RK Norwegen Full Background v2

On the 9th of April 1940 Germany invaded Norway. Containing a strategically important coastline, the port of Narvik which secured Swedish ore shipments to Germany, a wealth of resources and a population which was regarded by many racial “scientists” as one of the purest Germanic peoples, it is clear why Norway became a prime target for Germany.
After a 2-month long struggle, the country became fully occupied by the Germans, and after the flight of the elected Government and King to England the Germans had to set up a new administration of the newly occupied territory.

On the day of the invasion the leader for Nasjonal Samling (NS), the Norwegian National Socialist Party, Vidkun Quisling tried to coup the elected Government and announced himself as the new prime-minister and ordered cessation of hostilities with Germany, but with his abysmal popularity in the population, not even the Germans supported his government.

The Germans experimented with setting up and taking down several puppet governments, most having the NS, though without Quisling in a leading role until the 25th of September 1940 when the Reichskommisariat Norwegen was proclaimed. Josef Terboven was appointed Reichskommisar. Simultaneously, NS became the sole legal political party. This led to the formation of the parallel Reichskommisar/NS power structure that exist to this day.

On the 1st of February 1942, with the war in the East entering its final stages, Quisling is appointed to the position of Minister-President by Terboven. This is done to increase the efficiency of the bureaucracy in the RK Norway and to construct a pretense of an “independent” Norwegian National Government. Quisling remained an unpopular figure both with the Germans, his Party and the Norwegian population, with the true source of his power being Hitler with whom he had met several times before and during the war.

When Germany declared war on the USSR, the SS started a recruitment drive in Norway looking to form a core force from which Norway would be Nazi-fied. While the initial recruitment numbers were poor, with success in the East, the amount of those willing to participate increased. Soon, the “Norwegian Legion” was transformed into GSSN; “Germanske SS-Norge” where many National Socialists and Pan-Germanists that did not agree with the NS found home.

At the same time, the English-backed Norwegian Resistance conducted several successful actions on Norwegian soil, among others sabotaging a heavy water plant which supplied the German Nuclear Program, thus slowing down the creation of the bomb by some time. The Norwegian Merchant Fleet also played a major role in the resistance, running a big amount of Allied shipping. The Resistance uses Sweden as a base where they can lay low after actions.

With an end to the war approaching, Quisling payed a visit to Hitler to discuss Norway’s status in the New Order. Hitler did not want to make any commitments while the war was still going on, but made some vague pointers towards Norway re-gaining some degree of sovereignty

Simultaneously the KM starts several construction projects along the coast, such as the fortification network of the Atlantic Wall, submarine pens and new naval bases, one of which would grow into Nordstern. The other parts of the German military used forces PoW labor to construct new infrastructure. The Wehrmacht also begun to extract Norwegian resources such as molybdenum to use in alloy production.

With the end of the war the Germans imposed their terms on Norway. Norway was to submit to German “wardenship” to become true National Socialists and to “integrate” into the New Order. That meant that the RK would continue, the German military would stay, and German companies would have a free hand to exploit Norwegian resources. Norway was also to cede an area southeast of Trondheim for the construction of a new German city and naval base, Nordstern.

Quisling had no choice but to sign the peace with Germany but doing this made his popularity fully disappear. Soon after Nasjonal Samling begun with their full-scale reforms to transform Norwegian society. With the Church being a player in the Resistance, the state begun moving towards atheism. All trade unions, but the one run by the state (NSFO) became forbidden. A service akin to the HJ & DMB was instituted.

With the normalization of the situation in the country in the later 40s and the start of the 50s, most Norwegians begun settling into the new reality. The NS bureaucracy begun to rise in efficiency and the Germans begun constructing their megaprojects. With these factors, the Germans looked at Quisling and his value as an asset. Terboven assessed him as a liability due to his inefficiency and unpopularity. Sensing that the Germans were on the verge of replacing him, Quisling decided to appeal to Hitler. Unfortunately for Quisling, Hitler had become annoyed and disillusioned by him after the end of the war and thus had no interest in listening to the complaints of the Minister-President.

Thus, with Hitler’s refusal and with Terboven’s silent approval, the discontent elements of the NS and the GSSN moved to action. The Hird and GSSN took control of the Storting and Villa Grande, Quisling’s residence. After a short shootout, the Minister-President was forced to resign from his post.

After the coup there was a mutual understanding between the Germans and the NS that the position of Minister-President and leader of the NS would be reviewed once every 3 years to ensure that there would be no new Quisling who was now put into a house arrest, presented as a retirement. Sverre Riisnæs was appointed as the new Minister-President.

In the years of the war, and in the years following it, two parallel military structures had arisen in the Reichskommisariat, the NS paramilitary “Hirden” and the GSSN, Germanic-SS Norway. The Hird has developed from a small paramilitary organization to a decent sized force where membership is mandatory for all party members under 25. The Hird also fields a few smaller naval craft and a small air force equipped with outdated fighters.

The GSSN is a smaller, more ideologically radical force that begun as Norwegian volunteers fighting on the Eastern Front. It soon attracted many National Socialists that for one or another reason disagreed with NS policy. Many in this organization considered Norway to be the “pure” Germanic nation and thus on the highest part of the Nazi racial order.

Through its existence its members filled important posts in the National Government and helped shape policy towards their goals. The GSSN also run programs that recruit Norwegians to settle the new colonies in the East and propagate for a higher birth rate. Now the Hird and the GSSN are locked in a conflict as their spheres of influence overlap. With the rise of Burgundy, the GSSN is steadily moving towards Ultranational Socialism.

The Norwegian Resistance has been on the decline since the end of the war. With the loss of it’s primary benefactors the Resistance has mostly gone to ground and does no longer conduct active attacks, but rather tries to make society resist Nazification efforts and is moderately successful at that.

The Resistance is strongest around the Swedish and Finnish borders, as those countries are used as safe havens and in coastal areas, as merchants and sailors keep in contact with Norwegian Exiles in Canada and the US. Among the exiles is the Royal Family, whose head, King Haakon VII, died in 1957, thus depriving the Resistance of an important symbol.

The collapse of the European economy has hit Norway hard. Unemployment is up to pre-war levels and malcontent with the German “wardens” rises. With the government in a gridlock and Germany on the edge of collapse, the NS, GSSN and the Resistance all mobilize to make their moves.