Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly Frye and I'm Tracy V. Wilson. I mentioned on a recent behind the scenes that we were going to get to a Norway topic but it wouldn't be great, And here we are today. Yep. Did you learn about vidcn Quizzling growing up? I really don't think so. I don't recall hearing about him ever in class. I literally learned about him from an Elvis Costello song, which is actually how I've learned about the names of a lot of history people, because if you listen to a lot of Elvis Costello, he references a lot of history, and specifically a lot of World War II history, which is pretty interesting. And it's an older song, it's from like the seventies, but I remember hearing it and being like, I don't know what that word even means. I'm going to look it up. And that's how I learned about Vidcan Quizzling. Ye, so we are going to talk about him today. I'm sure for people in Europe they probably learned about it, but we didn't really in the States, at least not by the seventies eighties time period when Tracy and I would have been taking history classes. So I imagine probably people younger than us haven't heard a ton about him either. He is one of those cases of someone who forever to the end of his life claimed that he was doing what he was doing for the good of his country, but pretty obviously was doing a lot of bad things for his country. So that's what we're going to unpick today during World War Two. So Vidken Abraham Lawretz Johnson Quizzling was born July eighteenth, eighteen eighty seven in Fidisdal, Norway, in the County of Telemark. His father, Jon Lawretz Quizzling, was a biologist and a Lutheran minister, and his mother, Anna Caroline Bang was from a pretty wealthy family. Also was much younger than her husband. She had been one of Jan's students when he was teaching in Grimstad, which is where she grew up and was a teenager. They did not marry until sixteen years later. Though Vidcn was the oldest of four children, he had a sister and two brothers. The family moved around pretty frequently as Jan's parish appointments changed friends of Vidkn in the early years described him as incredibly smart, a little shy, and very much an idealist. Vidcn was particularly close to his brother Jurgen, and they remained very close for their whole lives. In nineteen oh five, at the age of eighteen, Quizlly enrolled in the Norwegian War College in Oslo. He scored higher than any of his two hundred and forty nine classmates on the entrance exams, which had a reputation for being just incredibly difficult. His academic achievement followed on his impressive exam scores. He graduated from the War College in nineteen oh six and moved on to the Norwegian Military Academy, and he graduated from there in nineteen eleven with the highest grades of anyone to ever attend the institution in its nearly one hundred year history at that point. Because of this, he was invited to meet the King of Norway Hawk in the seventh thanks to his high scores. In nineteen eleven, Quisling joined the Norwegian Army in a general staff position that meant he was destined for administrative work. In his time with the military, which lasted almost two decades, he served in a variety of diplomatic and humanitarian roles. Norway's neutral stance in World War One was something that Quisling was very unhappy about. He served as a military attache at the Norwegian legation in Petrograd from March nineteen eighteen to December nineteen eighteen, after which he became the Norwegian military's expert on Russia. He had been studying Russian for five years before he was sent there, and then following his work in Petrograd, Quisling was assigned to Helsinki as an attache, where he worked until nineteen twenty one. In nineteen twenty two, he was sent to Ukraine to work with the League of Nations on relief efforts in the region. Quisling was the head of the office in Kharkiv. Near the end of the humanitarian mission, Quisling got married to Alexandra Andreevna Voronina and brought her back to Norway. Alexandra was only seventeen and their relationship. The nature of this relationship it seems a little bit odd. Quisling's colleagues were totally befuddled because this did not seem to be much of a match. There's some insinuation in the reactions of the men that he worked alongside in Kharkiv that Alexandra might have been a sex worker. But in Norway, friends and family believed, you know, once they'd spent time with this couple, that there was no sort of sexual relationship between the two of them. It seems like Quizzling might have married her in an attempts to rescue her, and that's something that is reflected in a novella that he wrote around the same time about an older foreigner in a city taking a teenage girl under his wing. This sort of arrangement was actually not that unusual. A number of foreigners who were on aid missions married young women and girls to get them passports that would enable them to leave. Yeah, he was not the only one that did this, although this was an especially odd version of it to most people's eyes. After just a few months back in Norway, Quizzling was once again sent to Ukraine on an extension of that relief mission, and Alexandra traveled with him. They returned to Kharkiv in February of nineteen twenty three. That summer, he met Maria Varsilneva, puzzaged Nikova and they fell deeply in love. Maria was a twenty three year old Ukrainian woman, and it seems that she must have known about Quisling's marital status, but the way events unfold from there is kind of confusing. It has never really been sorted out by historians with any sort of certainty. Vidkin and Maria had a wedding ceremony in Kharkov while Alexandra was traveling. There's no paper to confirm this as a legal marriage, and there's no documentation of a divorce from Alexandra. But from nineteen twenty three on vid and Maria lived as a couple, and Alexandra lived and traveled with them as well. They told people she was their daughter. This was all obviously sort of confusing to the people who knew them, and some of Quisling's family was just absolutely scandalized. There were rumors that all three of them might have some kind of romantic triangle, but that's really not reflected in any of Vidkn's writings. Maria traveled wherever Quisling did, and Alexandra eventually left to live with an ant and ultimately moved to the United States. Yeah, she kind of stepped out of their lives. Eventually, in nineteen twenty nine, Quisling returned to Norway permanently after twelve years of almost continuous travel and living abroad. At that point he had been in Moscow for a while. Maria was with him, and they had brought a significant art collection, more than two hundred pieces back from Moscow. That art collection is going to come up again later. They settled into a flat and Vincn was planning actually to start a career as an art dealer, kind of on the side. Not long after they arrived in Oslo, though, Quisling was called to his father's deathbed, and Yon died on February twenty ninth. Throughout the years that he lived outside of Norway, Quisling worked on a political and philosophical ideology concept that he called universism. The term universism is not one that Quisling invented. He was using a word that had been coined by Dutch religion historian and Chinese culture scholar Johannes Yakubus Maria de Grout in his nineteen twelve book Religion in China. Universism the Key to the Study of Daoism and Confucianism Dgrut defines Universism as an umbrella for Daoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism, writing in the book, quote Universism, as I will henceforth call it, is the one religion of China. As these three religions are its three integrant parts, every Chinese can feel himself equally at home in each without being offended or shocked by conflicting and mutually exclusive dogmatic principles. It seems that the main takeaway that Quisling had from Dugruz's text was this idea of uniting multiple ideas under one label. His idea, which he laid out in a seven hundred page book that he published in nineteen twenty nine, was to create a new global religion that combined physics and spirituality. He included a lot of world religions in his book, but in ways that they all square up into versions of Christianity, rather than retaining their own unique philosophies. He envisioned Universism almost as a philosophical pyramid scheme where a consciousness would be passed from individuals to their families and then to their countries, etc. This almost sounds sort of nice in terms of unity but rest assured it was not. Quisling's rhetoric is laced through with anti Semitism and the belief that the Nordic race, which is a concept that is now obsolete, should lead this unification because of its inherent superiority. In companion with his philosophy was Quisling's plan for what he called Norsk Action, a campaign based on the way the Soviet Communist Party worked, which was an interesting choice because he was anti Communist, but he had been struck by the efficiency and organization of the Communist Party while he was in Moscow. He envisioned a government that was