Quisling : A Study in Treachery

Rating:
Summary: Quisling was more than an arch collaborator.
Review: Because the name Quisling has passed into everyday language, there is a danger we sloganize the historical character. As Dahl makes clear in this scholarly but most readable biography, Quisling was not simply a nazi yes man. His own ideas owed much to Christian fundamentalism and a home grown philosophy called Universalism. He collaborated with Hitler, whom he met far more frequently than the head of any other conquered country, in the hope that he could re-establish Norwegian independence after the war. His dawning realization that this was impossible produced personal hopelessness and made him detested in Norway. He had backed the wrong horse. Dahl is excellent in showing up both the tensions in Quisling himself and in the ruling NS party, itself by no means united. The minister president's own often tortuous dealings with Terboven, the Reich's commissioner in Norway, are particularly well described. Once he realized he would be executed, Quisling put forward the thesis that he would be far more dangerous after his death than during his life. He was wrong about that too. Outside Norway, the family name lives on only in a US medical clinic which his relatives once founded. The name Quisling still means in Madison, Wisconsin good health and well being. This masterly book is a first rate insight into the politics of absolute failure.

Rating:
Summary: Quisling was more than an arch collaborator.
Review: Because the name Quisling has passed into everyday language, there is a danger we sloganize the historical character. As Dahl makes clear in this scholarly but most readable biography, Quisling was not simply a nazi yes man. His own ideas owed much to Christian fundamentalism and a home grown philosophy called Universalism. He collaborated with Hitler, whom he met far more frequently than the head of any other conquered country, in the hope that he could re-establish Norwegian independence after the war. His dawning realization that this was impossible produced personal hopelessness and made him detested in Norway. He had backed the wrong horse. Dahl is excellent in showing up both the tensions in Quisling himself and in the ruling NS party, itself by no means united. The minister president's own often tortuous dealings with Terboven, the Reich's commissioner in Norway, are particularly well described. Once he realized he would be executed, Quisling put forward the thesis that he would be far more dangerous after his death than during his life. He was wrong about that too. Outside Norway, the family name lives on only in a US medical clinic which his relatives once founded. The name Quisling still means in Madison, Wisconsin good health and well being. This masterly book is a first rate insight into the politics of absolute failure.