The Second World War in Norway: Some Preliminary Considerations

1 As in France, the Second World War is far from over, judging by the many commemorations, interviews with heroes that are still alive (such as Joachim Rønneberg, the last surviving saboteur of the heavy water plant at Vemork), articles on important events during the war (i.e. the Great Escape in March 1944, of which two of the three escapees were Norwegian airmen, Jens Müller and Per Bergsland), or on D-day on 6 June 1944, in which many Norwegian soldiers, sailors and airmen participated (the first Allied boat sunk by the Germans was a Norwegian destroyer, the Svenner), along with reports on television, films (fiction and documentaries) and especially books published by journalists and historians (recently, there are new publishers who only publish books on World War II).

2 The majority of these writings are still part of the long Resistance-glorifying tradition. Yet starting about ten years ago, the historiography has become more diversified thanks to an interest in the negotiations between German authorities and Norwegian political figures and civilians, the fate of Norwegian Jews, the role played by the Communist resistance to the collaborationist Quisling regime and its henchmen, the many volunteers who fought in German uniform in the ranks of the SS on the Eastern Front, the plight of Soviet and Yugoslavian prisoners of war turned into slave labour, and more recently, the many foreign forced labourers sent to Norway (see the article by Hans Otto Frøland and Anders Lervold).

3 These dark years of our history (April 9, 1940 - May 8, 1945), eight months longer than those endured by France, are undoubtedly the period in the twentieth century that has most strongly marked our collective memory, eclipsing the event of much greater importance politically, the proclamation of our independence in 1905. The surprise of the German attack on April 9, 1940 against a small country like ours, despite its efforts to stay out of the clash of the great European powers, has traumatized the Norwegian people in a lasting way, even more so because our military, badly armed, poorly prepared and often poorly commanded, experienced a defeat felt by many to be humiliating or even as treason (a double treason by the Norwegian authorities and the Allies), after having at times succeeded in heroic resistance to the Wehrmacht, the Kriegsmarine and Luftwaffe. They were responsible for the torpedoing of the battleship Blücher on the morning of April 9, with the German General of the Weserübung operation to take over Oslo onboard. The decision by Colonel Birger Eriksen, without having received the order, to open fire enabled the royal family, the government and the members of Parliament to thus escape the enemy. Until their departure for exile in Britain, King Haakon VII, the heir to the throne (the future Olav V) and the government, pursued by the Germans, had refused to surrender. For two months, the Norwegian armed forces tried to push back the German troops who were advancing from the main ports where they had landed by surprise on the morning of April 9, first waiting for help from Allied troops, then together with them once they had come to their rescue. These troops, British, French and Polish, often of rather mediocre quality, particularly the British troops, could not prevent a rapid occupation of the entire southern part of the country, despite the victory at Vinjesvingen (in Telemark) and the heroic battles fought at the Hegra fortress (east of Trondheim) with 250 men (and one woman) under siege for more than three weeks. These armed feats were limited in their military importance, but their moral significance was great, eventually taking on mythical importance.

4 However, the Allied and Norwegian troops pulled themselves together and retook the port of Narvik, where Norwegian troops performed their last glorious combat, cornering German troops under General Eduard Dietl to surrender or cross the Swedish border to be imprisoned. At that point, the Allies withdrew their troops because of the dire situation in France after four weeks of Blitzkrieg. The victory of Narvik was thus short-lived, and the commander of the Norwegian troops, General Otto Ruge, had to capitulate (June 10), whereas the king, the dauphin, the cabinet, and some high-level government officials and military leaders had already left for exile in Britain (June 7) aboard the British cruiser Devonshire.

5 Then began a very troubled period, long overshadowed by the official history, which recounts that the Norwegian people began their resistance from the moment the capitulation was signed. Indeed, members of the Supreme Court, elites, and figures from civil society such as the head of the Church, the Bishop of Oslo Eivind Berggrav, came to an agreement to form, from April 15 (thus almost two months before the end of the fighting), an Administrative Council that was prepared to collaborate with the Germans if they repudiated the coup by Vidkun Quisling, who had declared himself head of a new government on the evening of April 9 with a speech on the radio (whose headquarters he occupied with his supporters). They were successful and this Council stated, with the support of much of the Norwegian political world, from all the various parties, labour unions and big business, their desire to establish in agreement with the occupier, a form of government known as the National Council. This Council insistently asked the government in exile in London to resign and, in order to “save” the monarchy, for the king to abdicate in favour of his grandson, Harald (the current Harald V), who would be able, despite his three years of age, to ascend the throne in due time, that is to say when the war ended and the pax germanica had been established.

6 It is only in recent years that historians and journalists have shed light on what almost became a Pétain-like regime. The people who took this initiative may perhaps have felt comforted that they met with refusal from Hitler, who was hostile to any form of monarchy, and who, under advice from Alfred Rosenberg, wanted to play the Quisling card (which Reichskommissar Josef Terboven did not want). Yet perhaps they are especially thankful to ‘the man who said no,’ namely Haakon VII, whose moral authority was decisive (although the refusal of the exile government had little effect, given the fact it had been discredited and hence its unpopularity with the public).