run a lot like a military int of its structure. Coming up, we're going to talk about Quisling's break with his job with the Norwegian government, but first we will pause for a sponsor break. Several years after returning to Norway for good, Quisling was in a high level government position, but then in nineteen thirty three he abruptly quit that job. This was precipitated by a break with his political party at the time, the Agrarian Party. Quisling had not really been a member of that party before May of nineteen thirty one, when he was appointed Defense Minister by Prime Minister Peter Coolstad, who was an Agrarian. This had been kind of an odd appointment, as he had not been aligned with Colstad either prior to that job, but he had been recommended to the Prime minister by the Prime Minister's advisors, and once he was in that position, Quisling saw what he thought was an opportunity to gain some power. He wanted to be the Agrarian Party leader, but the Agrarian Party did not want that, so he left both the party and his job. He described this break a little bit differently later, and we'll talk about that as we get further into the episode. Later in nineteen thirty three, Quisling founded his own political party, the Nazunal Somling that's the National Union. This group wanted, among other things, to end communism and put a stop to trade unions. He was the de facto leader of this new party, which promoted the ideas of Norway becoming economically independent, Christian nationalism, a corporatist mode of government, and paternalism on the part of the government. And while Quizzling clearly believed that this was all the best way to cover Norway, the rest of the country really did not agree. In the nineteen thirty three election, Quisling's party only got two point two percent of the vote. He kept trying to support for universism and the nazunaal Simling, but this was just fruitless. In Norway's nineteen thirty six election, the National Union only got one point eight percent of the vote, and that kept it from holding any kind of power. Quisling told a friend, quote, A great many of our erstwhile supporters must have deserted us. So just for a quick broad strokes explainer there to contextualize. Norway's parliament, known as the Starting, uses proportional representation, meaning that the number of representatives in parliament is based on the proportion of votes that any given party gets through what is sometimes called an open list system. At least it's an open list in theory. So at an election, a voter chooses their party ballot from among all the party options, which are far more numerous than we have here in the US, and then on that ballot they select the order of the candidates based on their preferences. They are also able to strike candidates they don't feel should be elected at all. So kind of a vote of no confidence, then if that party wins enough votes, a proportional number of their candidates are placed in Parliament based on how they were ranked. So if your party got enough votes to get four representatives, the top four people that got the most votes would be those representatives. This isn't necessarily how it tends to work in practice, because parties do set their own order on the ballot and it tends not to shuffle around per my understanding. So sometimes it's also labeled as a closed list system, but generally the prime minister is chosen from the party that holds the largest amount of support from voters, though there are instances and this has happened in relatively recent years, where coalitions form to support prime minister candidates who don't represent the most voted for party. As of this recording, which is in August of twenty twenty four, there are currently nine different parties with representation in the Storting, and the next election will be next year in twenty twenty five. There is a lot more complexity to this whole system, but we're explaining all of this just to say VIDCM Quizzling's party didn't even have enough votes to have even one representative in the starting Quizzling at this point had spent a lot of money trying to gain political power. He had inherited money from his grandparents on his mother's side, but that money was running out as he and Maria maintained a lifestyle that included a full staff at their apartment. He had tried to make money as a writer, but that had not yielded the income that he had hoped for. He tried to sell off pieces from his art collection to keep things going, but ran into trouble when a lot of them, which he had acquired while in Russia, turned out to be fakes. He had thought, for example, that he had original goyas, Sisans, Rembrandts, and Van Dykes, and these all turned out to be largely worthless. There was a painting in his collection that was both a real original and quite valuable that it was the Franz Hals painting the Dutch Family. Then its legitimacy was debunked and Quizzling sold that painting, known at that point as a copy, for four thousand dollars. This seemed like a minor win for Quizzling, you know, selling a copy for four thousand dollars, but then he learned that this painting had made its way to the United States, where once it was assessed, it was determined to be the real deal and valued at one hundred thousand dollars. Quisling's brother, Arna, who worked with Vidco on art sales, believed that they had been duped by a ring of art swindlers and tried to get some legal retribution. They were forced to drop the case with no real proof. Yeah, they thought that because they had sold that four thousand dollars painting to someone who knew that it was a copy, and then that person had in turn sold it. I think it went through two more sales, and they thought this was all a ring of people that was working together to tell people their paintings were fake, buy them on the cheap, and then sort them through this system. They had to actually get them re evaluated at their true value. So although Quisling already had a lot of notable and potentially problematic accomplishments on his resume that would have given him notoriety, it was his association that he cemented in the late nineteen thirties that sort of labeled Quisling's image forever as a trader As war loomed in a conflict riddled Europe, Quisling began writing and delivering anti Semitic lectures. He condemned Hitler's Night of one Thousand Knives, but he otherwise supported the German chancellor. He sent Hitler a note on Hitler's fiftieth birthday that year, thanking him for quote saving Europe from Jews and Bolshevism. In December of that year, as part of a tour of Germany, he met with Adolf Hitler, and during that meeting, Quizzling made it clear that he would support an occupation of Norway if Germany made that manch This was all very important to Germany because Norway was strategically important due to its coastline along the North Sea and the Norwegian Sea that gave access to the Atlantic Ocean, and when Quisling met with Hitler, he warned him that Britain also wanted to move into Norway and that hastened Hitler's plans to invade Norway and Denmark with Operation Vesubunk. Germany also promised to give funds to Qwisling's political party. While the Norwegian was visiting the country, Nazi general Niklaus von Falkenhurst began the German assault on Norway and Denmark just a few months later. On April ninth of nineteen forty, Quisling took advantage of this situation by proclaiming himself the leader of Norway. This is something he did over the radio after he bluffed his way into a broadcast center, making it the first coup de'ttaw By radio, he told the people of his country that they should welcome the Germans who were invading. He made this announcement twice, although the second one, which came a couple of hours after the first, was more forceful, and he assured that there would be quote serious consequences for anyone who resisted the Germans and the new government. Less than a week after Quizzling proclaimed himself to be ruler of the country, he was forced out of that self proclaimed leadership role. That did not mean he was gone at all, though, because he wasn't overthrown by a resistance group. His effort just didn't do what the Nazis had wanted, and so they made him step down on April fifteenth. German forces led by Kurt Brauer had wanted King hakon the seventh same one who had invited Quizzling to visit him in his youth to acknowledge the Quizzling government and seed power, but the King and government leaders had refused, citing the fact that no one had faith in Quizzling as a leader. This is really understandable. He just kind of gotten in the radio and said I'm in charge now. H And also like that had just been shown in the two elections in the nineteen thirties when almost no one voted for his party. Yeah. So at that point Germany pivoted. Since their plan to install Quisling had tanked, they decided to just build a new ruling body for Norway from scratch. Hakon and Parliament continued to resist for a couple of months, but then on June nineteenth, nineteen forty, Norway fell to the Germans and the King went into exile in London, as did Prime Minister Johann Nygaardswold. As