Quisling regime
Encyclopedia
The Quisling regime, or the Quisling government are common names used to refer to the collaborationist government led by Vidkun Quisling
Vidkun Quisling
Vidkun Abraham Lauritz Jonssøn Quisling was a Norwegian politician. On 9 April 1940, with the German invasion of Norway in progress, he seized power in a Nazi-backed coup d'etat that garnered him international infamy. From 1942 to 1945 he served as Minister-President, working with the occupying...

 in occupied Norway
Occupation of Norway by Nazi Germany
The occupation of Norway by Nazi Germany started with the German invasion of Norway on April 9, 1940, and ended on May 8, 1945, after the capitulation of German forces in Europe. Throughout this period, Norway was continuously occupied by the Wehrmacht...

 during the Second World War
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

. The official name of the regime from 1 February 1942 until its dissolution in May 1945 was Nasjonale regjering ('National Government'). Real power was actually exercised by the Reichskommissariat
Reichskommissariat Norwegen
The Reichskommissariat Norwegen, literally "Reich Commissariat of Norway", was the civilian occupation regime set up by Nazi Germany in German-occupied Norway during World War II. Its full title in German was the Reichskommissariat für die besetzten norwegischen Gebiete...

.

Given the use of the term Quisling
Quisling
Quisling is a term used in reference to fascist and collaborationist political parties and military and paramilitary forces in occupied Allied countries which collaborated with Axis occupiers in World War II, as well as for their members and other collaborators.- Etymology :The term was coined by...

, the name Quisling regime can also be used as a derogatory term referring to political regimes perceived as puppet governments imposed by occupying foreign enemies.

1940 Coup

Vidkun Quisling, Fører
Führer
Führer , alternatively spelled Fuehrer in both English and German when the umlaut is not available, is a German title meaning leader or guide now most associated with Adolf Hitler, who modelled it on Benito Mussolini's title il Duce, as well as with Georg von Schönerer, whose followers also...

of the Nasjonal Samling party, had first tried to carry out a coup against the Norwegian government on 9 April 1940, the day of the German invasion of Norway
Operation Weserübung
Operation Weserübung was the code name for Germany's assault on Denmark and Norway during the Second World War and the opening operation of the Norwegian Campaign...

. At 7:32 p.m. Norwegian time, Quisling burst into the studios of the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation, proclaimed himself Prime Minister
Prime Minister of Norway
The Prime Minister of Norway is the political leader of Norway and the Head of His Majesty's Government. The Prime Minister and Cabinet are collectively accountable for their policies and actions to the Sovereign, to Stortinget , to their political party, and ultimately the...

 and ordered all resistance to halt at once. He announced that he and Nasjonal Samling were taking power due to Nygaardsvold's Cabinet having "raised armed resistance and promptly fled". He further declared that in the present situation it was "the duty and the right of the movement of National Union to take over governmental power." Quisling claimed that the Nygaardsvold Cabinet had given up power despite that it had only moved to Elverum
Elverum
is a town and municipality in Hedmark county, Norway. It is part of the traditional region of Østerdalen. The administrative centre of the municipality is the town of Elverum...

, some 50 km (31.1 mi) from Oslo
Oslo
Oslo is a municipality, as well as the capital and most populous city in Norway. As a municipality , it was established on 1 January 1838. Founded around 1048 by King Harald III of Norway, the city was largely destroyed by fire in 1624. The city was moved under the reign of Denmark–Norway's King...

, and was carrying out negotiations with the Germans.

