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Vidkun Quisling
Minister President of Norway
In office 1 February 1942 – 9 May 1945
Preceded by	Office imposed by occupying power
Succeeded by	Legitimate government reinstated
Minister of Defence
In office 1931 – 1933
Prime Minister	Peder Kolstad (1931–1932) Jens Hundseid (1932–1933)
Preceded by	Torgeir Anderssen-Rysst
Succeeded by	Jens Isak Kobro
Born	18 July 1887(1887-07-18) Telemark, Norway
Died	24 October 1945 (aged 58) Oslo, Norway
Political party	Farmers' Party (1933–1933) Nasjonal Samling (1933–1945)

Vidkun Abraham Lauritz Jonssøn Quisling (18 July 1887 – 24 October 1945) was a Norwegian army officer and fascist politician who served as Minister President of German-occupied Norway during World War II from 1942 to 1945. During this time, he claimed to be the head of government while the constitutional government was exiled in London. After the war, Quisling was convicted of high treason and subsequently executed by firing squad. His surname has become an eponym for "traitor", especially a collaborationist (see Quisling).^[1]

Contents 1 Early life 2 The Nasjonal Samling party 3 German invasion and coup d'etat 4 Arrest and trial 5 'Quisling' 6 Order of the British Empire 7 Footnotes 8 Further reading 8.1 In Norwegian 8.2 In English 9 See also 10 External links

Norway and World War II
Key events
Norwegian Campaign · Weserübung Elverum Authorization Midtskogen · Vinjesvingen Occupation and Resistance Camps · Telavåg Festung Norwegen Heavy water sabotage Post-war purge
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
pro-Norwegian      pro-German/Quisling

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 varied 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 CBE. He later served as defense minister in the Agrarian governments 1931-1933.

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.

On the 9th April 1940 Germany invaded Norway, Operation Weserübung by air and sea. The German plan was to capture King Haakon VII and the Nygaardsvold government, after which Quisling would be recognized as Prime Minister of a puppet government^[2]. On April 9, however, without waiting for recognition, Quisling announced in a radio broadcast that he had become the new Premier. Word came that King Haakon refused to recognize Quisling as leader of the government, and with no popular support, Quisling was no longer of use to Hitler.

Later that same month he tried again to organize a government under Josef Terboven, who had been installed as Reichskommissar, reporting directly to Hitler. The relationship between Quisling and Terboven was tense, however, and Quisling was unable to find any prominent Norwegians who were willing to serve as ministers in his Cabinet. Terboven, presumably seeing an advantage in having a Norwegian in an apparent position of power, declared the monarchy to be abolished and named Quisling to the post of Minister President in 1942, a position the self-appointed Fører assumed on February 1.

Quisling stayed in power until he was arrested on May 9, 1945. He lived in a mansion on Bygdøy in Oslo that he called "Gimle", after the place in Norse mythology where survivors of Ragnarok were to live. The house, now called Villa Grande, is a Holocaust museum today.

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 October 24 1945. The charges were based on his coup d'etat in April 1940, his revocation of the mobilization order, his encouragement of Norwegians to serve in the Norwegian SS division, his assistance 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, as capital punishment was reintroduced by the government in exile at the end of the war, specifically 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.

Main article: 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: "To writers, the word Quisling is a gift from the gods. If they had been ordered to invent a new word for traitor... they could hardly have hit upon a more brilliant combination of letters. Actually it contrives to suggest something at once slippery and tortuous." The noun has survived; for a while during and after the War the back-formed verb "to quisle" (pronounced "quizzle") was used. If one was "quisling", one was committing treason. ^[3]

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 — — 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. "

Mr Mander — When was this notorious traitor to his own country and the Allied cause removed from the Order?

Mr Butler — Very recently.

1. ^ 'Quisling,' in its form as a noun meaning traitor, was Dictionary.com's Word of the Day on July 9, 2006.
2. ^ Current Biography 1940, pp669-70
3. ^ Current Biography 1940, p669

• Dahl, Hans Fredrik (1991) Quisling - En fører blir til, Oslo : Aschehoug, ISBN 82-03-15632-0 (BIBSYS)
• Dahl, Hans Fredrik (1992) Quisling - En fører for fall, Oslo : Aschehoug, ISBN 82-03-16960-0 (BIBSYS)
• Borgen, Per Otto (1999) Norges statsministre, Oslo: Aschehoug, ISBN 82-03-22389-3 (BIBSYS)

• Høidal, Oddvar K. (1989) Quisling: A study in treason, Oslo : Norwegian University Press (Universitetsforlaget), ISBN 82-00-18400-5
• Dahl, Hans Fredrik (1999) "Quisling: A study in treachery", Stanton-Ife, A.-M. (transl.), Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-49697-7

• Operation Weserübung
• Norwegian campaign
• British campaign in Norway
• Norwegian resistance movement
• Benedict Arnold

• "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.

Preceded by Torgeir Anderssen-Rysst	Minister of Defence 1931–1933	Succeeded by Jens Isak Kobro
Preceded by Office created	Minister President of Norway 1942–1945	Succeeded by Office abolished