cleveland.indymedia.org/news/2009/05/38662.php -
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Published on: 1/1/2009
Last Visited: 5/11/2009
Vidkun Quisling served as defense minister in Hunseid's cabinet.
In 1933, the year Hitler came to power in Germany, Quisling founded the Norwegian Nazi party Nasjonal Samling (National Union).
In the Storting (parliamentary) elections that year, it received 2 percent of the votes.
In the 1934 local elections its percentage of the votes increased substantially.
However, in the 1937 elections the party almost became extinct.
Norway was attacked by Germany on 9 April 1940 and surrendered shortly afterward.
The government and King Haakon VII fled to Britain, and the Germans appointed Quisling as head of a new government.
He played a major role in the process of robbing the Norwegian Jews of their property and in the preparatory process of sending them to the death camps.
In all, close to 750 Norwegian Jews were murdered during the war.
Quisling became prime minister of Norway on 1 February 1942.
Shortly thereafter the article of the Norwegian constitution barring Jews from entering the country was reinstated.
Previously several measures already had been taken and Jewish men had been arrested.
When Jewish property was confiscated, much of it went to the anti-Jewish Norwegian state.
A significant number of Norwegian volunteers, about two thousand, also joined the Waffen SS.
Quisling is one of the few Norwegians who are known outside the country, his name having entered several languages as the archetype of the traitor.
...
In Norway's wartime history there is the problematic, important and symbolic figure of Vidkun Quisling, whose name will forever retain an unwanted association with that country.
The Norwegians want to distance themselves from their wartime government, which they try to present as something which is not truly part of their past.
After the war Quisling was executed, yet many Norwegians had similar ideas, including intellectuals who openly preached anti-Semitism.
Quisling was also supported by very senior Norwegian officials.