QUISLING’S CLAIM

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXV, Issue 226, 23 August 1945, Page 6

QUISLING’S CLAIM

PROTECTOR OF JEWS. INCREDULOUS STATEMENTS. (N.Z. Press Association.—Copyright.) (Rec. 1.25 p.m.) LONDON, Aug. 22. Quisling pictured himself as a protector of the Jews during today’s hearing of his trial for treason. He told the Court he worked closely with the Jewish world organisations. During the German occupation he helped Jews to escape to Sweden and tried to prevent the confiscation of their fortunes. Quisling professed complete ignorance of the German persecution of the Jews and Norwegian patriots. He denied he had ever read about the persecution of Jews in Europe. There was a murmur of incredulity in the Court when Quisling denied knowledge of the tortures in the dreaded concentration camp at Grini or starvation to death in Germany. Accused declared the treatment of both prisoners and Jews was a German responsibility 7 and his Government had been kept out of what he called the Jewish question. Quisling maintained that the Hirdmen (Storm Troops) were an innocent political organisation only who were carrying out police duties. He denied that Hirdmen were given arms or operated against their fellow countrymen. The Prosecutor (M. Schjoedt) read a letter from Quisling to Hitler, dated July 10, 1940, in which accused, referred to his fight for a great Germanic community.

Judge Sloem asked what he meant by “a great Germanic community,” and Quisling replied, “a corporation of Nordic Scandinavian States with all the other Germanic peoples, that is, Germany, Britain, France and America.”

M. Schjoedt interrupted that in a memorandum dated October 25, 1940, Quisling gave another explanation of the phrase “a great Germanic community.” He had referred to Norway as an independent kingdom bound to the Reich and also referred to a common foreign policy, German supreme command over the defence system, an entire federation, the German Feulirei to be President of the federation, and stabilisation of the Norwegian currency based on Berlin. Quisling admitted writing the memorandum and said his object was to try to put the brake on the German plans for the incorporation of Norway into the Reich. Pie was then fighting against the German interpretation ol “a Germanic community ”

Quisling engaged in frequent clashes with the Judges and the Court ended a long tirade on his Nordic beliels by ordering him to sit down. Quisling claimed that his second Government, formed on September 25, 1940, was 100 per cent. Norwegian and in reality was fighting the Germans.

Laughter broke out tn the Court when he asserted that lie ordered his Quisling guards to fight alongside the Germans against the Allied invasion forces in order to satisfy the Germans and thus save the Norwegian underground forces from being rounded up. M. Schjoedt charged Quisling -with the murder of Viggo Hansteen, ol the Norwegian underground movement, which Quisling, with a sob in his voice, denied. (ML Hansteen, whose widow is a member of the present Norwegian Government, was murdered by the Germans in 1941.) . The Prosecutor accused Quisling of responsibility for asking the Germans to get rid of M. Hansteen because ol his leadership of the 1941 strike.