7 Some of those who were ‘saved’ by the breakdown of negotiations with the occupiers, marked by Terboven’s speech 25 September 1940, were able to redeem themselves afterwards (including the President of the Supreme Court Paal Berg and Bishop Eivind Berggrav) by taking charge of civil and citizen resistance, advocating non-violent forms of action while adopting an extremely firm stance against the collaborationist Quisling regime imposed by Hitler and his proposed ‘new order.’ In this resistance, whose importance we must not underestimate, people from socio-professional categories such as teachers occupied a prominent place, thanks to their authority among the population, alongside the Church, which provided an example of moral and spiritual resistance under the direction of the aforementioned Bishop Berggrav (see the article by Torleiv Austad). This resistance was part of the strategy chosen by domestic Resistance (Hjemmefronten), namely that of caution for fear of reprisals and out of desire to have disciplined and well-trained armed forces at the time of Liberation, that could only come from Great Britain. The government in London advocated the same approach, to the extent that it was listened to by the domestic Resistance. We must remember that German reprisals in Norway, which was considered an eminently Aryan nation that must be dealt with carefully, were more ‘restrained’ than in other occupied countries. Although hostages were shot and there were collective deportations of civilians after attacks, sabotage, and killing collaborationists, Norway did not experience a Lidice or an Oradour-sur-Glane.

8 This attitude of caution was quickly challenged and defied by resistance groups, which had originated from the organization of pre-war sabotage by Ernst Wollweber (see the article by Lars Borgersrud) and the resistance organized from early 1942 by the new Secretary General of the Norwegian Communist Party, Peder Furubotn, after the German attack against the Soviet Union. The situation in Norway is not unlike that which existed in France, where there was a strategic disagreement between the French Communist Party’s resistance on one side and free France and other resistance movements on the other (but Norway communists were never integrated into a united resistance, despite Furubotn’s decidedly national and FN attitude, while in France the NRC included Communists).

9 After the war, the official history had a tendency, in the logic of the Cold War, to ignore or minimize the extent of Communist resistance, whether it be the supporters in Finnmark (the northernmost department and neighboring Russia) in the service of the Soviet Union, those of the Party or that of the Wollweberian groups Osvald and Pelle, on the Party margins, who accomplished many spectacular acts of sabotage, sometimes incorrectly attributed to non-communist resistance. The internal conflicts of the Resistance were also passed over in silence, such as the case of Kai Holst, the resistance leader who died in unclear circumstances in Stockholm on 27 June 1945.

10 The Finnmark communists, closely monitored during the Cold War and beyond, had to wait until 1992, when King Harald V officially recognized their role and thanked them, while presenting the apology on behalf of the Nation for having questioned their patriotic motives. The Osvald group never received official recognition, while the Pelle group, of which there are only two survivors, had to wait another twenty years; it was not until 2013 that a statue was erected in Oslo in their honour and that the public was informed about their actions with a televised documentary film. Another television programme tried, also in 2013, to shed some light on the Holst affair, plausibly challenging the official version of suicide supported by the main leaders of the domestic Resistance, all dead today, without revealing why Holst was probably eliminated.

11 However, the darkest and most shameful page in the history of the German Occupation remains the fate of the Jews. Norway unfortunately had its Papons and its Bousquets, like them enjoying solid support in resistant social milieux (see the article by Nicolas Schwaller), which explains why only 60% of Norwegian Jews were saved although it was relatively easy to do so by passing them into Sweden, a country that did not send them back. Their fate has remained largely hidden, and thus an open wound, for decades. It was not until the mid-90s that a commission was appointed by the government to address the spoliation of Jews. This resulted in a collective compensation of 450 million kronor (approx. € 55 million) and the opening of a Holocaust Centre in Oslo, inaugurated in 2006 in the same building that had been Quisling’s residence between 1941 and 1945. This centre is both a museum and an information and research centre on the Holocaust, the persecution of minorities (ethnic or otherwise) and crimes against humanity. In the absence of a history worthy of the name about the Jewish community under the Occupation, we have only the accounts of a few survivors of the extermination camps (only one of whom, Samuel Steinmann, is still alive today), some fictional movies mostly made —in the 1950s and, more recently, monographs and documentary films, which give only a fragmentary idea of—what Norwegian Jews experienced during the war and how survivors and the memory of their dead were treated afterwards. It is only recently that the State, through the Prime Minister, has expressed his deep regret and apologized to the Jewish community, and that the Church has acknowledged its failing by not publicly denouncing the arrests and deportations in 1941-1942 (see the article by Torleiv Austad). Yet the truth remains to be known about the attitudes and possible initiatives taken, or rather the lack of initiatives taken, in this regard by the government in exile in London and the Resistance, who did not have the excuse of not knowing about the threats to the Jews. A work of memory and repentance remains to be done.

