Negative Quiddity: Quisling

Vidkun Abraham Lauritz Jonssøn Quisling (18 July 1887 – 24 October 1945) was a Norwegian military officer and politician, mostly known as nominal head of government of Norway during German occupation.

Quisling first came to international prominence as a close collaborator of Fridtjof Nansen, organizing humanitarian relief during the Russian famine of 1921 in Ukraine. He was posted as a Norwegian diplomat to the Soviet Union, and for some time also managed British diplomatic affairs there. He returned to Norway in 1929, and served as Minister of Defence in the governments of Peder Kolstad (1931–32) and Jens Hundseid (1932–33), representing the Farmers' Party. Although Quisling achieved some popularity after his attacks on the political left, his party failed to win any seats in the Storting and was little more than peripheral in 1940. On 9 April 1940, with the German invasion of Norway in progress, he attempted to seize power in the world's first radio-broadcast coup d'état, but failed after the Germans refused to support his government.

From 1942 to 1945 he served as Minister-President, heading the Norwegian state administration jointly with the German civilian administrator Josef Terboven. His pro-Nazi puppet government, known as the Quisling regime, was dominated by ministers from Nasjonal Samling, the party he founded in 1933. The collaborationist government participated in Germany's Final Solution. Quisling was put on trial during the legal purge in Norway after World War II and found guilty of charges including embezzlement, murder and high treason. He was executed by firing squad at Akershus Fortress, Oslo, on 24 October 1945. The word quisling has since become a synonym for collaborationist, an allusion to the very poor light in which Quisling's actions were seen both at the time and after his death.

                                                                  Vidkun Quisling

Personality

To his supporters, Quisling was regarded as a conscientious administrator of the highest order, knowledgeable and with an eye for detail. Balanced and gentle to a fault, they believed he cared deeply about his people and maintained high moral standards throughout.  To his opponents, Quisling was unstable and undisciplined, abrupt, even threatening. Quite possibly he was both, at ease among friends and under pressure when confronted with his political opponents, and generally shy and retiring with both. During formal dinners he often said nothing at all except for the occasional cascade of dramatic rhetoric. Indeed, he did not react well to pressure and would often let slip over-dramatic sentiments when put on the spot. Normally open to criticism, he was prone to assuming larger groups were conspiratorial.

Post-war interpretations of Quisling's character are similarly mixed. After the war collaborationist behaviour was popularly viewed as a result of mental deficiency, leaving the personality of the clearly more intelligent Quisling an "enigma". He was instead seen as weak, paranoid, intellectually sterile, and power-hungry: ultimately "muddled rather than thoroughly corrupted".

The Norwegian sociologist Johan Galtung described Quisling as a mini-Hitler with a CMT (chosenness-myth-trauma) complex, or alternatively, megalo-paranoia, more often diagnosed in modern times as narcissistic personality disorder. He was "well installed in his personality", but unable to gain a following among his own people as the population did not provide a mirror for Quisling's ideology. In short, he was "a dictator and a clown on the wrong stage with the wrong script."  As quoted by Dahl, psychiatrist Professor Gabriel Langfelt stated Quisling's ultimate goals "fitted the classic description of the paranoid megalomaniac more exactly than any other case [he had] ever encountered."

During his time in office, Quisling rose early, often having completed several hours of work before arriving at the office between 9:30 and 10:00. He liked to intervene in virtually all government matters, reading all letters addressed to him or his chancellery personally and marking a surprising number for action.  Quisling was independently minded, made several key decisions on the spot and, unlike his German counterpart, he liked to follow procedure to ensure that government remained "a dignified and civilised" affair throughout.  He took a personal interest in the administration of Fyresdal, where he was born.

He rejected German racial supremacy and instead saw the Norwegian race as the progenitor of northern Europe, tracing his own family tree in his spare time.  Party members did not receive preferential treatment, though Quisling did not himself share in the wartime hardships of his fellow Norwegians. Nevertheless, many gifts went unused and he did not live extravagantly.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vidkun_Quisling