The next day, German ambassador Curt Bräuer
Curt Bräuer
Curt Bräuer was a German career diplomat.Born in Breslau, in what is modern-day Poland, Bräuer entered service in the German foreign ministry in 1920. At the outbreak of World War II in September 1939, Bräuer was posted at the German embassy in Paris. Later that year, Bräuer was named as envoy to...

 traveled to Elverum and demanded King Haakon VII
Haakon VII of Norway
Haakon VII , known as Prince Carl of Denmark until 1905, was the first king of Norway after the 1905 dissolution of the personal union with Sweden. He was a member of the House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg...

 and the legitimate Norwegian government return to Oslo and go into coalition with Quisling. However, Haakon told the Cabinet that he could not in good conscience appoint Quisling as prime minister, and would abdicate
Abdication
Abdication occurs when a monarch, such as a king or emperor, renounces his office.-Terminology:The word abdication comes derives from the Latin abdicatio. meaning to disown or renounce...

 rather than appoint a government headed by him. By this time, news of Quisling's attempted coup had reached Elverum. Negotiations promptly collapsed, and the government unanimously advised Haakon not to appoint Quisling as prime minister.

Quisling tried to have the Nygaardsvold Cabinet arrested, but the officer he ordered to carry out the arrest ignored the order. Attempts at gaining control over the police force in Oslo by issuing orders to the chief of police Kristian Welhaven
Kristian Welhaven
Kristian Welhaven was a Norwegian police officer. He was chief of police of Oslo for 27 years, from 1927 to 1954. He was a leading force in establishing an organized Norwegian intelligence service before World War II, and in re-establishing it after the war...

 also failed. The coup failed after six days, despite German support for the first three days, and Quisling had to step aside in the occupied parts of Norway in favour of the Administrative Council (Administrasjonsrådet). The Administrative Council was formed on 15 April by members of the Supreme Court
Supreme Court of Norway
The Supreme Court of Norway was established in 1815 on the basis of the Constitution of Norway's §88, prescribing an independent judiciary. It is located in Oslo and is Norway's highest court...

 and supported by Norwegian business leaders as well as Bräuer as an alternative to Quisling's national socialists in the occupied areas.

Provisional Councillors of State

On 25 September 1940, German Reichskommissar
Reichskommissar
Reichskommissar , in German history, was an official gubernatorial title used for various public offices during the period of the German Empire and the Nazi Third Reich....

Josef Terboven
Josef Terboven
Josef Antonius Heinrich Terboven was a Nazi leader, best known as the Reichskommissar during the German occupation of Norway.-Early life:...

, who on 24 April 1940 had replaced Curt Bräuer as the top civilian commander in Norway, proclaimed the deposition of King Haakon VII
Haakon VII of Norway
Haakon VII , known as Prince Carl of Denmark until 1905, was the first king of Norway after the 1905 dissolution of the personal union with Sweden. He was a member of the House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg...

 and the Cabinet Nygaardsvold, banning all political parties other than Nasjonal Samling. Terboven then appointed a group of 11 kommissariske statsråder (provisional councillors of state) from Nasjonal Samling to help him in governing Norway. Although the provisional councillors of state did not form a government, the intention of the Germans was to use them to prepare the way for a Nasjonal Samling take-over of power in the future. Vidkun Quisling was made the political head of the councillors and all members of Nasjonal Samling had to swear a personal oath of allegiance to him. Most of the councillors worked diligently at introducing Nasjonal Samling ideals and politics. Amongst the schemes introduced during the council period was the introduction of labour duty, reforms of the labour market, the penal code and the system of justice, a reorganization of the police and the introduction of national socialist ideals in the Norwegian culture scene. The provisional councillors of state were intended as a temporary system while Nasjonal Samling built up its organization in preparation to assume full governmental powers. On 25 September 1941, the one-year anniversary of the councillors, Terboven gave them the title of "ministers".

Government

With the establishment of Quisling's national government, Quisling, as minister-president, temporarily assumed the authority of both the King and the Parliament.