part of Germany's new government in Norway, Hitler had tapped a man named Joseph Terboven to be administrator of Norway on April twenty fourth, well before the King had left the country, and one of Terboven's acts was to make all of the political parties of Norway illegal, with the exception of Quisling's National Union. Quisling was made head of the Cabinet, reporting directly to Terboven. Quisling's name immediately became associated with treason as all of this was playing out. In an article in the Times of London titled Quizzling is as Quizzling Does is published in North America in various newspapers as well. This association is laid out quote to journalists and other writers weary of racking their brains or raking the well thumbed pages of roget in search of alternatives. The word quizzling is a gift from the gods. If they had been ordered to invent a new word for trader, and given carte blanche with the alphabet, they could hardly have hit upon a more brilliant combination of letters. Orally, it contrives to suggest something at once slippery and torturous. Visually, it has a supreme merit of beginning with a Q, which, with one August exception, has long seemed to the British mind to be a crooked, uncertain and slightly disreputable letter. Quizzling then be it. We welcome the word as sincerely as we detest the quality which it connotes. Hitler had overestimated Quisling's popularity in Norway, thinking that he would have enough support to pull off his coup d'ettar, And though Quizzling had failed in that mission and was to some degree disgraced by that failure, the Furer still thought that he might be valuable, and that is why, two years into German occupation, Quizzling was made Minister President of a puppet government still serving under Treboven the Right Commissioner. Let's put Quizzling at his highest role as a Nazi collaborator, and he quickly began to use the power he had, although he was still always subject to German oversight. In the summer of nineteen forty two, he attempted to start a program very similar to that of the Hitler Youth for the National Union and made it mandatory for all Norwegian children. Was an effort that galvanized resistance against him. There were mass resignations in the clergy and education sectors. Yeah, all of those teachers and religious leaders were like, we are not going to make kids do this. By May of nineteen forty two, Quizzling had kind of already dropped like a stone when it came to German leadership's faith in him. That was not long after he had become a minister. President Hitler suspended all peace negotiations between Norway and Germany, and he essentially issued kind of like an unofficial restraining order on Quizzling, who was no longer allowed to directly contact the furor vincom. Quizzling next tried to once again get in Germany and Hitler's good graces by creating a volunteer military force that would bolster Germany's numbers. Fifteen thousand Norwegians volunteered. Six thousand of those men were deployed as members of the SS. In our next segment, we're going to talk about Quizzling's part in some of the horrors of the Nazi regime. And before we get into that dark subject, let's take a quick break to hear from our sponsors. As part of his work to once again become one of Hitler's favorites, Quisling was not just complacent in Nazi atrocities. He was actively involved. He personally sent hundreds of Jewish Norwegians to concentration camps. There had only been a little more than two thousand Jewish people in Norway in nineteen forty two when Quisling became Minister President. Sixteen percent of those were people who had fled Germany and Poland looking for refuge. He first reinstituted a struck portion of the Norwegian constitution it had been gotten rid of in the eighteen fifties, which forbade Jewish immigration into the country. He also started instituting laws that called for the registration of all Jews, the arrest of all Jewish men, and the seizure of all property owned by Jews. These were followed by orders to arrest Jewish women and children as well. By the end of November, the deportation of arrested Jews began. They were shipped first to Oslo and then to Germany, ultimately landing in Auschwitz, where they were killed in the gas chambers right after arriving. The number of dead, which was seven hundred and thirty eight, would have been much larger had it not been for warnings that had made their way through the underground resistance starting with the Norwegian police, that enabled almost half the country's Jewish population to escape to Sweden. Thirty four men who were shipped from Norway to Auschwitz survived. In nineteen forty three, the United States Attorney General prepared a message for Quisling, which was given to the Royal Norwegian Information Service, and it was read on a radio broadcast that was aired throughout Norway and in some surrounding countries. The text of that message was also published in US papers, and it read quote to a modern judas, when for the love of a man attempts to sell the dignity of his own people vidcom quizzling, he sells nothing but his own soul. For a brief moment he wields the sword, but it is a lonely, meaningless gesture vidcom quizzling, and the command meets only the silence of a contemptuous world. Borrowed armor is a deadly thing vidcom quizzling. It is no firmer than the source from which it came. It falls apart and leaves him who has worn it against his own people naked alone, unready for the wrath of men whose freedom and dignity are beyond price. The source from which you borrowed strength is waning vidcom quizzling. Already there are cracks in the armor, and the contempt of the world, the wrath of men is unabated. You are ruling Vidcom quizzling past the hour. You are living Vidcom quizzling on borrowed time. You have spent Vidcom quizzling the last of the thirty pieces of silver. In the late stages of World War Two, Quizling seems to be just ceaselessly maneuvering to regain Hitler's favor, but he did not seem to realize that the German Nazi movement was kind of done with him. He tried to force members of the paramilitary group Herden into military service, and that caused both outrage and a huge exodus of group members who really had no interest in serving under German command. He also tried to negotiate a treaty deal with Hitler in January of nineteen forty five, hoping that in exchange for Norway's support, he could secure an end to German occupation for his country, and that did not work. Instead, Nazi forces started executing any Norwegian citizens who were even perceived as resisting. After German authorities gunned down a group of Norwegian resistance fighters and trendom Forest. Quizzling visited the site. There's a photo of him standing in his suit and hat as he looks over the mass grave where the bodies of the killed Norwegians were dumped. When Terboven asked Quizzling to sign an order that would make these executions an authorized act of the Quisling government, Vidcan Quizzling refused. That really sealed his fate with Terboven, who was outraged and with the Nazi Party. Norway was liberated from German occupation in May nineteen forty five. King Hawk on the seventh and Prime Minister Johann Ninguardswold returned from their exile, and Quisling, who did turn himself in, was arrested and charged with a lengthy list of crimes treason, of course, both military and civil, but also embezzlement, sixteen counts of murder, aiding a foreign government, and receiving stolen property. Part of the case against him included the accusation that he had received forty thousand dollars from Germany in exchange for betraying his country. When the trial began on August twentieth, nineteen forty five. It was covered by news outlets around the world, carefully noting Quisling's behavior and demeanor throughout. Quizling is often noted in reports as looking pale and being evasive in his answers. Maria wanted to be in the courtroom for the proceedings, but she was not allowed. Quizzling pleaded not guilty on all the charges against him, claiming always that his actions were in service to what he thought was the best course for Norway. The judge in the case, Eric Solom, was very clearly biased against Quisling and tended to behave in a way that really tested the limits of propriety in his role. He often interrupted Quisling when he tried to speak, and the two men got into a couple of really odd exchanges where they were generally quite combative with one another. Whether it would have been possible to find another judge who would not have been biased in this case is kind of a matter of debate. Quisling also hurt his own case by saying things in court that were demonstrably untrue, specifically things about meeting certain people at certain times and claiming to not know that the National Union was benefiting financially from the relationship with Germany. Alfred Rosenberg, the high ranking Nazi official who's credited with connecting Quizzling with Hitler, provided information that was used in the trial against Quisling. He verified the authenticity of a lot of documents which were used in the Quizzling trial, beginning with