Quisling in Berlin — facing Rosenberg

Vidkun Quisling, 52, is a complex Norwegian political figure. An officer of the Norwegian army, military attache in Petrograd 1918-1921, secretary to Fridtjof Nansen for the repatriation of Russian refugees 1922-1929. Minister of Defence 1931-1933 in the agrarian government of Peder Kolstad. He leaves in 1933 to found his own party: the Nasjonal Samling (NS, "National Rally") — a Norwegian fascist formation, on the Nazi model but with a Lutheran and anti-Soviet colouring.

On the eve of the war, Quisling is marginal: his party numbers about 3,000 members, 0 percent in the 1933 elections and 1.8 percent in 1936. He publishes in 1938 theses on the necessity of a Norwegian-German alliance against the "Soviet threat." He proclaims himself the legitimate representative of Norwegian opinion, against the Nygaardsvold government, which he considers "infiltrated by Jewish Marxists."

In December 1939, Quisling travels to Berlin at the invitation of Alfred Rosenberg, Nazi ideologue and head of the Aussenpolitisches Amt der NSDAP (Foreign Policy Office of the Party). From 11 to 14 December, a series of meetings: Rosenberg, then Joachim von Ribbentrop, then Admiral Erich Raeder (commander-in-chief of the Kriegsmarine), and finally Hitler in person on the evening of 14 December.

Quisling's mission: to convince Berlin to intervene militarily in Norway — either by helping a coup d'etat by his party, or by occupying the country preventively against an alleged "British intervention" (which is in reality not planned at this moment). On 14 December, Quisling submits to Hitler a detailed plan: he would take power in Oslo by an internal military coup on 15 February 1940, Germany would then send "assistance troops" to stabilize the regime.