Vidkun Abraham Lauritz Jonssøn Quisling (18 July 1887 – 24 October 1945) was a Norwegian military officer, politician, and Nazi collaborator. He nominally headed the government of Norway during the occupation of the country by Nazi Germany during World War II. His pro-Nazi puppet government participated in Germany’s genocidal Final Solution. He was found guilty of charges including embezzlement, murder and high treason against the Norwegian state, and was sentenced to death. He died of a gunshot wound to the head at Akershus Fortress, Oslo, on October 24, 1945.
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Vidkun Abraham Lauritz Jonssøn Quisling (18 July 1887 – 24 October 1945) was a Norwegian military officer, politician, and Nazi collaborator. He nominally headed the government of Norway during the occupation of the country by Nazi Germany during World War II. He was found guilty of charges including embezzlement, murder and high treason against the Norwegian state, and was sentenced to death. His pro-Nazi puppet government participated in Germany’s genocidal Final Solution. The word ‘quisling’ became a byword for ‘collaborator’ or ‘traitor’ in several languages, reflecting the contempt with which his conduct was regarded at the time and since his death. He died of a gunshot wound to the head at Akershus Fortress, Oslo, on October 24, 1945. His family name derives from a Latinised name invented by his ancestor Lauritz Ibsen Quislin, based on the village of Kvislemark near Slagelse, Denmark, from whom he had emigrated in the 19th century. His father, Jon Lauritz Qvisling, was a Church of Norway pastor and genealogist. His mother, Anna Caroline Bang, was the daughter of Jørgen Bang, ship-owner and the richest man in the town of Grimstad in South Norway. Vidkun went to school in Fyresdal, where he was bullied by other students for his Telemark dialect, but proved a successful student. In 1905, he enrolled at the Norwegian Military Academy, having received the highest entrance examination score of 250 applicants that year.
In 1911, he joined the army and was rewarded with the highest score since the college’s inception in 1817. In 1918, he was sent to Russia as an attaché at the Petrograd legation, to take advantage of the Norwegian legation’s strong hold on the Red Army. He later became a Norwegian diplomat to the Soviet Union, and for some time also managed British diplomatic affairs there. In 1933, he left the Farmers’ Party and founded the fascist party Nasjonal Samling. From 1942 to 1945 he served as Prime Minister of Norway, heading the NorwegianState administration jointly with the German civilian administrator Josef Terboven. His regime was dominated by ministers from Nasjona Samling, and participated in the genocides of the Second World War. In 1945 he was put on trial during the legal purge in Norway after World War Two. His death was announced by the Norwegian government on October 25, 1945, and he was executed by firing squad at Akerhus Fortress in Oslo, Norway, the day after his 46th birthday. He is buried in the Norwegian National Cemetery in Skien, in the county of Telemark, near where he grew up. He had two brothers and a sister, the young Quisled was \”shy and quiet but also loyal and helpful, always friendly, occasionally breaking into a warm smile. \”
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