ones that tied Vidcan Quizzling to Germany's plan to invade Norway. A document read aloud in court stated that Quisling had given detailed information about the Norwegian coastline to Grand Admiral Eric Raider, head of the German Navy, as well as two other German military officers, Field Marshal Wilhelm Kaitel and Colonel General Alfred Yodel. When Quisling was asked about his treason in the context of his former position in the Royal Norwegian Army, the defendant stated, quote, certainly, I had certain obligations, but I resigned as an offer in nineteen thirty three in protest against the defense policy of the government. Neither in peace nor in war could I serve as an officer under such a defense policy. The failure of that policy, in Quisling's view, was that no one wanted to bolster the country's military forces enough. When questioned about the coup attempt, Quisling was adamant that he had never planned one, and claimed the whole thing quote must have arisen from either some misunderstanding or from the wrongful use of my name, even though he had broadcast his takeover of the country on the radio twice. When he was charged with the murder of Norwegian resistance leader Vigohanstein Vidcan, Quizzling is said to have sobbed as he claimed his innocence. He told the prosecutor aneas Schucht, I never asked the Germans to kill Hanstein, only to remove him. He was making things difficult for me. Quisling also claimed not to have known what was happening in the concentration camps. During questioning about them, he stated, quote, it may sound strange, but in spite of thousands of appeals to me from people in jail, I never had a single report of torture. If I had, I would have done something. After he made that statement, the prosecution asked him if he had ever listened to radio broadcasts from London, and Quizzling never replied, yeah, that was obviously Germaine because those broadcasts were being very forthright about the things that were going on in concentration camps. On the third day of the trial, Quisling had an outburst. Newspaper reports described him as hysterical. After questioning regarding whether he intended for Norway to become part of the German Reich. A letter had been presented to the court which was written from Quizzling to Hitler, noting that he had not received money he had been promised for doing his part in the occupation and discussing ways that Norway might roll up under Germany. Quisling claimed someone else had written that letter. When presented with a second document, a memorandum again written by Quizzling, about Norway adopting the German flag and currency, he stated that he had done so to protect Norway. When the prosecutor noted then that Quizzling acknowledged that the document was one he had written. In response, the defendant shouted quote, I did it to save my country. The last four years had been a nightmare for me because I had to fight both sides. At that point, the judge, Eric Solom, who we mentioned did not like Quizzling, told the defendant to calm down. Many witnesses were called to testify. There were people going back to before the Second World War describing Quizzling as working against the Norwegian government. One of the most damning testimonies came from doctor Leo Eiitinger, who was one of the Jewish men sent to Auschwitz after being arrested under Quisling's orders. He described the process people faced from arrest to arrival at the concentration camp, and how they were sorted into groups of people healthy enough to work and survive for at least a little while, and those deemed useless who were immediately sent to the gas chambers. He described the horrors of the camps, and he placed the glame for so many squarely on Quizzling. Witnesses from the German forces, including the Gestapo, stated that they had been told that what they did in Norway was that the direction of Quisling's government. Maria had wanted to testify on her husband's behalf, but Vidcan forbade it. The character witnesses that were called to help Quisling's case were mostly people from his life before he became entangled with the Nazi war effort. They spoke about how he had been a smart and kind person in his youth, impossible to reconcile with all the crimes that he was accused of. There was an undercurrent suggesting that there might be some sort of psychological mechanism in play that had caused his change in personality in thinking. At the end of the trial, Quisling, who had been ill during his incarceration, had to give his own defense speech. He talked about his childhood and how he had felt called to serve his country as a young man. But as his story progressed through his life, his presentation faltered. He started to repeat himself, and to ramble, and to appear to have become confused. He spoke for an hour without ever getting to any events related to the charges he was facing. He was laying the groundwork to explain why he came to the decisions he did, and he appeared very sincere. He spoke for four straight hours, and he concluded by saying that if he was treasonous, he hoped that quote a good many of Norway's sons would also be treasonous, but not imprisoned as he had been. Quisling was found guilty and was sentenced to death. He was also ordered to pay more than one million kroner for legal costs. Quisling was executed by firing squad at two forty am on October twenty fourth, nineteen forty at Akershu's Fortress, Norway. He insisted to the very end that he was innocent. He had written to his brother during his final day's quote, there must be some deeper meaning to this. In fact, I am dying a murdyr's death. There was at least one attempt to shift the perception of Quisling's image in the years after his death, and that was a book by Ralph Hewans titled Quizzling Prophet Without Honor, which was published in nineteen sixty five. That effort did not go over well. That book was really panned, with review titles like whitewashing a puppet, an Attempt that Fails, and praise for Quizzling called false history no doubt. Inspired by Quisling's name in the news because of the biography, a report about his widow, Maria ran in papers across Europe and North America, noting that she lived in the apartment the two had first shared in nineteen twenty nine alone with little contact with the outside world her name reportedly called her Missus Treason. Maria Quisling died in nineteen eighty and at that time her husband's personal letters, notes, and manuscripts were left to the University of Oslo. Quisling's mansion, which he called Gimla, became home of Norway's Holocaust Museum. Yucky parts of history, uh huh, but important And like I said, we don't tend to get that story very much in the US, so at least we didn't when we were coming up through school. So if they're teaching it now, bravo. If they're not, now we all know. I'm picking a fun listener mail because it's about Olympic sports. Okay, we need lighter stuff now. This is from our listener, Cameron, who writes, Dear Holly and Tracy, I've been listening to your show for years and have wanted to write in, but never found a good reason until today. I'm a little behind and listening, but I just caught your episode about defunct Olympic sports. I know you couldn't possibly have covered all of them, but I wanted to mention one of my favorites, ski ballet. This sport was popular in the nineteen seventies and eighties, but stopped being an Olympic sport in two thousand. The sport involves singles or sometimes pairs, performing dance like movements while on skis, sometimes just on a flat field of snow like an ice rink, and sometimes actually traveling downhill. But the best part was the outfits. As it was popular in the seventies and eighties, videos can be found online of bright, often neon, puffy outfits, often bedazzled or tasseled, probably taking their cues from figure skating. Perms and mullets can be appreciated in these videos as well. Hang on to that perm thought, everybody. Just a little foreshadowing for future episodes as pet tax, I've included photos of my two rag doll cats, Aria and Luna, as well as our hound dog Cusco, who have all listened to many episodes of your show. We all love listening to both of you and appreciate your thorough research as well as you're entertaining and delightful personnel. Cusco doesn't bark at you as much as he barks at our Google Home assistant, so he especially thinks you're great. All the best, Cameron Okay, I'm obsessed with these pet names. Rest of all, Cuzco. I don't know if you've named it after the historical one or the Disney character, but now I have Tom Jones singing in my head about Cusco, and that's never a bad thing. Cameron, thank you so much. I have seen and do remember ski Ballet because I am a child that would have been watching the Olympics during those years, and I always loved, loved, loved those outfits. I think we should bring back those styles of streetwear today. You would like to write to us, you could do so at History Podcast at iHeartRadio dot com. You can also subscribe to the show on the iHeartRadio app or wherever it is you listen to your favorite shows. Stuff you Missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly Frye and I'm Tracy V. Wilson. I mentioned on a recent behind the scenes that we were going to get to a Norway topic but it wouldn't be great, And here we are today. Yep. Did you learn about vidcn Quizzling growing up? I really don't think so. I don't recall hearing about him ever in class. I literally learned about him from an Elvis Costello song, which is actually how I've learned about the names of a lot of history people, because if you listen to a lot of Elvis Costello, he references a lot of history, and specifically a lot of World War II history, which is pretty interesting. And it's an older song, it's from like the seventies, but I remember hearing it and being like, I don't know what that word even means. I'm going to look it up. And that's how I learned about Vidcan Quizzling. Ye, so we are going to talk about him today. I'm sure for people in Europe they probably learned about it, but we didn't really in the States, at least not by the seventies eighties time period when Tracy and I would have been taking history classes. So I imagine probably people younger than us haven't heard a ton about him either. He is one of those cases of someone who forever to the end of his life claimed that he was doing what he was doing for the good of his country, but pretty obviously was doing a lot of bad things for his country. So that's what we're going to unpick today during World War Two. So Vidken Abraham Lawretz Johnson Quizzling was born July eighteenth, eighteen eighty seven in Fidisdal, Norway, in the County of Telemark. His father, Jon Lawretz Quizzling, was a biologist and a Lutheran minister, and his mother, Anna Caroline Bang was from a pretty wealthy family. Also was much younger than her husband. She had been one of Jan's students when he was teaching in Grimstad, which is where she grew up and was a teenager. They did not marry until sixteen years later. Though Vidcn was the oldest of four children, he had a sister and two brothers. The family moved around pretty frequently as Jan's parish appointments changed friends of Vidkn in the early years described him as incredibly smart, a little shy, and very much an idealist. Vidcn was particularly close to his brother Jurgen, and they remained very close for their whole lives. In nineteen oh five, at the age of eighteen, Quizlly enrolled in the Norwegian War College in Oslo. He scored higher than any of his two hundred and forty nine classmates on the entrance exams, which had a reputation for being just incredibly difficult. His academic achievement followed on his impressive exam scores. He graduated from the War College in nineteen oh six and moved on to the Norwegian Military Academy, and he graduated from there in nineteen eleven with the highest grades of anyone to ever attend the institution in its nearly one hundred year history at that point. Because of this, he was invited to meet the King of Norway Hawk in the seventh thanks to his high scores. In nineteen eleven, Quisling joined the Norwegian Army in a general staff position that meant he was destined for administrative work. In his time with the military, which lasted almost two decades, he served in a variety of diplomatic and humanitarian roles. Norway's neutral stance in World War One was something that Quisling was very unhappy about. He served as a military attache at the Norwegian legation in Petrograd from March nineteen eighteen to December nineteen eighteen, after which he became the Norwegian military's expert on Russia. He had been studying Russian for five years before he was sent there, and then following his work in Petrograd, Quisling was assigned to Helsinki as an attache, where he worked until nineteen twenty one. In nineteen twenty two, he was sent to Ukraine to work with the League of Nations on relief efforts in the region. Quisling was the head of the office in Kharkiv. Near the end of the humanitarian mission, Quisling got married to Alexandra Andreevna Voronina and brought her back to Norway. Alexandra was only seventeen and their relationship. The nature of this relationship it seems a little bit odd. Quisling's colleagues were totally befuddled because this did not seem to be much of a match. There's some insinuation in the reactions of the men that he worked alongside in Kharkiv that Alexandra might have been a sex worker. But in Norway, friends and family believed, you know, once they'd spent time with this couple, that there was no sort of sexual relationship between the two of them. It seems like Quizzling might have married her in an attempts to rescue her, and that's something that is reflected in a novella that he wrote around the same time about an older foreigner in a city taking a teenage girl under his wing. This sort of arrangement was actually not that unusual. A number of foreigners who were on aid missions married young women and girls to get them passports that would enable them to leave. Yeah, he was not the only one that did this, although this was an especially odd version of it to most people's eyes. After just a few months back in Norway, Quizzling was once again sent to Ukraine on an extension of that relief mission, and Alexandra traveled with him. They returned to Kharkiv in February of nineteen twenty three. That summer, he met Maria Varsilneva, puzzaged Nikova and they fell deeply in love. Maria was a twenty three year old Ukrainian woman, and it seems that she must have known about Quisling's marital status, but the way events unfold from there is kind of confusing. It has never really been sorted out by historians with any sort of certainty. Vidkin and Maria had a wedding ceremony in Kharkov while Alexandra was traveling. There's no paper to confirm this as a legal marriage, and there's no documentation of a divorce from Alexandra. But from nineteen twenty three on vid and Maria lived as a couple, and Alexandra lived and traveled with them as well. They told people she was their daughter. This was all obviously sort of confusing to the people who knew them, and some of Quisling's family was just absolutely scandalized. There were rumors that all three of them might have some kind of romantic triangle, but that's really not reflected in any of Vidkn's writings. Maria traveled wherever Quisling did, and Alexandra eventually left to live with an ant and ultimately moved to the United States. Yeah, she kind of stepped out of their lives. Eventually, in nineteen twenty nine, Quisling returned to Norway permanently after twelve years of almost continuous travel and living abroad. At that point he had been in Moscow for a while. Maria was with him, and they had brought a significant art collection, more than two hundred pieces back from Moscow. That art collection is going to come up again later. They settled into a flat and Vincn was planning actually to start a career as an art dealer, kind of on the side. Not long after they arrived in Oslo, though, Quisling was called to his father's deathbed, and Yon died on February twenty ninth. Throughout the years that he lived outside of Norway, Quisling worked on a political and philosophical ideology concept that he called universism. The term universism is not one that Quisling invented. He was using a word that had been coined by Dutch religion historian and Chinese culture scholar Johannes Yakubus Maria de Grout in his nineteen twelve book Religion in China. Universism the Key to the Study of Daoism and Confucianism Dgrut defines Universism as an umbrella for Daoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism, writing in the book, quote Universism, as I will henceforth call it, is the one religion of China. As these three religions are its three integrant parts, every Chinese can feel himself equally at home in each without being offended or shocked by conflicting and mutually exclusive dogmatic principles. It seems that the main takeaway that Quisling had from Dugruz's text was this idea of uniting multiple ideas under one label. His idea, which he laid out in a seven hundred page book that he published in nineteen twenty nine, was to create a new global religion that combined physics and spirituality. He included a lot of world religions in his book, but in ways that they all square up into versions of Christianity, rather than retaining their own unique philosophies. He envisioned Universism almost as a philosophical pyramid scheme where a consciousness would be passed from individuals to their families and then to their countries, etc. This almost sounds sort of nice in terms of unity but rest assured it was not. Quisling's rhetoric is laced through with anti Semitism and the belief that the Nordic race, which is a concept that is now obsolete, should lead this unification because of its inherent superiority. In companion with his philosophy was Quisling's plan for what he called Norsk Action, a campaign based on the way the Soviet Communist Party worked, which was an interesting choice because he was anti Communist, but he had been struck by the efficiency and organization of the Communist Party while he was in Moscow. He envisioned a government that was run a lot like a military