Vidkun Quisling (R) with  Nazi Reich Commissioner of Norway Josef Terboven (C),  German officers and the Reich Guard. Riksarkivet (National Archives of Norway) 1-2-1942.

Quisling ordered all teachers to join a Nazi union and begin to instruct their students in the fundamentals of Nazism. Existing textbooks were banned and students were to be taught to speak German.

An underground group in Oslo immediately sent out a statement teachers could copy and mail to authorities including their names and addresses and a clear refusal to comply with the new rules. Roughly 9,000 of Norway’s 12,000 teachers participated, some in rural areas did not initially learn of the plan.

The Quisling government panicked at this unexpected resistance and orders schools closed for a month. Two-hundred thousand parents wrote letters of protest and teachers held classes in secret under the threat of deportation.

A teacher with his young pupils at a home in Oslo, 1943. Photo courtesy Digitalarkivet.

"It was a matter of conscience," one teacher explained. "We couldn't have looked our families and friends in the face if we hadn't taken this stand," 

Quisling tried to force the teachers into line, arresting 1,100 male teachers and sending them to concentration camps.

The people of Gandal in Høyland turn up to protest and say goodbye to their teacher, who has been arrested and is about to be transported. He stands in front of his house holding a sleeping bag.

Photo taken by the stationmaster: via Digitalarkivet

Underground organizations paid the salaries of the jailed educators, so they didn't have to worry about their families. The Gestapo eventually withheld food and tortured the teachers to get them back in the classroom, but the men endured, refusing to give in.

When the government readied to send 500 of the teachers to a concentration camp near Kirkenes in the arctic, word got out and crowds of students and farmers gathered along the tracks to sing and offer food and warm clothing as the train passed through the countryside.

After their two-day journey by cattle-car,  "... a sea voyage, in conditions that horrified even the Nazi doctor who went on board…. The ship had room for only 250 passengers, but all 499 were crammed in. Many could not even lie down, though they were now ill with “pneumonia, gastric ulcers, asthma, bronchitis, hemorrhage and mental derangement.” ~Thanks to Peace Pledge Union, London.

Norwegian teachers held at Kirkenes prison camp, 1942, photo courtesy Arkivverket.no

At Kirkenes, sleeping on straw in flimsy shacks in subzero weather, one teacher died and three were seriously injured doing forced labor, mostly building roads. 

Teacher Edvard Brakstad wrote: “We have to remember the great task we are accomplishing by being here, doing something for the cause that we think is right and is the reason why we are here. So we just have to take what comes and hope that this isn’t going to last too long.

The Norwegian teachers resistance grew from the broader struggle under Nazi occupation. From the invasion in 1940, people tried to outwardly show their solidarity by wearing flowers in support of their exiled king and patriotic lapel pins, one a simple paper clip to show their promise to "stay together." When soldiers started ripping off people's pins, some loyal Norwegians attached razor blades to them, which could cut probing fingers.

Nazi laws and regulations abolishing or restricting civil rights prompted waves of   spontaneous protests and open expressions of displeasure against the German occupiers and Norwegian collaborators. Professional and non-profit associations led more organized protests until authorities clamped down in the early summer of 1941. Bishops of the Norwegian Lutheran Church resigned when the occupation government created Fascist Youth Front for all 10 to 18 year olds.

​​​​​​Propaganda poster promoting the National Union Youth Front, the  group Quisling founded to indoctrinate Norwegian girls and boys. Digital Museum, Justice Museum, Trondheim.

Underground resistance groups operated throughout occupation, gathering information on German military activity throughout the country, which they passed on to the British via secret radio transmission. Illegal pamphlets and newspapers were produced and distributed.

By November 1942, Quisling realized the coming winter might force teachers to give in, but he'd already lost any popularity he'd had and released them to go home. The people's resistance eventually forced Quisling to abandoned his plan for a fascist state as well as school system. 

He lost face with Hitler over these failures and is reported to have said, “You teachers have destroyed everything for me!”  

Tone of voice sound familiar?

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