In 1942, after two years of direct civilian administration by the Germans (which continued de facto until 1945), he was finally put in charge of a collaborationist government, which was officially proclaimed on 1 February 1942. The official name of the government was "Den nasjonale regjering" (the National Government). The original intention of the Germans had been to hand over the sovereignty of Norway to the new government, but by mid-January 1942 Hitler decided to retain the civilian Reichskommissariat Norwegen
Reichskommissariat Norwegen
The Reichskommissariat Norwegen, literally "Reich Commissariat of Norway", was the civilian occupation regime set up by Nazi Germany in German-occupied Norway during World War II. Its full title in German was the Reichskommissariat für die besetzten norwegischen Gebiete...

under Terboven. The Quisling government was instead given the role of an occupying authority with wide-ranging authorisations. Quisling himself viewed the creation of his government as a "decisive step on the road towards the complete independence of Norway". Although having only temporarily assumed the King's authority, Quisling still made efforts to distance his regime from the exiled monarchy. After Quisling moved into the Royal Palace
Royal Palace, Oslo
The Royal Palace in Oslo was built in the first half of the 19th century as the Norwegian residence of Norwegian and Swedish king Charles III and is the official residence of the present Norwegian Monarch. The crown prince couple resides at Skaugum in Asker west of Oslo...

 he took back into use the official seal of Norway, changing the wording from "Haakon VII Norges konge" to "Norges rikes segl" (in English translation, from "Haakon VII King of Norway" to "The Seal of the Norwegian State"). After establishing national government Quisling claimed to hold "the authority that according to the Constitution belonged to the King and Parliament".

Other important ministers of the collaborationist government were Jonas Lie
Jonas Lie (government minister)
Jonas Lie was a Norwegian councillor of state in the Nasjonal Samling government of Vidkun Quisling in 1940, then acting councillor of state 1940–1941, and Minister of Police between 1941 and 1945 in the new Quisling government...

 (also head of the Norwegian wing of the SS from 1941) as Minister of the Police, Dr. Gulbrand Lunde as Minister of Culture and Enlightenment, as well as the opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...

 singer Albert Viljam Hagelin
Albert Viljam Hagelin
Albert Viljam Hagelin was a Norwegian businessman and opera singer who became the Minister of Domestic Affairs in the Quisling regime, the puppet government headed by Vidkun Quisling during Germany's World War II occupation of Norway....

, who was Minister of the Interior.

Politics

One of Quisling's first actions was to reintroduce the prohibition of Jews entering Norway, which was formerly a part of the Constitution's §2 from 1814 to 1851.

Two of the early laws of the Quisling regime, Lov om nasjonal ungdomstjeneste and Lov om Norges Lærersamband, both signed 5 February 1942, led to massive protests from parents, serious clashes with the teachers, and an escalating conflict with the Church of Norway
Church of Norway
The Church of Norway is the state church of Norway, established after the Lutheran reformation in Denmark-Norway in 1536-1537 broke the ties to the Holy See. The church confesses the Lutheran Christian faith...

. Schools were closed for one month, and in March 1942 around 1,100 teachers were arrested by the Norwegian police and sent to German prisons and concentration camps, and about 500 of the teachers were forced to Kirkenes as construction workers for the German occupants.

Goal of independence

Even after the official creation of the Quisling government, Josef Terboven
Josef Terboven
Josef Antonius Heinrich Terboven was a Nazi leader, best known as the Reichskommissar during the German occupation of Norway.-Early life:...

 still ruled Norway as a dictator, taking orders from no-one but Hitler. Quisling's regime was a puppet government, although Quisling wanted independence and the recall of Terboven, something he constantly lobbied Hitler for, without success.Quisling wanted to achieve independence for Norway under his rule, with an end to the German occupation of Norway through a peace treaty and the recognition of Norway's sovereignty by Germany. He further wanted to ally Norway to Germany and join the Anti-Comintern Pact
Anti-Comintern Pact
The Anti-Comintern Pact was an Anti-Communist pact concluded between Nazi Germany and the Empire of Japan on November 25, 1936 and was directed against the Communist International ....

. After a reintroduction of national service in Norway, Norwegian troops were to fight with the Axis powers
Axis Powers
The Axis powers , also known as the Axis alliance, Axis nations, Axis countries, or just the Axis, was an alignment of great powers during the mid-20th century that fought World War II against the Allies. It began in 1936 with treaties of friendship between Germany and Italy and between Germany and...

 in the Second World War.