int of its structure. Coming up, we're going to talk about Quisling's break with his job with the Norwegian government, but first we will pause for a sponsor break. Several years after returning to Norway for good, Quisling was in a high level government position, but then in nineteen thirty three he abruptly quit that job. This was precipitated by a break with his political party at the time, the Agrarian Party. Quisling had not really been a member of that party before May of nineteen thirty one, when he was appointed Defense Minister by Prime Minister Peter Coolstad, who was an Agrarian. This had been kind of an odd appointment, as he had not been aligned with Colstad either prior to that job, but he had been recommended to the Prime minister by the Prime Minister's advisors, and once he was in that position, Quisling saw what he thought was an opportunity to gain some power. He wanted to be the Agrarian Party leader, but the Agrarian Party did not want that, so he left both the party and his job. He described this break a little bit differently later, and we'll talk about that as we get further into the episode. Later in nineteen thirty three, Quisling founded his own political party, the Nazunal Somling that's the National Union. This group wanted, among other things, to end communism and put a stop to trade unions. He was the de facto leader of this new party, which promoted the ideas of Norway becoming economically independent, Christian nationalism, a corporatist mode of government, and paternalism on the part of the government. And while Quizzling clearly believed that this was all the best way to cover Norway, the rest of the country really did not agree. In the nineteen thirty three election, Quisling's party only got two point two percent of the vote. He kept trying to support for universism and the nazunaal Simling, but this was just fruitless. In Norway's nineteen thirty six election, the National Union only got one point eight percent of the vote, and that kept it from holding any kind of power. Quisling told a friend, quote, A great many of our erstwhile supporters must have deserted us. So just for a quick broad strokes explainer there to contextualize. Norway's parliament, known as the Starting, uses proportional representation, meaning that the number of representatives in parliament is based on the proportion of votes that any given party gets through what is sometimes called an open list system. At least it's an open list in theory. So at an election, a voter chooses their party ballot from among all the party options, which are far more numerous than we have here in the US, and then on that ballot they select the order of the candidates based on their preferences. They are also able to strike candidates they don't feel should be elected at all. So kind of a vote of no confidence, then if that party wins enough votes, a proportional number of their candidates are placed in Parliament based on how they were ranked. So if your party got enough votes to get four representatives, the top four people that got the most votes would be those representatives. This isn't necessarily how it tends to work in practice, because parties do set their own order on the ballot and it tends not to shuffle around per my understanding. So sometimes it's also labeled as a closed list system, but generally the prime minister is chosen from the party that holds the largest amount of support from voters, though there are instances and this has happened in relatively recent years, where coalitions form to support prime minister candidates who don't represent the most voted for party. As of this recording, which is in August of twenty twenty four, there are currently nine different parties with representation in the Storting, and the next election will be next year in twenty twenty five. There is a lot more complexity to this whole system, but we're explaining all of this just to say VIDCM Quizzling's party didn't even have enough votes to have even one representative in the starting Quizzling at this point had spent a lot of money trying to gain political power. He had inherited money from his grandparents on his mother's side, but that money was running out as he and Maria maintained a lifestyle that included a full staff at their apartment. He had tried to make money as a writer, but that had not yielded the income that he had hoped for. He tried to sell off pieces from his art collection to keep things going, but ran into trouble when a lot of them, which he had acquired while in Russia, turned out to be fakes. He had thought, for example, that he had original goyas, Sisans, Rembrandts, and Van Dykes, and these all turned out to be largely worthless. There was a painting in his collection that was both a real original and quite valuable that it was the Franz Hals painting the Dutch Family. Then its legitimacy was debunked and Quizzling sold that painting, known at that point as a copy, for four thousand dollars. This seemed like a minor win for Quizzling, you know, selling a copy for four thousand dollars, but then he learned that this painting had made its way to the United States, where once it was assessed, it was determined to be the real deal and valued at one hundred thousand dollars. Quisling's brother, Arna, who worked with Vidco on art sales, believed that they had been duped by a ring of art swindlers and tried to get some legal retribution. They were forced to drop the case with no real proof. Yeah, they thought that because they had sold that four thousand dollars painting to someone who knew that it was a copy, and then that person had in turn sold it. I think it went through two more sales, and they thought this was all a ring of people that was working together to tell people their paintings were fake, buy them on the cheap, and then sort them through this system. They had to actually get them re evaluated at their true value. So although Quisling already had a lot of notable and potentially problematic accomplishments on his resume that would have given him notoriety, it was his association that he cemented in the late nineteen thirties that sort of labeled Quisling's image forever as a trader As war loomed in a conflict riddled Europe, Quisling began writing and delivering anti Semitic lectures. He condemned Hitler's Night of one Thousand Knives, but he otherwise supported the German chancellor. He sent Hitler a note on Hitler's fiftieth birthday that year, thanking him for quote saving Europe from Jews and Bolshevism. In December of that year, as part of a tour of Germany, he met with Adolf Hitler, and during that meeting, Quizzling made it clear that he would support an occupation of Norway if Germany made that manch This was all very important to Germany because Norway was strategically important due to its coastline along the North Sea and the Norwegian Sea that gave access to the Atlantic Ocean, and when Quisling met with Hitler, he warned him that Britain also wanted to move into Norway and that hastened Hitler's plans to invade Norway and Denmark with Operation Vesubunk. Germany also promised to give funds to Qwisling's political party. While the Norwegian was visiting the country, Nazi general Niklaus von Falkenhurst began the German assault on Norway and Denmark just a few months later. On April ninth of nineteen forty, Quisling took advantage of this situation by proclaiming himself the leader of Norway. This is something he did over the radio after he bluffed his way into a broadcast center, making it the first coup de'ttaw By radio, he told the people of his country that they should welcome the Germans who were invading. He made this announcement twice, although the second one, which came a couple of hours after the first, was more forceful, and he assured that there would be quote serious consequences for anyone who resisted the Germans and the new government. Less than a week after Quizzling proclaimed himself to be ruler of the country, he was forced out of that self proclaimed leadership role. That did not mean he was gone at all, though, because he wasn't overthrown by a resistance group. His effort just didn't do what the Nazis had wanted, and so they made him step down on April fifteenth. German forces led by Kurt Brauer had wanted King hakon the seventh same one who had invited Quizzling to visit him in his youth to acknowledge the Quizzling government and seed power, but the King and government leaders had refused, citing the fact that no one had faith in Quizzling as a leader. This is really understandable. He just kind of gotten in the radio and said I'm in charge now. H And also like that had just been shown in the two elections in the nineteen thirties when almost no one voted for his party. Yeah. So at that point Germany pivoted. Since their plan to install Quisling had tanked, they decided to just build a new ruling body for Norway from scratch. Hakon and Parliament continued to resist for a couple of months, but then on June nineteenth, nineteen forty, Norway fell to the Germans and the King went into exile in London, as did Prime Minister Johann Nygaardswold. As part of Germany's new government