of Norway.