First Witnesses At Trial Of Quisling

Northern Advocate, 24 August 1945, Page 7

First Witnesses At Trial Of Quisling

(Rec. 1 p.m.) LONDON, Aug. 23 When the trial of Quisling was resumed today, the judge produced accounts showing that accused, since 1942. personally had used 11,000,009 kroner and granted friends and members of the party sums totalling 50.000,000. „ , . , The judge asked Quisling what salary he received. Accused attempted to evade the question, but when pressed, replied: “About half what the King received." Quisling claimed that it was not a salary but money for expenses. He maintained that he had saved Norway hundreds of millions of kroner —for example, by paying the Germans he was able to keep 260,000,000 from getting into their hands. The first witness for the prosecution was a German, who said he heard that a Nazi political 'officer' negotiated with Quisling to form a new Government on the first day of the Norwegian invasion. Witness added that the German commissar for Norway (Terboven) was so tired of squabbling with Quisling in 1940 that he schemed to be given the post of heading the occupation forces for Britain, conquest of which was scheduled for later the same year.

Hitler’s Gratitude

Terboven hated co-operating with Quisling, and told friends that Norway would be better off without a puppet Fueher, 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, from which only 12 returned. Quisling, who was pale and agitated, told the court he had never heard about German gas chambers for Jews until his trial began.