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Pistol Pete’s Payback and Other Historic Vengeances

Khalid Elhassan October 15, 2020 31 min

World War II - Quisling — Quisling with SS chief Heinrich Himmler. Cotton Boll Conspiracy

17. A Man Whose Name Became Synonymous With Treason

In America, the name most associated with treason is Benedict Arnold. In the rest of the world, that dishonor goes to Vidkun Quisling (1887 – 1945). A Norwegian army officer and right-wing politician, Quisling led a fascist party in the 1930s that met with little success at the polls. He betrayed his country to the Nazis during WWII and collaborated with its German conquerors.

After initially rejecting him early in their occupation as too seedy even for them, the Nazis finally relented to Quisling’s pleas, and placed him in charge of a puppet government on their behalf. Payback would catch up with him after the war, when he was served a traitor’s just deserts.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.