"QUISLING" IS A COMMON NAME FOR TRAITORS.
Nazi henchmen from Scandinavia dreamed of colonizing Russia and the Ukraine

Despite the modest support of its own nation, Quisling’s government was attempting to carry out some sort of the "imperial" policy. So, it has repeatedly sent "memorandums" to Berlin, asking to pass the part of the Russian North — the Murmansk area — to Norway after the "victory over Bolshevism". Hitler was leaving these demarches without answer. Just the same way, trip of the puppet Norwegian government members to the Ukraine — in order to "stake out" a claim for the future Norwegian colony there — hasn’t met any support in Berlin.

"Nordic" plans of the Nazis

Scandinavia was to play a special role in the worldview of the German national-socialistы. That was both a cradle of the "Nordic race" and the motherhood for the nations that were related to Germans. Even prior to that, in the beginning of the 20th century, pan-Germanists were laying great hopes for Scandinavia, considering it to be natural for the Northern Europe to be reunited under the auspice of Germany. During the Second World War real opportunity to check both "pan-Germanist" and "Nordic" theories appeared. Thus, to the utmost surprise of the Nazis, it turned out that the "related nations" — the "Vikings" — weren’t much enthusiastic about becoming a part of the Great German Reich.

The term "true Aryan" was the evidence of the "racial adequacy" in the Third Reich. Its origin is a quite different and rather long story — that’s why we won’t touch upon this issue here. But anyone who has at least slightest notion of the ethnography is aware that such term as "Aryan" indicates the linguistic rather than the racial relation. Today the Indo-Iranian community of the Indo-European family of languages is sometimes called "Aryan". But as far back as in the beginning of the 20th century all the nations of the Indo-European (which Germans used to call Indo-German — and some of them continue doing it even today) family of languages were dubbed "Aryan". But even in this sense being "Aryan" was rather an ethno-linguistic than the anthropological category.

Only in the Third Reich the term "Aryan" acquired the racial meaning. Though, it would be tough to define what exactly it meant. This definition can be made using the negative rather than the positive logic — having enumerated those who were definitely not included into the "Aryan" category, according to the Nazi terms: Jews, Gypsies, Armenians, some part of Slavs. Obviously, the defined "Aryan" criteria were much more political. Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler was known for saying the following catchwords: "In my department I will decide who is Jewish and who is not!" Entire political elite of the Third Reich was guided by the same kind of logic, having divided the nations into the "Aryan" and "non-Aryan" — i. e. friendly and hostile — ones.

Due to the political reasons, Nazis included Albanians, Crimean Tatars, Chechens, Georgians, Kalmyks and even Arabs (in case the latter were willing to fight against Englishmen) into the "Aryan group". Just like that there were quite "Aryan" Slavs like Slovaks, Croats, Bosnian Muslims, Bulgarians and Galicians and "non-Aryan" Slavs like Russians, Little Russians, Byelorussians, Poles and Serbians at the same time (as for Czechs and Slovenians, they were to become a subject to the complete linguistic assimilation with Germans). "Without doubt", Hungarians, Finns and Estonians were "Aryans".

Racial anthropology that became rather wide-spread before the Second World War distinguished the local Nordic race inside of the major white (Caucasian) race. Cult of the Nordic race, as of one of the most gifted in the history of humanity, was popular even among some part of the Masonic lodges as far back as in the 19th century and was later adopted by the Nazism. The way it happened is yet another long and separate story.

So, among all the European nations the highest percentage of the Nordic race representatives (the so-called Nordic men) was discovered among the inhabitants of the Northern Europe. Supposedly the ancestral home of the Nordic race was situated there. In a linguistic sense North of Europe was inhabited by both nations of the German group of the Indo-European language family (Swedes, Norwegians, Danes, Icelanders) and the nations of the Finnish group of the Ural language family (Finns, Sami or Laplanders, Estonians).

