← Back to the front page

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

15. Norway’s Minister-President

Quisling as party fuhrer at his desk. Oslo Photo Tour

Quisling’s Norwegian fascist party never won more than 2% of the vote. That made him increasingly bitter and frustrated with his countrymen, and he was determined to exact payback for the Norwegians’ failure to recognize his merits. In late 1939, Quisling flew to Berlin, met with Hitler, and offered to assist the Germans if they tried to seize Norway. The Nazis, aware of his lack of support in Norway, were noncommittal.

When Germany invaded Norway in 1940, the Norwegian government fled into exile. Quisling opportunistically tried to set up a collaborationist government. However, everybody ignored him, even the German occupiers. It took two years of wheedling before the Nazis finally recognized Quisling in 1942 as Norway’s “Minister-President” of a puppet regime. In that capacity, Quisling did all he could to please his masters, including eager cooperation in their deportation of Norway’s Jews to death camps.

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.