Resistance Museum

Monday September 25 was a cloudy day, with a bit of rain and wind.  High of 16C.  We decided to walk to our destination of Norway's Resistance Museum that is housed in one of the buildings of the Akershus Festning (Akershus Fort).

Park area just down our street (lots of green space in Oslo)

We finally found the name of the bridge with the four statues that we pass as we walk into the City Centre.  It is called Ankerbrua and replaced a former wooden bridge in 1926.  The bridge has been nicknamed the Fairytale Bridge due to its four sculptures which were designed by Norwegian sculptor and artist, Dyre Vaa in 1937.   Each figure represents a different Norwegian folk hero from Norwegian folktales.

The four statues at each corner of the bridge

We continued down a street we hadn't walked down before and came across a statue of a woman with a headset and cell phone.

Marit Brough, Seated Girl with Headphones,2014

She was in front of Oslo's oldest restaurant Engebret Café, dating back to 1857. 
Statue of Johannes Brun (1832-1890) 

We arrived at Akershus Fortress which contains the Akershus Castle, Visitors' Centre, Resistance Museum, Armed Forces Museum, the Stables and many other buildings and features.  

Briefly, the building of the Akershus Castle and Fortress was commenced in 1299 under King Håkon V.  The medieval castle, which was completed in the 1300s, had a strategic location at the very end of the headland and withstood a number of sieges throughout the ages.  The castle developed into a fortress in 1592.  King Christian IV (1588-1648) had the castle modernized and converted into a Renaissance castle and Royal residence between 1637-1648.  Today the Castle contains banquet halls and reception halls and the Royal Mausoleum.  

The fortress has never been successfully besieged by a foreign enemy.  However, it surrendered without combat to Nazi Germany in 1940 when the Norwegian government evacuated the capital in the face of the unprovoked German assault on Denmark and Norway.   During WWII, people were executed here by the German occupiers, included members of the Pelle group, a Norwegian resistance group that conducted acts of sabotage against the German occupation in 1944.  The fortress was liberated on May 11, 1945.  

After the war, eight Norwegian traitors who had been tried for war crimes and sentenced to death were executed at the fortress.  Vidkun Quisling (1887-1945), the famous Nazi collaborator who nominally headed the government of Norway during the country's occupation was executed on October 24, 1945 by a firing squad.  The word quisling became a synonym for traitor.

Outside of one of the Fortress's entrances

There was a powerful anti-war statue at the Fortress.

Laura Ford, Glory, Glory with Crutches, "shows a woman returning from war and destruction with all her luggage, both physically and mentally carried on her shoulders.  The face is indistinct, for this can be every one of us."

View of Castle

Our first stop was the Visitor Centre (Besøkssenteret Akershus Festning), found in the Artillery Building, also called the Long Red House.  It dates back to 1774.   It had a small exhibit about the fortress's 700 year history.

Visitor Centre

There was temporary exhibit off to one side of the Visitor Centre about Queen Margrete (1353-1412), one of the most powerful woman in the Middle Ages.  In 1397, she united the kingdoms of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden in the community that later became known as the Kalmar Union.  The peace largely lasted until 1523, when Sweden broke the pact.  Norway remained in union with Denmark until 1814.

Poster at beginning of the Exhibit

Timeline of Margaret's life and accomplishments until her death in 1412, probably by the plague

Most of the exhibit was in storyboard form with a number of costumes from a movie about Margrete.

There were also some displays for children.

Margrete arrived at the Akershus castle in 1363, built by King Håkon V,
who was the grandfather of Margaret's husband.

There was a model of the Castle and Fortress from King Håkon V to 1527.

Reconstruction by architect Sinding-Larsen (1924)

The main section of the Visitor Centre was a gift shop and there was also a display of posters  with the history of the Akershus Prison, another building in the Fortress complex.  The Prison was established in 1820.  There were about 500 prisoners in 1840.  In 1837, a Penal Code Commission was appointed to look into conditions at the prison.  They found that the prison was "like a school for criminals and that reform was required".  However, the Commission concluded that the American Philadelphia system should be introduced.  The prisoner would be mostly isolated and human contact was limited.  The prisoners mainly worked for the military construction office.  Products produced by the inmates were sold.  

In 1899, the Justice Committee of the Parliament determined that conditions at the Prison were very poor.  First time offenders were housed with dangerous habitual criminals.  In the 1920s, a number of riots occurred.

In WWII, the German Wehrmacht took control of the Fortress and kept using the prison. During the early stages of the war, Norwegians who had been sentenced to death for participating in the resistance movement were housed in terrible conditions.  The Germans burned their archives in May 1945, so a full picture was hard to get.  During the war, 42 members of the Norwegian resistance were executed at the Fortress.  

After the war, 100s of Norwegian traitors were imprisoned, most of them serving sentences from three years upwards and some serving life sentences.  A few were executed including Vidkun Quisling, as mentioned earlier.  In 1948, an amnesty law was passed for all prisoners serving sentences of eight years or less.  In 1950, the Fortress no longer served as a National Prison.

After the Visitor's Centre visit, we headed to Norway's Resistance Museum.  The Museum is housed in the building originally called "the Double Battery" (1691-92).  After being used as a depot for many years, it has housed the Resistance Museum since 1970.  The initiative for the museum was carried out by active members of the resistance movement.