Just like we’ve already stressed, for the ideologists of the Nazism political criteria of the "Aryanship" were above all the rest. That’s why Finns and Estonians were unconditionally rated to be the "true Aryans". Norwegians and Swedes were not that lucky, though. When it became completely clear that Scandinavian Germans were not tremendously enthusiastic about the national-socialism ideas, Hitler had repeatedly grumbled that they’ve "lost the war-like spirit of the Vikings" and "degraded" during the long years of peaceful life.

Collaborationism and "neutrality"

With the beginning of the Second World War, Scandinavian countries strove to keep their neutrality just like they did during the First World War. Denmark and Norway have failed at that, though. These countries have suddenly fetched themselves under the intent attention of the warring parties, which were attempting to improve their strategic positions for their account. Germans have slightly outstripped Englishmen at that. At that point, Norway — that was initially protesting against the English disregard for its neutrality — had nothing else to do, rather than to beg England of help. But in 1940 British people were unable (or unwilling) to protect Norway, and Germany has consolidated its grip of the Northern Europe.

After the defeat in the Winter War of 1939-1940 hot-blooded Finnish lads were dying to enter the war against Russia again, having been tormented with the thirst for revenge. When the vector of German military arrangements shifted to the East, Finland has instantly expressed its readiness to serve the Third Reich as its ally. By the autumn of 1940 German troops — intended to be used at the offensive against the USSR — were redeploying in Finland.

In Denmark and Norway, however, the population wasn’t showing any specific willingness to participate in the military affairs of the German national-socialism. Yes, the occupational regime in these countries was rather gentle. It cannot by no means be compared with the Nazi regimes at the occupied territories not only of Poland and the USSR, but even with of France and (by the end of the war) Italy. In a great many senses, occupants were relying on the local powers very much. In Denmark most part of Danish administration, police and legal justice bodies was intact — the laws of the Danish Kingdom were still in use there. Similar situation emerged in Norway. It also formally remained to be autonomous; it had its own government, police and judicial bodies. At that, even before the invasion to Norway, Nazi had a strong "fifth column" — the "Nasjonal Samling Party1" headed by Vidkun Quisling — in that country. In February of 1942 occupants have appointed Quisling to be the head of the puppet government of Norway. We should say that during the years of the Second World War the very word "quisling" became a common noun denoting the puppet collaborationist, willing to execute any German order. French "Vichy government members", Croatian Ustaša and Slovakian supporters of the pro-fascist regime were dubbed this way.

Collaboration with Germany was supported by the multiple parts of the Danish and Norwegian societies. For example, famous Norwegian author Knut Hamsun was a staunch supporter of collaborationism. Wehrmacht General and historian Kurt von Tippelskirch even considered the fact that Nazi leadership was too actively promoting Quisling to be a mistake, as long as given sentiments of Norwegian elite, occupants could have relied on the extensive political coalition there.

However, given all that, Scandinavian collaborationism hardly went beyond the point of silent approval. Volunteers, willing to actively support Nazis were quite few. Even the shares of different nations at the general composition of Wehrmacht and SS servicemen captured by the Red Army during the Great Patriotic War can make a display of that. Let’s compare them. While there were about 23.1 thousand French there, it was only 457 Danes, 101 Norwegians and 72 Swedes. Mind that population of Norway correlates to the population of France at the ratio of 1:13 rather than 1:200, while the ratio for Denmark was 1:10. Grounding on that, we may assume that the scope of the active collaborationism in Scandinavia was obviously smaller than in France. Initially, number of the volunteers from Scandinavian countries was hardly enough to recruit a single SS regiment.

"Nordland" SS regiment was formed in autumn of 1940 from the Norwegian, Danish, Finnish, Dutch and Belgian volunteers. In spring of 1941 it became a part of the motorized (since 1943 — Panzer division) "Viking" SS division (since autumn of 1943 — the 5th "Viking" SS division), which was fighting at the Eastern front and in May of 1945 it surrendered to Americans. Despite the name, "Vikings" themselves — i. e. Scandinavians — have hardly made up a tenth part of this division. And in 1943 "Nordland" regiment was actually withdrawn from it. The 11th Panzergrenadier SS-division "Nordland" was formed at its grounds. It was assumed to be made up exclusively from the Scandinavian volunteers. Though, due to the lack of them, in November of 1943 division was staffed with...ethnic Germans from Croatia. After that it was sent to the Eastern front where it was captured by the Soviet troops in May of 1945.

