Home > Vidkun Quisling

Quisling had a mixed and relatively successful background, having achieved the rank of major in the Norwegian army (some years before he had become the country's best ever war academy cadet upon graduation), and worked with Fridtjof Nansen in the Soviet Union during the famine in the 1920s, as well as having served as defense minister in the agrarian government 1931- 1933Centuries: 19th century 20th century 21st century Decades: 1880s 1890s 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s Years: 1928 1929 1930 1931 1932 1933 1934 1935 1936 1937 1938 See also 1933 in aviation 1933 in film 1933 in literature 1933 in mu. He was son of the Lutheran priest and well-known genealogist Jon Lauritz Qvisling and both of his parents belonged to some of the oldest and most distinguished families of TelemarkTelemark is a county in Norway, bordering Vestfold, Buskerud, Hordaland, Rogaland and Aust-Agder. In 2004 there were 166 124 inhabitants. Its area is 13 854 km². The county administration is in Skien. Homepage of Telemark County is found on The county is.

On May 17May 17 is the 137th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (138th in leap years). There are 228 days remaining. Events 1590 Anne of Denmark is crowned Queen of Scotland. 1642 Paul Chomedey, sieur de Maisonneuve (1612-1676) founds the Ville Marie de Mon 1933Centuries: 19th century 20th century 21st century Decades: 1880s 1890s 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s Years: 1928 1929 1930 1931 1932 1933 1934 1935 1936 1937 1938 See also 1933 in aviation 1933 in film 1933 in literature 1933 in mu, the Norwegian Constitution Day, Quisling and state attorney Johan Bernhard HjortJohan Bernhard Hjort ( 1895 1969) was a member of the Norwegian " Nasjonal Samling" party from 1933 to 1937, when he broke with its leader Vidkun Quisling. He was arrested by Gestapo in 1941 and sent to Germany, where he after leaving prison carried out i formed Nasjonal Samling (NS)Nasjonal Samling (Norwegian for National Gathering or National Union) was a fascist party in Norway before and during World War II, founded on May 17, 1933 by Vidkun Quisling. Fastest growing party before the war though never with larger support than 2. ("National Unity"), the Norwegian national-socialist partyA political party is a political organization subscribing to a certain ideology or formed around very special issues. In party-list proportional representation, parties (and sometimes multi-party cartels) can play a functional role in the voting system.. Nasjonal Samling had an anti- democratic, Führerprinzip-based political structure, and Quisling was to be the party's Führer, much like Adolf Hitler was for the NSDAP in Germany. The party went on to have modest successes, in the election of 1933, four months after the party was formed, it garnered 27850 votes, following support from the Norwegian Farmer's 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-German and anti-Semitic hardline policy from 1935 onwards, the support from the Church waned, and in the 1936 elections, the party got ca.50 000 votes. The party became increasingly extremist, and party membership dwindled to an estimated 2000 members after the German invasion.

When Germany invaded Norway on April 9 1940, Quisling became the first person in history to announce a coup during a news broadcast, declaring an ad-hoc government during the confusion of the invasion, hoping that the Germans would support it. The background for this action was the flight northwards of the King and the government. Quisling had visited Adolf Hitler in Germany the year before, and was liked by Hitler, so Quisling's belief that the Germans would back his government were not entirely unfounded. However, Quisling had low popular support, and the Quisling government lasted only five days, after which Josef Terboven was installed as Reichskommissar (Commissioner), the highest authority 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 a position of power to reduce resentment in the population, named Quisling to the post of " Minister President" (as opposed to Prime Minister) in 1942, a position the self-appointed "Führer" assumed in 1943, on February 1.

Vidkun Quisling stayed in power until he was arrested May 9 1945 in a mansion on Bygdøy in Oslo which he called Gimle after the place in Norse mythology where the survivors of Ragnarok were to live.

Quisling, along with two other Nasjonal Samling leaders, Albert Viljam Hagelin and Ragnar Skancke, were convicted and executed by firing squad. In later days these sentences have been controversial, since the capital punishment was reintroduced to the Norwegian legal system during the end of the war, by the exile government, to handle the post war trials.

The term "quisling" has become a synonym in many European languages for traitor (see Judas, and the understanding of Benedict Arnold in the United States). So infamous today is Quisling that the Hives, a Swedish based rock band, have Quisling's name mentioned with Judas and Brutus at the end of their song "B is for Brutus".

Maria Vasilijevna, Quisling's Russian wife, lived in Oslo until her death in 1980. They had no children.