Quisling: A Study in Treachery

by Hans Fredrik Dahl , Translated by Anne-Marie Stanton-Ife

• ISBN13: 9780521496971
• ISBN10: 0521496977
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1999-06-28
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

The word 'Quisling' is used all over the world as a synonym for 'traitor' or 'treachery'. The original Vidkun Quisling (1887-1945) was a gifted Norwegian army officer who earned notoriety when he sided with the Nazis on the first day of Norway's entry into the Second World War. Quisling's coup d'ètat in Oslo on 9 April 1940 was immediately denounced as an act of arch-treason, and even Churchill spoke of 'the vile race of Quislings'. Hans Fredrik Dahl's biography is the first to make use of a complete range of source material from Nordic, German, Italian and Russian archives, and of family archives now in the USA. He traces Quisling's ultimately futile career from his earlier internationalist career as a diplomat and businessman to the drama of his trial and execution for high treason in 1945.

Table of Contents

List of illustrations	vi	(1)
Acknowledgements	vii	(1)
List of abbreviations	viii
Prologue. Innocent?	1	(3)
1 Back in Norway	4	(23)
2 The Russian dream	27	(43)
3 A reluctant leader	70	(40)
4 Mussolini or Hitler?	110	(50)
5 A time of crisis	160	(47)
6 Leader on probation	207	(37)
7 Revolution from above	244	(28)
8 Betrayed by Hitler	272	(34)
9 On the edge of the volcano	306	(48)
10 An enemy of the people	354	(62)
Epilogue. Dangerous?	416	(3)
Archive sources	419	(3)
Bibliography	422	(12)
Index	434