This week's theme: Vidkun Quisling

Who?

With all the talk about treason in the news lately I thought it might be 
interesting to look at famous traitors in history.

Like most Americans, the thought of treason is so odious that it is hard to 
believe anyone would ever engage in it. But we know from history people do 
and unfortunately probably will in the future as well.

"Vidkun Abraham Lauritz Jonssøn Quisling was a Norwegian politician and 
officer, commonly known as one of World War II's most infamous traitors."
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/vidkun-quisling

Quisling was a radical right wing politician in Norway and had a secret 
arrangement with Nazi Germany. With their support he rose up in Norwegian 
politics until he was in a position to wreck the Norwegian government to the 
point where it couldn't resist the German invasion in 1940.

If you want to wreck a car, you don't have to wreck the entire car, you only 
have to put sand in the gearbox until it grinds to a halt - that renders the 
entire car useless.

We know from history that's how the Germans toppled Czarist Russia during 
World War One. They secretly backed Lenine and the Bolsheviks (Communists) 
with large amounts of cash and propaganda. The goal wasn't so much to take 
over the Russian government as to sew confusion and disorientation until it 
couldn't function effectively. To turn it in on itself and implode with 
internal discord.

We toppled the Soviet Union that way in the 1980s - by buying off key 
leaders and helping them rise in the government into positions where they 
could sew dissension, corrupt everything and wreck it.

"Divide and conquer" is as old as Julius Caesar.

Quisling served as Prime Minister in the Nazi's puppet government in Norway 
until the end of the war.

By then he was thoroughly hated as a traitor and a collaborator.

He was executed by the Norwegians by firing squad in 1945 and his name, 
"Quisling", will forever be a byword for "collaborator" and "traitor".


Vidkun Quisling
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Vidkun-Abraham-Lauritz-Jonsson-Quisling

Vidkun Quisling
https://ww2db.com/person_bio.php?person_id=277

Vidkin Quisling
https://www.encyclopedia.com/people/history/scandinavian-history-biographies/vidkun-quisling

Nazi Collaborators - Vidkun Quisling
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bljDuYUV-Y4

Trial of Vidkun Quisling in Oslo and German leaders surrender in Germany.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIYX4nRHD6A



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN — at the close of the Constitutional Convention of 1787, 
when queried as he left Independence Hall on the final day of deliberation — 
in the notes of Dr. James McHenry, one of Maryland’s delegates to the 
Convention.

“Well, Doctor, what have we got — a Republic or a Monarchy?”

“A Republic, if you can keep it.”


Stay Jazzed!
--Tom Swezey