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Reading Robert Ferguson’s fascinating history of the experiences of the Norwegians during the five years of German occupation between 1940 and 1945 – a collage of resistance, collaboration and the grey areas in between – I was reminded of the remarks of two Norwegian nonagenarians. In 2011, I interviewed Gunnar Sonsteby, a hero of Norway’s resistance movement, for The Spectator. The country’s most decorated man, Sonsteby told me that he was spurred to acts of sabotage and the ‘liquidation’ of collaborators by sheer outrage at the German presence. Conversely, earlier this year, I wrote the obituary of Olav Thon, the owner of a chain of supermarkets and hotels and one of the richest men in Norway. Thon had been criticised for trading in furs with the occupying forces. He countered that he simply sold to anyone who came through the shop door.
Ferguson recognises the validity of both positions, and Norway’s War is full of empathy for a broad range of personal reactions to the German occupation. This began with an overnight takeover of the main cities in 1940 and ended in ignominious surrender on 8 May 1945. At the darkest end of this spectrum were the Norwegian Nazis, the National Unity party, led by the infamous Vidkun Quisling. Ferguson explains that Quisling became a synonym for traitor almost immediately (within weeks of the invasion, the term had been used in the Times).
The assault on Oslo proved to be Germany’s worst moment in its Norwegian campaign. In the early hours of 8 April 1940, its heavy cruiser Blücher slid silently up the Oslofjord and was swiftly sunk by the cannons of Oscarsborg fortress.
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