in Norway, Hitler had tapped a man named Joseph Terboven to be administrator of Norway on April twenty fourth, well before the King had left the country, and one of Terboven's acts was to make all of the political parties of Norway illegal, with the exception of Quisling's National Union. Quisling was made head of the Cabinet, reporting directly to Terboven. Quisling's name immediately became associated with treason as all of this was playing out. In an article in the Times of London titled Quizzling is as Quizzling Does is published in North America in various newspapers as well. This association is laid out quote to journalists and other writers weary of racking their brains or raking the well thumbed pages of roget in search of alternatives. The word quizzling is a gift from the gods. If they had been ordered to invent a new word for trader, and given carte blanche with the alphabet, they could hardly have hit upon a more brilliant combination of letters. Orally, it contrives to suggest something at once slippery and torturous. Visually, it has a supreme merit of beginning with a Q, which, with one August exception, has long seemed to the British mind to be a crooked, uncertain and slightly disreputable letter. Quizzling then be it. We welcome the word as sincerely as we detest the quality which it connotes. Hitler had overestimated Quisling's popularity in Norway, thinking that he would have enough support to pull off his coup d'ettar, And though Quizzling had failed in that mission and was to some degree disgraced by that failure, the Furer still thought that he might be valuable, and that is why, two years into German occupation, Quizzling was made Minister President of a puppet government still serving under Treboven the Right Commissioner. Let's put Quizzling at his highest role as a Nazi collaborator, and he quickly began to use the power he had, although he was still always subject to German oversight. In the summer of nineteen forty two, he attempted to start a program very similar to that of the Hitler Youth for the National Union and made it mandatory for all Norwegian children. Was an effort that galvanized resistance against him. There were mass resignations in the clergy and education sectors. Yeah, all of those teachers and religious leaders were like, we are not going to make kids do this. By May of nineteen forty two, Quizzling had kind of already dropped like a stone when it came to German leadership's faith in him. That was not long after he had become a minister. President Hitler suspended all peace negotiations between Norway and Germany, and he essentially issued kind of like an unofficial restraining order on Quizzling, who was no longer allowed to directly contact the furor vincom. Quizzling next tried to once again get in Germany and Hitler's good graces by creating a volunteer military force that would bolster Germany's numbers. Fifteen thousand Norwegians volunteered. Six thousand of those men were deployed as members of the SS. In our next segment, we're going to talk about Quizzling's part in some of the horrors of the Nazi regime. And before we get into that dark subject, let's take a quick break to hear from our sponsors. As part of his work to once again become one of Hitler's favorites, Quisling was not just complacent in Nazi atrocities. He was actively involved. He personally sent hundreds of Jewish Norwegians to concentration camps. There had only been a little more than two thousand Jewish people in Norway in nineteen forty two when Quisling became Minister President. Sixteen percent of those were people who had fled Germany and Poland looking for refuge. He first reinstituted a struck portion of the Norwegian constitution it had been gotten rid of in the eighteen fifties, which forbade Jewish immigration into the country. He also started instituting laws that called for the registration of all Jews, the arrest of all Jewish men, and the seizure of all property owned by Jews. These were followed by orders to arrest Jewish women and children as well. By the end of November, the deportation of arrested Jews began. They were shipped first to Oslo and then to Germany, ultimately landing in Auschwitz, where they were killed in the gas chambers right after arriving. The number of dead, which was seven hundred and thirty eight, would have been much larger had it not been for warnings that had made their way through the underground resistance starting with the Norwegian police, that enabled almost half the country's Jewish population to escape to Sweden. Thirty four men who were shipped from Norway to Auschwitz survived. In nineteen forty three, the United States Attorney General prepared a message for Quisling, which was given to the Royal Norwegian Information Service, and it was read on a radio broadcast that was aired throughout Norway and in some surrounding countries. The text of that message was also published in US papers, and it read quote to a modern judas, when for the love of a man attempts to sell the dignity of his own people vidcom quizzling, he sells nothing but his own soul. For a brief moment he wields the sword, but it is a lonely, meaningless gesture vidcom quizzling, and the command meets only the silence of a contemptuous world. Borrowed armor is a deadly thing vidcom quizzling. It is no firmer than the source from which it came. It falls apart and leaves him who has worn it against his own people naked alone, unready for the wrath of men whose freedom and dignity are beyond price. The source from which you borrowed strength is waning vidcom quizzling. Already there are cracks in the armor, and the contempt of the world, the wrath of men is unabated. You are ruling Vidcom quizzling past the hour. You are living Vidcom quizzling on borrowed time. You have spent Vidcom quizzling the last of the thirty pieces of silver. In the late stages of World War Two, Quizling seems to be just ceaselessly maneuvering to regain Hitler's favor, but he did not seem to realize that the German Nazi movement was kind of done with him. He tried to force members of the paramilitary group Herden into military service, and that caused both outrage and a huge exodus of group members who really had no interest in serving under German command. He also tried to negotiate a treaty deal with Hitler in January of nineteen forty five, hoping that in exchange for Norway's support, he could secure an end to German occupation for his country, and that did not work. Instead, Nazi forces started executing any Norwegian citizens who were even perceived as resisting. After German authorities gunned down a group of Norwegian resistance fighters and trendom Forest. Quizzling visited the site. There's a photo of him standing in his suit and hat as he looks over the mass grave where the bodies of the killed Norwegians were dumped. When Terboven asked Quizzling to sign an order that would make these executions an authorized act of the Quisling government, Vidcan Quizzling refused. That really sealed his fate with Terboven, who was outraged and with the Nazi Party. Norway was liberated from German occupation in May nineteen forty five. King Hawk on the seventh and Prime Minister Johann Ninguardswold returned from their exile, and Quisling, who did turn himself in, was arrested and charged with a lengthy list of crimes treason, of course, both military and civil, but also embezzlement, sixteen counts of murder, aiding a foreign government, and receiving stolen property. Part of the case against him included the accusation that he had received forty thousand dollars from Germany in exchange for betraying his country. When the trial began on August twentieth, nineteen forty five. It was covered by news outlets around the world, carefully noting Quisling's behavior and demeanor throughout. Quizling is often noted in reports as looking pale and being evasive in his answers. Maria wanted to be in the courtroom for the proceedings, but she was not allowed. Quizzling pleaded not guilty on all the charges against him, claiming always that his actions were in service to what he thought was the best course for Norway. The judge in the case, Eric Solom, was very clearly biased against Quisling and tended to behave in a way that really tested the limits of propriety in his role. He often interrupted Quisling when he tried to speak, and the two men got into a couple of really odd exchanges where they were generally quite combative with one another. Whether it would have been possible to find another judge who would not have been biased in this case is kind of a matter of debate. Quisling also hurt his own case by saying things in court that were demonstrably untrue, specifically things about meeting certain people at certain times and claiming to not know that the National Union was benefiting financially from the relationship with Germany. Alfred Rosenberg, the high ranking Nazi official who's credited with connecting Quizzling with Hitler, provided information that was used in the trial against Quisling. He verified the authenticity of a lot of documents which were used in the Quizzling trial, beginning with ones that tied Vidcan