Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
peciallyaroundSvalbardandintheAntarctic;formoreinformationonwhaling,
Clickhere
.
Trouble,however,layjustaroundthecorner.TheGreatDepressionofthelate1920sand
beyondalmostbroughtNorwaytoitsknees.ByDecember1932therewas42%unemploy-
ment and farmers were hit especially hard by the economic downturn.
Norway at War
Norwayhadchosenabadtimetobeginassertingitsindependence.Thecloudsofwarwere
gathering in Europe and although Norway had been spared the ravages of WWI, it could
not escape for long.
The first Allied victory of WWII occurred in late May 1940 in Norway, when a British naval force retook
Narvik and won control over this strategic iron ore port. It fell again to the Germans on 9 June.
Bytheearly1930sfascismhadbeguntospreadthroughoutEurope.UnlikeduringWWI,
Norway found itself caught up in the violent convulsions sweeping Europe. In 1933 the
former Norwegian defence minister Vidkun Quisling formed a Norwegian fascist party,
the
Nasjonal Samling
. The Germans invaded Norway on 9 April 1940, prompting King
Haakonandtheroyalfamilytofleeintoexile,whileBritish,French,PolishandNorwegian
forces fought a desperate rearguard action. For further insights into the Norwegian resist-
ance to the Nazi occupation, see the boxed text on
Click here
.
Six southern towns were burnt out and despite some Allied gains the British, who were
out on a limb, abandoned Arctic Norway to its fate. In Oslo, the Germans established a
puppet government under Vidkun Quisling, whose name thereafter entered the lexicon as a
byword for those collaborators who betray their country.
Having spent centuries fighting for a country to call their own, the Norwegians didn't
take lightly to German occupation. In particular, the Norwegian Resistance network distin-
guished itself in sabotaging German designs, often through the assistance of daring Shet-
land fishermen who smuggled arms across the sea to western Norway. Among the most
memorable acts of defiance was the famous commando assault of February 1943 on the
heavywaterplantatVemork,whichwasinvolvedintheGermandevelopmentofanatomic
bomb (see the boxed text,
Click here
).
Books about WWII in Norway
»
Assault in Norway: Sabotaging the Nazi Nuclear Campaign,
Thomas Michael Gallagher
»
War and Innocence: A Young Girl's Life in Occupied Norway,
Hanna Aasvik Helmersen
