17. From Unsuccessful Fascist to Infamous Traitor
Fascism did not catch on in Norway like it had done in Germany, and Quisling’s fascist party never won more than 2% of the vote. That made him increasingly bitter and frustrated with his countrymen. 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 and its government fled into exile, Quisling opportunistically tried to set up a collaborationist government, but 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. In that position, Quisling did all he could to please his masters, including eager cooperation in their deportation of Norway’s Jews to the death camps.
Captured after the war, he was tried by the Norwegians and convicted of treason, murder, and embezzlement. He was executed in October 1945. His name became synonymous with collaboration and treason, and to this day, a “Quisling” is routinely used as an epithet to denote somebody worse than a run-of-the-mill traitor. Worse than calling somebody a “Benedict Arnold”, a Quisling is a traitor of the lowest, grubbiest, and most despicable kind. The type who would lord it over and repress his own people on behalf of an enemy, and who is eager to please a foreign occupier with shameless displays of boot-licking obsequiousness.
