Memorandum on information from a meeting with Quisling, including Quisling's political and military influence, Norwegian political figures, and the proposal for a pro-German coup

MEMO
[Enclosure in a letter of Reichsleiter Rosenberg to the C.-in-C. of the Navy)
[illegible notations]
Re: Visit of Privy Councillor Quisling—Norway.
Rounding out previous information, I inform you that Quisling is considered as one of the best known Scandinavian officers of the General staff, that he was military attache in Finland, and that he represented British interests in Moscow from 1927 to 1930 before the breaking off of diplomatic relations between the Soviet-Union and Great Britain. He was Norwegian Minister of War from 1931-1933, being a representative of the Norwegian peasant party, then resigned and founded a National Radical Socialist party under the name of "National Party." This party held and still holds anti-Semitic views and stands for the closest collaboration with Germany, has 15,000 registered members, and Quisling estimates the number of his immediate supporters as between 2 and 300.000, that is, that 10 percent which, even
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amidst the manifest anti-German feeling in Norway and Sweden today, are in favor of collaboration with Germany. His party has also not taken any part in the elections for the Great Assembly [Storthing],
The reasons for a coup, about which Quisling made a report, would be provided by the fact that the Storthing had, in defiance of the constitution, passed a resolution prolonging its own life which is to become operative on 12 January. Quisling still retains in his capacity as a long-standing officer and a former Minister of War, the closest relations with the Norwegian Army. He showed me the original of a letter which he had received only a short time previously from the Commanding Officer in Narvik, Colonel Sunlo. In this letter Colonel Sunlo frankly lays emphasis on the fact that: if things went on as they were going at present, Norway was finished. He only hoped that there would still be sufficient of the nation left to be able to create a people out of the remains which could then build up Norway again well and truly. It was right that the race of today should be relegated to obscurity, and one had to admit it didn't deserve any better fate; for as he saw it, the Norwegians had committed an offense against the unalterable law of the universe. This law demanded work and idealism, and stupidity had never been regarded as a plausible excuse. "I shall not do anything for the old boozer Madsen (Minister of Trade), the enemy of Defense Monsen (Minister of War), and the blockhead Nygolswold (Prime Minister). It may on the contrary be a good idea and a useful one, to spend one's time in risking one's neck for the national revival." Signed Konrad Sunlo.
Amtsleiter Scheidt, who had been to Norway several times, and has a number of acquaintances there, says that the Commanding Officer of the largest drilling-ground, Hroslev, had expressed similar opinions, as had also the head of the Military Academy at Halden, Captain Fritzner.
The king knows Quisling very well from the time when he held office and he believes that the king also had a high opinion of him, even though he is, by and large, pro-British in his views. The Jew Hambro is cited as Germany's greatest enemy, and as possibly the most powerful personality in politics, who practically controls the policy of Scandinavia at the moment. He is President of the Storthing, who at the same time holds the office of President of the Foreign Committee. He is also leader of the League of Nations Delegation and Leader of the strongest political party, the so-called "Conservatives," with whom the fate of
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the present minority Government rests. Hambro also controls the communication system in Norway, and so there is reason to fear— and indeed shortly to fear—that as far as the anti-Russian feeling is concerned, which has increased by reason of the Russo-Finnish conflict, this will gain in strength in favor of England and against Germany in an increasing degree.
A plan has been put forward which deals with the possibility of a coup, and which provides for a number of selected Norwegians to be trained in Germany with all possible speed for such a purpose, being allotted their exact tasks, and provided with experienced and die-hard National Socialists, who are practiced in such operations. These trained men should then proceed with all speed to Norway where details would then require to be further discussed. Some important centers in Oslo would have to be taken over immediately, and at the same time the German Fleet together with suitable contingents of the German Army would go into operation when summoned specially by the new Norwegian Government in a specified bay at the approaches to Oslo. Quisling has no doubts that such a coup, having been carried out with instantaneous success — would immediately bring him the approval of those sections of the army with which he at present has connections, and thus it goes without saying that he has never discussed a political fight with them. As far as the king is concerned, he believes that he would respect it as an accomplished fact.
Quisling gives figures of the number of German troops required which accord with German calculations.
[Signed]
A. Rosenberg