Quisling
A Study in Treachery

A 1999 biography of the notorious wartime Norwegian leader, Vidkun Quisling, whose name is still used as a synonym for 'traitor'.

Hans Fredrik Dahl (Author), Anne-Marie Stanton-Ife (Translated by)

9780521496971, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 27 May 1999

472 pages, 8 b/w illus.
24.2 x 16.4 x 3.4 cm, 0.915 kg

'… scrupulously researched biography - Surely the definitive study.' Literary Review

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'état 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 1999 biography makes 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.

List of illustrations
Acknowledgements
List of abbreviations
Prologue: innocent?
1. Back in Norway
2. The Russian dream
3. A reluctant leader
4. Mussolini or Hitler?
5. A time of crisis
6. Leader on probation
7. Revolution from above
8. Betrayed by Hitler
9. On the edge of the volcano
10. An enemy of the people
Epilogue: dangerous?
Archive sources
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Biography: historical, political & military [BGH]