In defiance of the common opinion, SS division "Nord" (subsequently the 6th chasseur SS division "Nord") was formed not from Scandinavians or Finns, despite the fact that it was fighting in Karelia. Only the propaganda company of this division was mostly Scandinavian — or actually Norwegian, to be precise. The most part of servicemen of this division — formed at the grounds of SS division "Totenkopf" regiments — were German.

At the Eastern Front there were certain voluntary Scandinavian units that were the parts of Wehrmacht and SS troops. Though, their total strength, as we have seen, was obviously insufficient even to create at least a single full-fledged division out of them.

Despite the modest support of its own nation, Quisling’s government was attempting to carry out some sort of the "imperial" policy. So, it has repeatedly sent "memorandums" to Berlin, asking to pass the part of the Russian North — the Murmansk area — to Norway after the "victory over Bolshevism". Hitler was leaving these demarches without answer. Just the same way, trip of the puppet Norwegian government members to the Ukraine — in order to "stake out" a claim for the future Norwegian colony there — hasn’t met any support in Berlin.

Sweden has actually managed to keep its neutrality during the years of the Second World War. However, its deviations from neutrality towards Germany were rather serious. So in 1941-1943 Sweden allowed to use its territory for transit of the German servicemen, weapons and military cargos that were going to the Nothern Russian theater of war. At that, German soldiers and officers were not carrying weapon and they were watched by the Swedish submachine gunners, but nevertheless... And on the 28th of October, 1941 Swedish king Gustav V sent a personal message to Hitler expressing his "gratitude for the defeat of Bolshevism". It seems that he hastened a bit. During the same period of time, ships and planes of the Swedish naval forces — pretending to be protecting their border — were repeatedly attacking our ships and submarines at the Baltic Sea.

In spite of this, by 1943 German General Staff prepared the "Silberfuchs" plan of the military occupation of Poland. It was assumed that Swedish armed forces wouldn’t resist to German — just like the Danish ones. However, "wishing to be on the safe side", realization of this plan was postponed until the "victory over Russia", which is why it had never actually been brought to life. Instead of that, on the 1st of August, 1943, right after the Kursk defeat, Sweden proclaimed the cessation of the German servicemen and military cargo transfer through its territory.

During the Secong World War active participation of Sweden volunteers on the part of German troops was a matter of certain individuals. Ethnic Swedes living in Finland (15% of the country population), who were mobilized to the Finnish army made an exception to that.

Resistance and the attitude towards the collaborationism after the war

Not without a reason Quisling’s name became a common noun for the high treason after the war. Quisling himself was shot on the 24th of October, 1945 due to the sentence of the Norwegian court. And even until now not a single Norwegian politician had ever disputed the legality of that sentence.

Even considering the fact that the Resistance movement was very wide-spread in Scandinavia (not even like in France), certain acts of it are worth being recorded to the chronicles of the Second World War. Laying of the English bombers at the German battleship "Tirpitz" and at the major plant for the heavy water production — it played an important role in the Nazi nuclear program — are definitely among them.

It seems that the most gifted part of the Norwegian population — the one that actually saved the spirit of ancient Vikings — took part in the Resistance movement rather than the SS units. Not without a reason Norwegian travelling companions of Thor Heyerdahl during his famous risky sailing aboard the "Kon-Tiki" boat (1947) were either active members of the anti-fascist underground or fought as the volunteers at the British naval forces — just like Thor himself did.

German national-socialists were expecting the most extensive support from the "Nordic" nations of Scandinavia. They’ve miscalculated, though. Yes, the scope of collaborationism in the Northern Europe was great. Though, it wasn’t greater than at the occupied Benelux countries or France. At the same time, Scandinavian resistance movement has written numerous glorious pages into the chronicles of the Second World War. In reality both "Nordic" and "Pan-German" theories turned out to be completely groundless.

By Yaroslav Butakov