Quisling also fronted the idea of a pan-European union led, but not dominated, by Germany, with a common currency and a common market. Quisling presented his plans to Hitler repeatedly in memos and talks with the German dictator, the first time 13 February 1942 in the Reich Chancellery
Reich Chancellery
The Reich Chancellery was the traditional name of the office of the Chancellor of Germany in the period of the German Reich from 1871 to 1945...

 in Berlin and the last time on 28 January 1945, again in the Reich Chancellery. All of Quisling's ideas were rejected by Hitler, who did not want any permanent agreements before the war had been concluded, while also desiring Norway's outright annexation
Annexation
Annexation is the de jure incorporation of some territory into another geo-political entity . Usually, it is implied that the territory and population being annexed is the smaller, more peripheral, and weaker of the two merging entities, barring physical size...

 into Germany as the northern-most province of a Greater Germanic Reich
Greater Germanic Reich
The Greater Germanic Reich , fully styled the Greater Germanic Reich of the German Nation is the official state name of the political entity that Nazi Germany tried to establish in Europe during World War II...

. Hitler did, however, promise Quisling close to the end of the war (the above-mentioned 1945 visit) that once the war was over Norway would regain her independence. This is the only known case of Hitler making such a promise to an occupied country.

Amongst the Norwegian population the Quisling regime gained next to no support. This was partly due to the collaborationist government being in conflict with the Constitution and Norwegian political traditions, and partly because of Quisling's treason against the democratically elected Norwegian government during his coup attempt on 9 April 1940, following the German invasion of Norway. The word Quisling
Quisling
Quisling is a term used in reference to fascist and collaborationist political parties and military and paramilitary forces in occupied Allied countries which collaborated with Axis occupiers in World War II, as well as for their members and other collaborators.- Etymology :The term was coined by...

has become synonymous with treachery and collaboration with the enemy.

Territorial claims

The regime looked nostalgically to the High Middle Ages
High Middle Ages
The High Middle Ages was the period of European history around the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries . The High Middle Ages were preceded by the Early Middle Ages and followed by the Late Middle Ages, which by convention end around 1500....

 of the country's history, known in Norwegian historiography
Historiography
Historiography refers either to the study of the history and methodology of history as a discipline, or to a body of historical work on a specialized topic...

 as Norgesveldet ("Norway's dominion"), during which Norwegian territory extended beyond its current borders. Quisling envisioned an extension of the Norwegian state by its annexation of the Kola peninsula
Kola Peninsula
The Kola Peninsula is a peninsula in the far northwest of Russia. Constituting the bulk of the territory of Murmansk Oblast, it lies almost completely to the north of the Arctic Circle and is washed by the Barents Sea in the north and the White Sea in the east and southeast...

 with its small Norwegian minority
Kola Norwegians
The Kola Norwegians were Norwegian settlers along the coastline of the Kola Peninsula in Russia.-History:In 1860 the Russian Tsar Alexander II granted permission for Norwegian settlements on the Kola. Around 1870, scores of families from Finnmark in northern Norway departed for the Kola coast,...

, so a Greater Norway spanning the entire North European
Northern Europe
Northern Europe is the northern part or region of Europe. Northern Europe typically refers to the seven countries in the northern part of the European subcontinent which includes Denmark, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Finland and Sweden...

 coastline could be created. Further expansion was expected in Northern Finland, to link the Kola peninsula with Finnmark
Finnmark
or Finnmárku is a county in the extreme northeast of Norway. By land it borders Troms county to the west, Finland to the south and Russia to the east, and by water, the Norwegian Sea to the northwest, and the Barents Sea to the north and northeast.The county was formerly known as Finmarkens...

: Nasjonal Samling leaders had mixed views on the post-war Finnish-Norwegian border, but the potential Norwegian annexation of at least the Finnish municipalities of Petsamo
Pechengsky District
Pechengsky District is an administrative and municipal district , one of the five in Murmansk Oblast, Russia. It is located to the northwest of the Kola Peninsula on the coast of the Barents Sea and borders with Finland in the south and southwest and with Norway in the west, northwest, and north...

