Quisling published

www.aftenposten.no ^ | 08 Sep 2006, 16:32 | Aftenposten's Norwegian reporter Ingrid Brekke - Aftenposten English Web Desk Jonathan Tisdall

[Kurt_Hectic]

Vidkun Quisling, the Norwegian synonymous with traitor, will have his planned book of philosophy published shortly.

Quisling, who was Norway's head of government during the Nazi occupation, had high ambitions as an author and thinker. His ambitious work on what he called "Universism" aimed to "ignite a new light for mankind".

The book will appear in October from the new publishing house Juritzen.

Arve Juritzen and his editor Anne-Kristin Strøm have prepared the volume from the mass of papers and handwritten notes the notorious Norwegian left behind. The book will be organized according to the chapter headings Quisling intended.

"This book is not about war and treason, but about what Quisling really wanted to be, philosopher, author. He really wanted to write, to be know as a thinker rather than a politician," Juritzen said. "The book can also explain why he did what he did. This is also a snapshot from the 20s, 30s and 40s. The thoughts and attitudes are striking and it is not so long ago, yet one thought incredibly differently."

Juritzen said he did not believe there was much if anything to fuel right-wing extremists or neo-Nazis in the book, but also feels that such worries shouldn't prevent the book's publication.

Quisling biographer and professor at San Diego State University, Oddvar Høidal, does not believe the book will have much to offer.

"The material is completely disorganized. Juritzen's decision to organize the notes the way Quisling wanted will give the book an odd character," Høidal said. Historians would need to see the original documents in any case, but Høidal thought it might interest history buffs.

Netherlands-based professor Else M. Barth has scrutinized Quisling's notes and thoughts deeply for her 1996 book "God, it's me. Vidkun Quisling as a political philosopher" and she then said that what was most interesting was the light he threw on the way fascists thought.

"Otherwise he was not original in the least. Most of what he said he borrowed from here and there and repeated it in flowery terms. The title of the book, "God, it's me" is a quote," Barth told Aftenposten.

[Kurt_Hectic]

I want to read this one! He was the best of his class at the military academy, higly intelligent, but also a first-class megalomaniac looney.

[goldstategop]

And a traitor. His name as has passed into the known languages as a synonym for betrayal of one's country. We have to my mind, nothing to learn from a quisling.

(No more Olmert! No more Kadima! No more Oslo! )

[sandra_789]

I already know that Bill Clinton got his writings published.

[Poison Pill]

I wonder if Clinton will be writing the Forward?