World War II Day by Day

Oslo, Norway • May 8, 1945

On May 5, 1945, five days after Adolf Hitler’s sui­cide in the cata­combs beneath his Reich capi­tal, Gen. Dwight D. Eisen­hower, Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in Europe, sent a tele­gram to resis­tance leaders in Norway, who passed it to the hard­line com­mander in chief of German armed forces in Norway, Gen. Franz Boehme. The tele­gram detailed how Boehme was to get in touch with Allied head­quarters. Two days later Boehme, who had once boasted “In Norway we can acccept any battle,” ordered his 100,000 troops in Norway to stand down. Imme­di­ately some 40,000 Nor­we­gian resis­tance fighters (Milorg) in the country mobi­lized and occu­pied the Royal Palace and public places, including Oslo’s main police station.

A pre-planned Norwegian administra­tion was in place on this date—Victory in Europe (VE) Day—when an Allied mili­tary mission arrived to accept the sur­render of 400,000 German ser­vice per­son­nel. Surren­der terms required the arrest of all Nazi Party mem­bers, German and Nor­we­gian alike, and the intern­ment of all para­military troops belonging to the SS—short for the German Schutz­staffel (“Protec­tion Squad­ron”). Handing him­self over to Nor­we­gian police was Nazi colla­bo­rator and “Minis­ter Presi­dent” Vid­kun Quis­ling (in office 1942–1945), leader of Nas­jonal Sam­ling, the Nor­we­gian fascist party that had encour­aged and supported the German occupation of his country. (Five months before the German inva­sion of Norway in April 1941, Quisling had thrice con­ferred with Hitler, out­lining his own plans for a coup against Norway’s con­sti­tu­tional govern­ment and falsely assuring Hitler that he had the support of the Norwegian military.)

The Norwegian government under returned exile King Haakon VII wanted to avoid lynchings and other extra­judi­cial punish­ment for Nazi collab­o­ra­tors; for example, those Nor­we­gians who had volun­teered for ser­vice with the German mili­tary, espe­cially the Germanic-SS, as well as police offi­cers in the Sik­ker­hets­politiet and Nor­we­gian mem­bers of the German Gestapo (Secret State Police) who may have been involved in tor­ture, exe­cu­tions, and other mis­treat­ment of pri­soners. Though extra­judicial retal­i­a­tion was largely avoided, 28,750 in­di­vid­uals were placed in cus­tody during the first few days. Most of these were quickly released, but over a year later 5,000–6,000 were still in cus­tody, many charged with trea­son, mem­ber­ship in the Nas­jonal Sam­ling (which was made a crime by the London-based Nor­we­gian govern­ment-in-exile in Decem­ber 1944), and sub­ject to various kinds of penal­ties; these included fines, loss of civil privileges, and prison sentences.

Close to 10,300 Norwegians lost their lives during the war or impri­son­ment, and roughly 50,000 were arrested during the German occu­pa­tion. Of these, 9,000 were con­signed to pri­son camps outside Norway. Among the unfor­tu­nates who ran afoul of the occu­piers were 1,300 Nor­we­gian teachers who defied Nazi efforts to take over their children’s edu­ca­tion. Nearly 500 of them wound up in a concen­tra­tion camp in the Arctic with Soviet POWs. Some 50,000 Nor­we­gians escaped to neighboring Sweden, a neutral nation, during the war.

Nazi Marionettist Reichskommissar Josef Terboven, 1940–1945

Left: At the age of 25, future Reich Commissioner for the Occu­pied Nor­we­gian Ter­ri­tories Josef Ter­bo­ven (dark civil­ian clothes, white shirt and tie in middle of this 1926 pic­ture) joined the Nazi Party and parti­ci­pated in Adolf Hitler’s abor­tive 1923 Munich Beer Hall Putsch. In 1928 Ter­bo­ven helped estab­lish the party in Essen, the fifth largest city in Germany and an impor­tant coal and steel center in the industrial Ruhr Valley; there he became Gau­leiter (Nazi Party leader). Ter­bo­ven was appointed Reich Com­mis­sioner for Norway on April 24, 1940, even before the military occu­pa­tion of that country was complete on June 7, 1940.

Right: Vidkun Quisling (left), Reichsfuerher-SS Hein­rich Him­mler, Josef Terbo­ven, and Gen. Nikolaus von Falken­horst, com­mander of German forces in Norway on the occa­sion of Him­mler’s visit to Norway in May 1941. Few people were more deserving of death by hanging or a firing squad than Ter­bo­ven. Mostly ignoring Quis­ling’s fascist pup­pet govern­ment, head Nazi marionettist Ter­bo­ven estab­lished a regime of ter­ror in Norway, per­son­ally com­manding a force of roughly 6,000 goons, of whom 800 were part of the sec­ret police. Ter­bo­ven’s men were sepa­rate from the 400,000 regular German armed forces stationed in Norway. On May 8, 1945, the day of German capit­u­lation, he and the com­mander of the Nor­wegian SS com­mitted sui­cide, Terboven by blowing himself up in a bunker at his official residence.

Pathetic Life and Times of Norwegian Fascist and Nazi Collaborator Vidkun Quisling, 1887–1945