 (Norwegian: Petsjenga) and Inari
Inari, Finland
Inari is Finland's largest, sparsely populated municipality with four official languages, more than any other in the country. Its major sources of income are lumber industry and nature maintenance. With the museum Siida in the village of Inari, it is a center of Sami culture...

 (Norwegian: Enare) was under consideration.

Nasjonal Samling publications called for the annexation of the historically Norwegian Swedish provinces of Jämtland
Jämtland
Jämtland or Jamtland is a historical province or landskap in the center of Sweden in northern Europe. It borders to Härjedalen and Medelpad in the south, Ångermanland in the east, Lapland in the north and Trøndelag and Norway in the west...

 (Norwegian
Norwegian language
Norwegian is a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Norway, where it is the official language. Together with Swedish and Danish, Norwegian forms a continuum of more or less mutually intelligible local and regional variants .These Scandinavian languages together with the Faroese language...

: Jemtland), Härjedalen
Härjedalen
' is a historical province or landskap in the centre of Sweden. It borders the country of Norway as well as the provinces of Dalarna, Hälsingland, Medelpad, and Jämtland...

 (Norwegian: Herjedalen, see also Øst-Trøndelag
Øst-Trøndelag
Øst-Trøndelag is an unofficial and polemic name for the Swedish regions of Jämtland and Härjedalen which until 1645 belonged to Norway. As the name suggests, the region lies to the east of the Norwegian region of Trøndelag....

) and Bohuslän
Bohuslän
' is a Swedish traditional province, or landskap, situated in Götaland on the northernmost part of the country's west coast. It is bordered by Dalsland to the northeast, Västergötland to the southeast, the Skagerrak arm of the North Sea to the west, and the county of Østfold in Norway to the north...

 (Norwegian: Båhuslen) In March 1944, Quisling met with Wehrmacht
Wehrmacht
The Wehrmacht – from , to defend and , the might/power) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the Heer , the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe .-Origin and use of the term:...

 general Rudolf Bamler
Rudolf Bamler
Rudolf Bamler was a German Wehrmacht leader before and during the Second World War...

, and urged the Germans to invade Sweden
Sweden during World War II
Sweden during World War II maintained a policy of neutrality. When the Second World War began on September 1, 1939, the fate of Sweden was unclear...

 from Finnish Lapland (using the forces delegated to the German Lapland Army) and through the Baltic as a preempitive strike
Preemptive war
A preemptive war is a war that is commenced in an attempt to repel or defeat a perceived inevitable offensive or invasion, or to gain a strategic advantage in an impending war before that threat materializes. It is a war which preemptively 'breaks the peace'. The term: 'preemptive war' is...

 against Sweden joining the war on the Allied
Allies of World War II
The Allies of World War II were the countries that opposed the Axis powers during the Second World War . Former Axis states contributing to the Allied victory are not considered Allied states...

 side. Quisling's proposal was sent to both OKW chief Alfred Jodl
Alfred Jodl
Alfred Josef Ferdinand Jodl was a German military commander, attaining the position of Chief of the Operations Staff of the Armed Forces High Command during World War II, acting as deputy to Wilhelm Keitel...

 and SS leader Heinrich Himmler
Heinrich Himmler
Heinrich Luitpold Himmler was Reichsführer of the SS, a military commander, and a leading member of the Nazi Party. As Chief of the German Police and the Minister of the Interior from 1943, Himmler oversaw all internal and external police and security forces, including the Gestapo...

.

Quisling and Jonas Lie
Jonas Lie (government minister)
Jonas Lie was a Norwegian councillor of state in the Nasjonal Samling government of Vidkun Quisling in 1940, then acting councillor of state 1940–1941, and Minister of Police between 1941 and 1945 in the new Quisling government...

, leader of the Germanic SS in Norway, also furthered irredentist Norwegian claims to the Faroes (Norwegian: Færøyene), Iceland
Iceland
Iceland , described as the Republic of Iceland, is a Nordic and European island country in the North Atlantic Ocean, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Iceland also refers to the main island of the country, which contains almost all the population and almost all the land area. The country has a population...