Five years of occupation from invasion to liberation are created through images, documents, posters, artefacts and original newspapers.  The Museum "attempts to give a true and vivid picture of what a calamity and degradation an occupation is for a people."  The displays are old-fashioned, with some of the scenes recreated with toy soldiers and other materials.  However, there are lots of important artefacts from the war.

Outside the Resistance Museum

Newspapers before the invasion

The first part of the displays dealt with the unexpected April 9 1940 German invasion with the code name "Weserübung". The surprise invasion was launched with a series of synchronised attacks at various points all over Norway.  The German occupation was supported by the Norwegian Nazi Party Nasjonal Samling and its leader Vidkun Quisling.   The King of Norway rejected the German ultimatum of surrender and there was fighting especially in northern Norway, where some British troops also assisted.  The fighting lasted until June 1940. Hitler had hoped the blitz invasion would paralyse all resistance, but the campaign nevertheless lasted 62 days.

The German cruiser "Blücher", was sunk in the narrows of the Oslo Fjord and went down with 1000 hands.  The sinking of this important ship, enabled the Norwegian King and Government to escape from Oslo.  The King and the government remained in exile in London.

Norway remained in a state of war with Germany.

Norway's bullion reserves were smuggled out of the country in fishing boats

Terror bombing of Kristiansund, April 28 and 29, 1940.

While Norway was defeated, the Resistance Movement sprung up.  

Radio transmitters

These three Norwegians, after being trained in Great Britain, returned to Norway to organize military resistance.  They were arrested in December 1940, and executed outside the museum in August 1941.

There were a number of letters and newspapers outlining resistance by the Norwegians.  Interestingly all national sport organisations refused to cooperate with the Nazi government and a sports strike was maintained throughout the war.  

Letter of protest "by 41 national organizations against the abolition of constitutional rights in the country and against the brutality and excesses of the Quisling party.  This open defiance of German rule led to arrests and the dismissal of the organizations' leaders."

The German Josef Terboven (1898-1945) was appointed "Reichskommisar" for occupied Norway by Hitler and took over civil administration until the end of the war.   All political parties were prohibited except the Norwegian Nazi Party.  Trerboven established multiple concentration camps in Norway, ruthlessly prosecuted the Jewish population and focused on crushing the Norwegian resistance movement.   On May 8, 1945, the day of Germany's surrender, he committed suicide.

First year of the Occupation

Important speeches by the King of Norway and Winston Churchill on the BBC in 1940

There were protests from national organizations and the Supreme Court.  Shortly after the occupation, the Supreme Court formulated an historic declaration that clarified that despite the King having left the country, he had not abandoned his duties.  Towards the end of 1940, all the justices of the Supreme Court resigned their offices.  They did so after the occupying power tried to impose rules that the Supreme Court felt affected their constitutional position.  A new 'Supreme Court' was established in 1941.  This was comprised of Nazi sympathizers who were later found guilty of treason.

Quisling and Terboven during the signing of the "Document of State" at Akershus Fort in February 1942.

There was a section of the exhibit with examples of clandestine newspapers which became even more important when all radios were confiscated in the summer of 1941.  By the autumn of 1943, 5000 men and women were employed editing, printing and distributing over 60 clandestine newssheets.  The Nazis feared free speech and in October 1942, the death penalty was decreed for the production and distribution of illegal newspapers.  The underground press suffered heavy losses: one thousand men and women were sent to prison, over 200 lost their lives.

Examples of clandestine newspapers

Hidden newspapers

For false documents

There was an incredible story of the Norwegian teachers resistance to teaching the principles of Nazism.  Quisling then closed the schools and every 10th teacher was arrested.  When they still didn't capitulate, a great number were sent to a forced-labour camp on the Arctic coast.  They were billeted in horrible conditions and put to heavy manual work.  After six months, it became clear that the resistance had undermined Quisling's plans.  In consultation with the Resistance Central Committee, the teachers signed the declaration of membership in the Teachers Union, as demanded by the Germans, and they were set free.

Foreign papers dealing with opposition to Quisling

On Easter Sunday 1942, 800 of Norway's 850 clergy announced their resignation from their offices

Around 45, 000 Norwegians were imprisoned during the war, with around a quarter deported to concentration camps.  Roughly 1400 died. 

There was also a section on the persecution of Norwegian Jews.  Between November 1942- February 1943, around 772 Norwegian Jews were sent to extermination camps.  Only 34 survived.  Thus over 1/3 of the pre-war population of Norwegian Jews were killed.

Finally, there was a section about sabotage by the Norwegian resistance supported by the Norwegian government in exile and the British government.  Perhaps the most successful undertaking was the destruction of the heavy water plant at Vemork in Telemark in the hope of preventing the production of atomic weapons by the Nazis.

As we exited the exhibit, there was a sign that said "Five Years of Occupation: Never Again."

Five Years of Occupation: Never Again

Soldiers at the fortress as we were leaving the grounds

We walked back to the apartment and stopped for a late afternoon sandwich at Godt Brod, a fabulous bakery that does all its baking by hand and uses only organic ingredients. It was only about a five minute walk from our apartment.

Entrance area of Godt Brod- they have a large indoor area and a patio

We arrived at the apartment and Allan made a pasta dinner.   We were both tired from a lot of walking but had an interesting day exploring Norwegian history during WWII.