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The Nazi Occupation of Norway: A Historical Quiz

Test your knowledge on the occupation of Norway by Nazi Germany during World War II with this engaging quiz. Explore key events, figures, and the impact of the occupation on Norwegian society.

1 This scene was to be repeated throughout Finnmark, an area larger than ________.

2 Although the respect of neutrality remained the highest priority until the invasion was a fait accompli, it was known throughout the government that Norway, above all, did not want to be at war with the ________.

3 The occupation of Norway by Nazi Germany started with the German invasion of ________ on April 9, 1940 and ended on May 8, 1945, after the capitulation of German forces in Europe.

4 Having maintained its neutrality during ________, Norwegian foreign and military policy since 1933 was largely influenced by three factors:

5 Consistent with ________ warfare, German forces attacked Norway by sea and air as Operation Weserübung was put into action.

6 Military forces such as the ________ and Luftwaffe remained under direct command from Germany during war years, but all other authority was vested in the Reich commissioner.

7 One such child is Anni-Frid Lyngstad who eventually grew up and achieved fame as a member of the Swedish group ________.

8 The shared hardship of the war years also set the stage for social welfare policies of the post-war ________ governments.

9 Hence, on the first day of invasion, Quisling made a broadcast at the ________ radio station and nominated himself as prime minister.

10 A number of the 'Police troops' were employed in the liberation of ________ in the winter of 1944/45 after the area had been evacuated by the Germans.

💡 Interesting Facts

  • Toralv Øksnevad was known as the "voice from London" during the Second World War, when listening to foreign radio was a crime punishable by death in Norway.
  • Roald Dysthe, who was installed as a chief executive during the occupation of Norway by Nazi Germany, was acquitted of treason in 1951.
  • Odd Isøy replaced the deceased Kjell Bull-Hansen as team leader in Milorg's sabotage squad Aks 13000 during World War II in Norway.
  • Kjesäter, a Swedish manor, was later the main assembly point for up to 50,000 refugees from German-occupied Norway during World War II.
  • Norwegian SOE agent Odd Starheim was killed in 1943 when the coastal steamer he and his team had seized off the coast of occupied Norway was sunk by German bombers.
  • after the German occupants shut down several underground newspapers in Norway in February 1944, Bulletinen was the only one remaining with contacts to the leadership of the civil resistance.
  • when Nazis usurped and reorganized Norwegian broadcasting in 1940, Eyvind Mehle was considered as the successor of the deposed director Olav Midttun, despite being subordinate to Wilhelm F. K. Christie.
  • the pre-WWII mayor of Bergen, Asbjørn Stensaker, initially remained in his position under Nazi German rule to limit nazification, but the Nazis prevented his stepping down in 1941.
  • during the German occupation of Norway, Astrid Løken combined entomological field research with secret photography for the resistance group XU.
  • children's physician Alex Brinchmann chaired the Norwegian Authors' Union from 1941 to 1945, during the German occupation, but was eventually imprisoned from January 1945.
  • John Marius Trana went from being an illegal trade union leader during the German occupation of Norway to being chairman of the Norwegian Union of Railway Workers.
  • Johannes Kvittingen, an exiled Norwegian bacteriologist in London in 1940, was asked to be head recruiter of Norwegian agents for the Special Operations Executive.
  • Carl Fredriksens Transport, an operation that saved 1,000 Norwegians during the Nazi occupation of Norway, was code-named after King Haakon VII's original name.
  • Alf Whist, Minister of Industry and Shipping in the Quisling regime, had no political experience prior to joining the Fascist party during Nazi Germany's occupation in the 1940s.
  • Kompani Linge's Oslo Detachment, a subgroup of the Special Operations Executive, was the dominant sabotage group in occupied Oslo between May and September 1944.
  • Norwegian trade unionist Ludvik Buland, sentenced to death by the Nazi authorities in 1941, was later reprieved, only to die in a Nacht und Nebel camp four years later.
  • Endre Berner, Bjørn Føyn, Carl Jacob Arnholm, Eiliv Skard, Harald K. Schjelderup and Anatol Heintz were among the professors at the University of Oslo who were arrested by Nazis during World War II.
  • Erling Sandberg, installed as Finance Minister by Reichskommissariat when Nazis occupied Norway, was acquitted of collaboration with Nazis.
  • Johannes Andenæs, himself a concentration camp prisoner of Nazis during WWII, criticized the harshness of the legal process against Nazis in Norway after the war.
  • Hans Kristian Seip, the father of Jens Arup Seip, also had a career of his own in engineering and politics, until removed by the Nazi occupants in Norway in 1941.
  • Francis Bull, a board member of the National Theatre when Nazi Germany occupied Norway in 1940, was arrested in 1941 and spent three years in a concentration camp.
  • 29 Norwegian civilians were shot in reprisal by the Nazi regime in Norway following the Norwegian resistance's assassination of police chief Karl Marthinsen in February of 1945.