 (Norwegian: Island), Orkney (Norwegian: Orknøyene), Shetland (Norwegian: Hjaltland), the Outer Hebrides
Outer Hebrides
The Outer Hebrides also known as the Western Isles and the Long Island, is an island chain off the west coast of Scotland. The islands are geographically contiguous with Comhairle nan Eilean Siar, one of the 32 unitary council areas of Scotland...

 (historically a part of the Norse Kingdom of Mann and the Isles under the name Sørøyene, "South Islands") and Franz Josef Land
Franz Josef Land
Franz Josef Land, Franz Joseph Land, or Francis Joseph's Land is an archipelago located in the far north of Russia. It is found in the Arctic Ocean north of Novaya Zemlya and east of Svalbard, and is administered by Arkhangelsk Oblast. Franz Josef Land consists of 191 ice-covered islands with a...

 (earlier claimed by Norway under the name Fridtjof Nansen
Fridtjof Nansen
Fridtjof Wedel-Jarlsberg Nansen was a Norwegian explorer, scientist, diplomat, humanitarian and Nobel Peace Prize laureate. In his youth a champion skier and ice skater, he led the team that made the first crossing of the Greenland interior in 1888, and won international fame after reaching a...

 Land
), most of which were former Norwegian territories passed on to Danish
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...

 rule after the dissolution of Denmark-Norway in 1814, while the rest were former Norwegian settlements
Norsemen
Norsemen is used to refer to the group of people as a whole who spoke what is now called the Old Norse language belonging to the North Germanic branch of Indo-European languages, especially Norwegian, Icelandic, Faroese, Swedish and Danish in their earlier forms.The meaning of Norseman was "people...

. Norway had already claimed a part of Eastern Greenland
Greenland
Greenland is an autonomous country within the Kingdom of Denmark, located between the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Though physiographically a part of the continent of North America, Greenland has been politically and culturally associated with Europe for...

 in 1931 (under the name Eirik Raudes Land), but the claim was extended during the occupation period to cover Greenland as a whole. During the spring of 1941, Quisling laid out plans to "reconquer" the island using a task force of hundred men, but the Germans deemed this plan unfeasible. In the person of propaganda minister Gulbrand Lunde the Norwegian puppet government further lay claim to the North
North Pole
The North Pole, also known as the Geographic North Pole or Terrestrial North Pole, is, subject to the caveats explained below, defined as the point in the northern hemisphere where the Earth's axis of rotation meets its surface...

 and South Poles
South Pole
The South Pole, also known as the Geographic South Pole or Terrestrial South Pole, is one of the two points where the Earth's axis of rotation intersects its surface. It is the southernmost point on the surface of the Earth and lies on the opposite side of the Earth from the North Pole...

. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Norway had gained prestige as a nation active in polar expedition: South Pole was first reached by the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen
Roald Amundsen
Roald Engelbregt Gravning Amundsen was a Norwegian explorer of polar regions. He led the first Antarctic expedition to reach the South Pole between 1910 and 1912 and he was the first person to reach both the North and South Poles. He is also known as the first to traverse the Northwest Passage....

 in 1911, and in 1939 Norway had claimed a region of Antarctica under the name Queen Maud Land
Queen Maud Land
Queen Maud Land is a c. 2.7 million-square-kilometre region of Antarctica claimed as a dependent territory by Norway. The territory lies between 20° west and 45° east, between the British Antarctic Territory to the west and the Australian Antarctic Territory to the east. The latitudinal...

 .

After Germany's invasion
Operation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa was the code name for Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II that began on 22 June 1941. Over 4.5 million troops of the Axis powers invaded the USSR along a front., the largest invasion in the history of warfare...

 of the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

 preparations were made for establishing Norwegian colonies
Lebensraum
was one of the major political ideas of Adolf Hitler, and an important component of Nazi ideology. It served as the motivation for the expansionist policies of Nazi Germany, aiming to provide extra space for the growth of the German population, for a Greater Germany...

 in Northern Russia. Quisling designated the area reserved for Norwegian colonization as Bjarmeland
Bjarmaland
Bjarmaland was a territory mentioned in Norse sagas up to the Viking Age and - beyond - in geographical accounts until the 16th century. The term is usually seen to have referred to the southern shores of the White Sea and the basin of the Northern Dvina River and - presumably - some of the...

