LAVISH FUNDS

Auckland Star, Volume LXXVI, Issue 200, 24 August 1945, Page 5

LAVISH FUNDS

QUISLING'S ACCOUNTS

German Gives Evidence In Treason Trial Rec. noon. LONDON, Aug. 23. When the trial of Vidkun Quisling was resumed to-day the judge produced accounts showing that the accused since 1942 had personallyused 11,000.000 kroner and had granted his friends and members of his party sums totalling 50,000,000 kroner. The judge asked Quisling what salary he received. The accused attempted to evade the question, but when pressed replied: "About half of what the King received."

Quisling claimed that it was not a salary, but money for expenses. He maintained that he saved Norway hundreds of millions of kroner. For example, by paving the Germans he was able to keep 260,000,000 kroner from getting into their hands.

The first witness for the prosecution was a German, who said he had heard that a Nazi political officer negotiated with Quisling to form a new Government on the first day of the Norwegian invasion.

The witness added that the German Commissar in Norway, Josef Terboven, was so tired of squabbling with Quisling in 1940 that he schemed to be given the post of heading the occupation force in Britain, the conquest of which was scheduled for later the same year. Terboven hated co-operating with Quisling and told his friends Norway would be better off without the puppet Fuehrer, but Hitler ordered Quisling to be retained in power because of. the difficulty of administering Norway without help from a Norwegian Government, also because Hitler felt extreme gratitude to Quisling for persuading him to invade Norway, thus forestalling the Allies.

The next witness, a Jewish doctor, gave evidence about the fate of 1000 Norwegian Jews sent to Germany, of whom only 12 returned. Quisling, who was pale and agitated, told the Court he had never heard about the German gas chambers for Jews until the trial began.