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Quisling: A Study in Treachery

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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.

This book created some stir in the medical community when it was released. Some doctors found it hard to believe that Quisling would have survived the medical examination described on pages 396 and 397, nor did they find any proper source for Dahl's description. The book suggests x-rays were taken while Quisling's brain had been injected with "pressurized air". (Does Dahl mean they inflated his brain...?) "Large amounts of contrast liquid" was bumped straight into his brain by the neck arteries.

The segment of the book goes on to suggest this weakened Quisling for the rest of his trial. Indeed he would have been weakened if the description is correct, as injected air into the blood vessels can be fatal. Let alone "pressurized" air... The author is further amazed on how changed Quisling has become when he was facing the final proceedings. Completely disregarded is that Quisling may have been nervous for his *future* health and not because of some change from unbelievably extreme and painfull medical abuse on his person.

This is followed by Quisling's critical reaction to the reinstitution of death sentence. Dahl does not use the opportunity to point out how liberally the nazi regime itself executed people, deciding to wait a few pages before pointing to what crimes mr. Quisling was guilty of. "Murders of the regime", this is called. Oddly, while the murdering of jews are mentioned, the words death camp and holocaust are not.


Perhaps it should be noted that the professor Hans Fredrik Dahl used to recommend one David Irving, until Irving lost the court case he made against Deborah Libstedt. Dahl duly apologised, stating he had misunderstood Irving.



Is this book revisionist? I am not able to say, nor do I have any major education on Quisling or in medicine. (The author himself holds no medical degree.) Is this an odd book that strangely makes me suspect the author holds some unusual views...? Oh, yes indeed it is. The fog seems to seep into the pages, blurring things.