Quizzling to Germany's plan to invade Norway. A document read aloud in court stated that Quisling had given detailed information about the Norwegian coastline to Grand Admiral Eric Raider, head of the German Navy, as well as two other German military officers, Field Marshal Wilhelm Kaitel and Colonel General Alfred Yodel. When Quisling was asked about his treason in the context of his former position in the Royal Norwegian Army, the defendant stated, quote, certainly, I had certain obligations, but I resigned as an offer in nineteen thirty three in protest against the defense policy of the government. Neither in peace nor in war could I serve as an officer under such a defense policy. The failure of that policy, in Quisling's view, was that no one wanted to bolster the country's military forces enough. When questioned about the coup attempt, Quisling was adamant that he had never planned one, and claimed the whole thing quote must have arisen from either some misunderstanding or from the wrongful use of my name, even though he had broadcast his takeover of the country on the radio twice. When he was charged with the murder of Norwegian resistance leader Vigohanstein Vidcan, Quizzling is said to have sobbed as he claimed his innocence. He told the prosecutor aneas Schucht, I never asked the Germans to kill Hanstein, only to remove him. He was making things difficult for me. Quisling also claimed not to have known what was happening in the concentration camps. During questioning about them, he stated, quote, it may sound strange, but in spite of thousands of appeals to me from people in jail, I never had a single report of torture. If I had, I would have done something. After he made that statement, the prosecution asked him if he had ever listened to radio broadcasts from London, and Quizzling never replied, yeah, that was obviously Germaine because those broadcasts were being very forthright about the things that were going on in concentration camps. On the third day of the trial, Quisling had an outburst. Newspaper reports described him as hysterical. After questioning regarding whether he intended for Norway to become part of the German Reich. A letter had been presented to the court which was written from Quizzling to Hitler, noting that he had not received money he had been promised for doing his part in the occupation and discussing ways that Norway might roll up under Germany. Quisling claimed someone else had written that letter. When presented with a second document, a memorandum again written by Quizzling, about Norway adopting the German flag and currency, he stated that he had done so to protect Norway. When the prosecutor noted then that Quizzling acknowledged that the document was one he had written. In response, the defendant shouted quote, I did it to save my country. The last four years had been a nightmare for me because I had to fight both sides. At that point, the judge, Eric Solom, who we mentioned did not like Quizzling, told the defendant to calm down. Many witnesses were called to testify. There were people going back to before the Second World War describing Quizzling as working against the Norwegian government. One of the most damning testimonies came from doctor Leo Eiitinger, who was one of the Jewish men sent to Auschwitz after being arrested under Quisling's orders. He described the process people faced from arrest to arrival at the concentration camp, and how they were sorted into groups of people healthy enough to work and survive for at least a little while, and those deemed useless who were immediately sent to the gas chambers. He described the horrors of the camps, and he placed the glame for so many squarely on Quizzling. Witnesses from the German forces, including the Gestapo, stated that they had been told that what they did in Norway was that the direction of Quisling's government. Maria had wanted to testify on her husband's behalf, but Vidcan forbade it. The character witnesses that were called to help Quisling's case were mostly people from his life before he became entangled with the Nazi war effort. They spoke about how he had been a smart and kind person in his youth, impossible to reconcile with all the crimes that he was accused of. There was an undercurrent suggesting that there might be some sort of psychological mechanism in play that had caused his change in personality in thinking. At the end of the trial, Quisling, who had been ill during his incarceration, had to give his own defense speech. He talked about his childhood and how he had felt called to serve his country as a young man. But as his story progressed through his life, his presentation faltered. He started to repeat himself, and to ramble, and to appear to have become confused. He spoke for an hour without ever getting to any events related to the charges he was facing. He was laying the groundwork to explain why he came to the decisions he did, and he appeared very sincere. He spoke for four straight hours, and he concluded by saying that if he was treasonous, he hoped that quote a good many of Norway's sons would also be treasonous, but not imprisoned as he had been. Quisling was found guilty and was sentenced to death. He was also ordered to pay more than one million kroner for legal costs. Quisling was executed by firing squad at two forty am on October twenty fourth, nineteen forty at Akershu's Fortress, Norway. He insisted to the very end that he was innocent. He had written to his brother during his final day's quote, there must be some deeper meaning to this. In fact, I am dying a murdyr's death. There was at least one attempt to shift the perception of Quisling's image in the years after his death, and that was a book by Ralph Hewans titled Quizzling Prophet Without Honor, which was published in nineteen sixty five. That effort did not go over well. That book was really panned, with review titles like whitewashing a puppet, an Attempt that Fails, and praise for Quizzling called false history no doubt. Inspired by Quisling's name in the news because of the biography, a report about his widow, Maria ran in papers across Europe and North America, noting that she lived in the apartment the two had first shared in nineteen twenty nine alone with little contact with the outside world her name reportedly called her Missus Treason. Maria Quisling died in nineteen eighty and at that time her husband's personal letters, notes, and manuscripts were left to the University of Oslo. Quisling's mansion, which he called Gimla, became home of Norway's Holocaust Museum. Yucky parts of history, uh huh, but important And like I said, we don't tend to get that story very much in the US, so at least we didn't when we were coming up through school. So if they're teaching it now, bravo. If they're not, now we all know. I'm picking a fun listener mail because it's about Olympic sports. Okay, we need lighter stuff now. This is from our listener, Cameron, who writes, Dear Holly and Tracy, I've been listening to your show for years and have wanted to write in, but never found a good reason until today. I'm a little behind and listening, but I just caught your episode about defunct Olympic sports. I know you couldn't possibly have covered all of them, but I wanted to mention one of my favorites, ski ballet. This sport was popular in the nineteen seventies and eighties, but stopped being an Olympic sport in two thousand. The sport involves singles or sometimes pairs, performing dance like movements while on skis, sometimes just on a flat field of snow like an ice rink, and sometimes actually traveling downhill. But the best part was the outfits. As it was popular in the seventies and eighties, videos can be found online of bright, often neon, puffy outfits, often bedazzled or tasseled, probably taking their cues from figure skating. Perms and mullets can be appreciated in these videos as well. Hang on to that perm thought, everybody. Just a little foreshadowing for future episodes as pet tax, I've included photos of my two rag doll cats, Aria and Luna, as well as our hound dog Cusco, who have all listened to many episodes of your show. We all love listening to both of you and appreciate your thorough research as well as you're entertaining and delightful personnel. Cusco doesn't bark at you as much as he barks at our Google Home assistant, so he especially thinks you're great. All the best, Cameron Okay, I'm obsessed with these pet names. Rest of all, Cuzco. I don't know if you've named it after the historical one or the Disney character, but now I have Tom Jones singing in my head about Cusco, and that's never a bad thing. Cameron, thank you so much. I have seen and do remember ski Ballet because I am a child that would have been watching the Olympics during those years, and I always loved, loved, loved those outfits. I think we should bring back those styles of streetwear today. You would like to write to us, you could do so at History Podcast at iHeartRadio dot com. You can also subscribe to the show on the iHeartRadio app or wherever it is you listen to your favorite shows. Stuff you Missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.