THE EXECUTION OF VIDKUN ABRAHAM LAURITZ JONSSON QUISLING NORWEGIAN 18 JULY 1887

THE EXECUTION OF VIDKUN ABRAHAM LAURITZ JONSSON QUISLING NORWEGIAN 18 JULY 1887...

Vidkun Abraham Lauritz Jonssøn Quisling Norwegian: 18 July 1887 – 24 October 1945) was a Norwegian military officer, politician and Nazi collaborator who nominally headed the government of Norway during the country's occupation by Nazi Germany during World War II.

He first came to international prominence as a close collaborator of the explorer Fridtjof Nansen, and through organising humanitarian relief during the Russian famine of 1921 in Povolzhye. 

He was posted as a Norwegian diplomat to the Soviet Union and for some time also managed British diplomatic affairs there. He returned to Norway in 1929 and served as minister of defence in the governments of Peder Kolstad (1931–32) and Jens Hundseid (1932–33) in representing the Farmers' Party.

In 1933, Quisling left the Farmers' Party and founded the fascist Nasjonal Samling (National Gathering). Although he gained some popularity after his attacks on the political left, his party failed to win any seats in the Storting, and by 1940, it was still little more than peripheral. 

On 9 April 1940, with the German invasion of Norway in progress, he attempted to seize power in the world's first radio-broadcast coup d'état but failed since the Germans sought to convince the recognized Norwegian government to legitimize the German occupation, as had been done in Denmark during the simultaneous invasion there, instead of recognizing Quisling.

 On 1 February 1942, he formed a second government, approved by the Germans, and served as minister president and headed the Norwegian state administration jointly with the German civilian administrator, Josef Terboven. His pro-Nazi puppet government, known as the Quisling regime, was dominated by ministers from Nasjonal Samling. The collaborationist government participated in Germany's war efforts, and sent Jews out of the country to concentration camps in occupied Poland (General Government).

Quisling was put on trial during the legal purge in Norway after World War II. He was found guilty of charges including embezzlement, murder and high treason against the Norwegian state, and was sentenced to death. He was executed by firing squad at Akershus Fortress, Oslo, on 24 October 1945. 

Since his death, Quisling has become one of history's most infamous traitors owing to his collaboration with Nazi Germany. The term quisling has become a byword for "collaborator" or "traitor" in several languages and reflects the contempt with which Quisling's conduct has been regarded both at the time and in the present day.

I know that the Norwegian people have sentenced me to death, and that the easiest course for me would be to take my own life. But I want to let history reach its own verdict. Believe me, in ten years' time I will have become another Saint Olav.

— Quisling to Bjørn Foss, 8 May 1945, Dahl 1999, p. 367

The trial opened on 20 August 1945. Quisling's defence rested on downplaying his unity with Germany and stressing that he had fought for total independence, something that seemed completely contrary to the recollections of many Norwegians. From that point on, wrote biographer Dahl, Quisling had to tread a "fine line between truth and falsehood," and emerged from it "an elusive and often pitiful figure."  He misrepresented the truth on several occasions and the truthful majority of his statements won him few advocates in the country at large, where he remained almost universally despised.

In the later days of the trial, Quisling's health suffered, largely as a result of the number of medical tests to which he was subjected, and his defence faltered. The prosecution's final speech placed responsibility for the Final Solution being carried out in Norway at the feet of Quisling, using the testimony of German officials. The prosecutor Annæus Schjødt called for the death penalty, using laws introduced by the government-in-exile in October 1941 and January 1942.

Speeches by both Bergh and Quisling himself could not change the outcome. When the verdict was announced on 10 September 1945, Quisling was convicted on all but a handful of minor charges and sentenced to death.

An October appeal to the Supreme Court was rejected. The court process was judged to be "a model of fairness" in a commentary by author Maynard Cohen. After giving testimony in a number of other trials of Nasjonal Samling members, Quisling was executed by firing squad at Akershus Fortress at 02:40 on 24 October 1945. His last words before being shot were, "I'm convicted unfairly and I die innocent." After his death his body was cremated, leaving the ashes to be interred in Fyresdal.

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