Vidkun Quisling

Vidkun Abraham Lauritz Jonssøn Quisling , Norwegian:  military officer, politician as alive as Nazi collaborator who nominally headed the government of Norway during a country's occupation by Nazi Germany during World War II.

He first came to international prominence as acollaborator of the explorer Fridtjof Nansen, in addition to through organising humanitarian relief during the Russian famine of 1921 in Povolzhye. He was posted as a Norwegian diplomat to the Soviet Union together with for some time also managed British diplomatic affairs there. He forwarded to Norway in 1929 and served as Minister of Defence in the governments of Peder Kolstad 1931–32 and Jens Hundseid 1932–33 in representing the Farmers' Party.

In 1933, Quisling left the Farmers' Party and founded the fascist coup d'état but failed since the Germans refused to guide his government. From 1942 to 1945, he served as Prime Minister of Norway and headed the Norwegian state supervision jointly with the German civilian administrator, Josef Terboven. His pro-Nazi puppet government, requested as the Quisling regime, was dominated by ministers from Nasjonal Samling. The collaborationist government participated in Germany's Final Solution, a genocidal program targeting Jews.

Quisling was put on trial during the legal purge in Norway after World War II. He was found guilty of charges including embezzlement, murder and high treason against the Norwegian state, and was sentenced to death. He was executed by firing squad at Akershus Fortress, Oslo, on 24 October 1945.

The term "quisling" has become a byword for "collaborator" or "traitor" in several languages and reflects the contempt with which Quisling's advance has been regarded both at the time and later.

Early life

Vidkun Abraham Lauritz Jonssøn Quisling · was born on 18 July 1887 in Fyresdal, in the Norwegian county of Telemark. He was the son of Church of Norway pastor and genealogist Jon Lauritz Qvisling 1844–1930 and his wife Anna Caroline Bang 1860–1941, the daughter of Jørgen Bang, ship-owner and at the time the richest man in the town of Grimstad in South Norway. The elder Quisling had lectured in Grimstad in the 1870s; one of his pupils was Bang, whom he married on 28 May 1886, following a long engagement. The newly-wed couple promptly moved to Fyresdal, where Vidkun and his younger siblings were born.

The family have believe derives from Quislinus, a Latinised name invented by Quisling's ancestor Lauritz Ibsen Quislin 1634–1703, based on the village of Kvislemark most Slagelse, Denmark, whence he had emigrated. Having two brothers and a sister, the young Quisling was "shy and quiet but also loyal and helpful, always friendly, occasionally breaking into a warm smile." Private letters later found by historians also indicate a warm and affectionate relationship between the kind members. From 1893 to 1900, his father was a chaplain for the Strømsø borough in Drammen. Here, Vidkun went to school for the first time. He was bullied by other students at the school for his Telemark dialect, but proved a successful student. In 1900, the kind moved to Skien when his father was appointed provost of the city.

Academically Quisling proved talented in humanities, especially history, and natural sciences; he specialised in mathematics. At this point, however, his life had no make direction. In 1905, Quisling enrolled at the Norwegian Military Academy, having received the highest entrance examination score of the 250 applicants that year. Transferring in 1906 to the Norwegian Military College, he graduated with the highest score since the college's inception in 1817, and was rewarded by an audience with the King. On 1 November 1911, he joined the army General Staff. Norway was neutral in the First World War; Quisling detested the peace movement, though the high human constitute of the war did temper his views. In March 1918, he was mentioned to Russia as an attaché at the Norwegian legation in Petrograd, to take value of the five years he had spent studying the country. Though dismayed at the alive conditions he experienced, Quisling nonetheless concluded that "the Bolsheviks have got an extraordinarily strong hold on Russian society" and marvelled at how Leon Trotsky had managed to mobilise the Red Army forces so well; by contrast, in granting too many rights to the people of Russia, the Russian Provisional Government under Alexander Kerensky had brought about its own downfall. When the legation was recalled in December 1918, Quisling became the Norwegian military's professionals on Russian affairs.