, a reference to the name featured in the Norse sagas for Northern Russia.

Dissolution

Quisling's regime ceased to exist in 1945, with the end of the occupation. Norway was still under occupation in May 1945, but Vidkun Quisling was arrested on 9 May, one day after Germany's surrender
Victory in Europe Day
Victory in Europe Day commemorates 8 May 1945 , the date when the World War II Allies formally accepted the unconditional surrender of the armed forces of Nazi Germany and the end of Adolf Hitler's Third Reich. The formal surrender of the occupying German forces in the Channel Islands was not...

. Nazi collaborators and some German leaders were later subjected to a legal purge
Legal purge in Norway after World War II
When the occupation of Norway ended in May 1945, several thousand Norwegians and foreign citizens were tried and convicted for various acts that the occupying powers sanctioned...

.

Ministers of the Quisling regime

  • Kjeld Stub Irgens
    Kjeld Stub Irgens
    Kjeld Stub Irgens was a Norwegian politician during the German occupation of Norway.-Early life:He was born in 1879 to vicar Jens Stub Irgens and his wife Sophie Cathinka, née Altschwager. He had several brothers and sisters...

  • Ragnar Skancke
    Ragnar Skancke
    Ragnar Sigvald Skancke was the Norwegian Minister of Labour and Minister for Church and Educational Affairs in Vidkun Quisling's government of the Nasjonal Samling party during World War II.Before the war, Skancke was a highly respected professor of electrical engineering at the Norwegian...

  • Albert Viljam Hagelin
    Albert Viljam Hagelin
    Albert Viljam Hagelin was a Norwegian businessman and opera singer who became the Minister of Domestic Affairs in the Quisling regime, the puppet government headed by Vidkun Quisling during Germany's World War II occupation of Norway....

  • Jonas Lie
    Jonas Lie (government minister)
    Jonas Lie was a Norwegian councillor of state in the Nasjonal Samling government of Vidkun Quisling in 1940, then acting councillor of state 1940–1941, and Minister of Police between 1941 and 1945 in the new Quisling government...

  • Sverre Riisnæs
    Sverre Riisnæs
    Sverre Parelius Riisnæs was a Norwegian jurist and public prosecutor who was born 6 November 1897 in Vik, Sogn county and died 21 June 1988 in Oslo...

  • Thorstein Fretheim
    Thorstein John Ohnstad Fretheim
    Thorstein John Ohnstad Fretheim was a Norwegian acting councillor of state in the NS government of Vidkun Quisling 1940-1941, and minister 1941-1945. Fretheim was a district veterinary by profession.-References:...

  • Gulbrand Lunde
  • Axel Heiberg Stang
    Axel Heiberg Stang
    Axel Heiberg Stang was a Norwegian who was appointed councillor of state in the Nasjonal Samling government of Vidkun Quisling , and minister ....

  • Tormod Hustad
  • Johan Andreas Lippestad
    Johan Andreas Lippestad
    Johan Andreas Lippestad was a Norwegian minister in the NS government of Vidkun Quisling, from 1941 to 1945. He was responsible for the evacuation of Finnmark in 1944, together with Jonas Lie.-References:...

  • Eivind Blehr
    Eivind Blehr
    Eivind Blehr was a Norwegian minister in the NS government of Vidkun Quisling, from 1942 to 1944. He was son of former prime minister Otto Blehr.-References:...

  • Frederik Prytz
  • Alf Whist
    Alf Whist
    Alf Larsen Whist was a Norwegian businessperson and politician for Nasjonal Samling.He was born in Fredrikshald as a son of Svend Larsen and Sofie Mathilde Laumann . He was married to Augusta Kathinka Hals from 1904. He finished middle school in 1896, and after a period at sea he started working...

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