Vidkun Quisling: The Name Forever Synonymous with Treason and Betrayal
Quisling’s party never won more than 2% of the vote. That made him increasingly bitter and frustrated with his countrymen. In late 1939, he flew to Berlin, met with Hitler, and offered to assist the Germans if they invaded Norway. The Nazis, aware of his lack of support, were noncommittal. When the Germany invaded Norway in 1940 and its government fled into exile, Quisling opportunistically tried to set up a collaborationist government. He was ignored by all, including the German occupiers. It took two years of wheedling before the Nazis finally recognized him in 1942 as Norway’s “Minister-President” of a puppet regime.
Quisling did all he could to please his German masters. That included eager cooperation in their deportation of Norway’s Jews to death camps. He was captured after the war, and tried by his countrymen. He was convicted of treason, murder, and embezzlement, and executed in October, 1945. His name became synonymous with collaboration, treason, and betrayal. To this day, a “Quisling” is used as an epithet to denote not a run of the mill traitor, such as, e.g.; calling somebody a “Benedict Arnold”. Instead, a Quisling is a traitor of the lowest, grubbiest, and most despicable kind. One who represses his own people on behalf of foreign conquerors, and is eager to please them with shameless displays of boot-licking obsequiousness.