12 In contrast, it should be noted that in recent years journalists and historians, specialists in the Second World War, are addressing various aspects of collaboration, a subject on which we hope to return in a later issue of the RHN. In fact, there is some evidence of collaborationist and SS volunteers who fought on the Eastern front that have resulted in solid biographies, written by acclaimed historians, on Quisling and some of his ministers, as well as studies on the police and investigations by journalists describing in detail the various operations that Norwegian SS units participated in, against ‘Bolshevism’ and for ‘the defence of Finland.’ Historians have recently focused on this subject thanks to a research project launched by the government on the possible involvement of Norwegian SS in numerous war crimes committed by German troops on the Eastern Front, fiercely denied by veterans, most of whom refuse to renounce their choice as ‘patriots. Some of these journalists have not hesitated to break taboos and fall into sensationalism by publishing, for example, a book that gives the name, birthplace, photo and other details of all those who died in a German uniform, including nurses who signed up for the German Red Cross. The success of this book and others like it even leaves an impression of a kind of voyeurism, an impression enhanced by the latest publication that has printed a facsimile, without comments or footnotes, of the lists drawn up by the police in 1945 of all people suspected of collaboration. However, some of the people on these lists are entirely innocent, and some even authentic resistant fighters. Yet this fact did not prevent a historical book club from proposing it as the book of the month in May 2014!

13 From the summer of 1940, the German occupiers launched their project to transform Norway into the Festung Norwegen. On one hand, it wanted to make the most of the country’s natural resources (energy and raw materials) for the benefit of its war machine. The strategic interest of Norway was obvious. From the Norwegian coast, it could control the North Sea, even the North Atlantic and the Barents Sea. In addition, the port of Narvik enabled them to control iron supplies. Norway was also associated with Operation Barbarossa since the Finnmark bordered the Soviet Union. However, the German offensive in the Great North, which aimed at first conquering the Kola Peninsula and the port of Murmansk, was an almost total failure. German troops quickly floundered and the conflict bogged down at the front named Litsa, with heavy casualties on both sides. In October 1944, Soviet troops made a decisive breakthrough that allowed them to liberate a large part of Finnmark, where the Germans, supported by the Quisling regime, had practiced a scorched earth policy and in theory deported the population to the south before retreating. Yet throughout the Occupation, German aircraft and warships, operating from new airfields and ports in the North, inflicted heavy losses on Allied convoys that were supposed to deliver weapons, ammunition and other war material to the Soviets, who had vital need of supplies mainly through the port of Murmansk.

14 The fortification of the Norwegian coast, which constituted the northern end of the Atlantic Wall, the construction of roads, railways and airports as well as energy production and the extraction and production of raw materials required a labour force that greatly exceeded what Norway could provide. The Germans therefore used many Yugoslav war prisoners deported to Norway, whose fate is well known, especially thanks to the numerous testimonies of survivors and the work of Yugoslav historians. Soviet prisoners of war were also involved, but their fate is much less known because of a lack of evidence and Russian and Norwegian historical studies. However, these prisoners did not suffice, which is why Germans called on requisitioned foreign labour or deported workers employed on civil and military sites and in factories of strategic interest around the country. These labourers, however numerous, soon fell into oblivion after the war, and they have only attracted the attention of historians in the last few years. This journal is therefore pleased to present the first fruits of research projects on this subject (see the article by Hans Otto Frøland and Anders Lervold), which opens a new page in the history of the German Occupation of Norway.

15 In May 1945, Festung Norwegen was a disturbing reality, a fortress worthy of the name housing approximately 350,000 German seasoned, fresh, and available soldiers. However, the Reichskommissar Terboven, who wanted to fight to the end, was dismissed on May 7 by Admiral Karl Dönitz, who gave General Franz Böhme all powers in Norway with the order to surrender. After three hours of discussion, Böhme accepted the humiliating terms of surrender that an Allied delegation had submitted. At midnight on May 8, 1945, Norway was again a free and independent country. Half an hour before, Terboven had committed suicide and the next morning, Vidkun Quisling and several of his ministers were arrested. As German troops were carrying out their own disarmament, 40,000 Norwegian Forces of the Interior and 13,000 police officers trained in Sweden were able to take control of the country without opposition.

16 It is now up to historians to describe, but also to explain, to the people of Norway, and possibly others, what really happened during the most dramatic, even the most tragic five years of our country in modern times. Moreover, they are not likely to refrain from doing so, even at the risk of being criticized for having long demonstrated a sort of ‘national navel-gazing’ through their hero- and Resistance-glorifying approaches. This work, it is true, is a long-term undertaking because seventy years after the end of ‘our’ World War II, we are far from knowing everything. The articles in this issue are the proof of that.