On April 9, 1940, German landing units landed in Norway. After 63 days, a small German army completely occupied this country. This usually does not cause much surprise: well, Hitler captured another European country, what else can you expect from the demoniac Fuhrer? He just needs something to conquer, and what is not important. However, Norway in Hitler's eyes was never Germany's enemy. Moreover, in his opinion, it was a unique and one-of-a-kind country with such a racially “pure” population that “interbreeding” with Norwegians could improve the “breed of Germans”. And it was not at all easy for Hitler to decide to kill such valuable and useful people during the "fratricidal" war with them.
There were other considerations as well. The Norwegians, who had changed significantly since the Viking era, were still considered by Hitler to be potential great warriors and feared great losses in battles with local berserkers (whom he did find, but in 1941 and in another country). In addition, the terrain in Norway was extremely convenient for defense. Therefore, Hitler was afraid of encountering serious resistance and "getting bogged down", which in the conditions of a "strange", but still war with Great Britain and France, was completely inappropriate. However, there was one factor that caused serious concern both in the General Staff and in the German Ministry of Economy. This factor is the constant fear of losing supplies of high-quality iron ore from the Swedish mines in Gällivare (Ellevara). The Swedes made very good money on trade with Germany in both the First and Second World Wars. Moreover, they sold to the Reich not only iron ore (which in 1939-1945 was supplied with 58 million tons), but also cellulose, timber, bearings, machine tools and even anti-aircraft guns from Switzerland and chocolate. So there was no threat from their side to cut off supplies. But there was a danger of the seizure of these strategically important mines for Germany by the countries of the opposing bloc. This required violating the sovereignty of neutral Sweden, but, as we will soon see, neither Britain nor France was in any way embarrassed by this. It was possible to go the other way, making supplies to the Swedish became impossible: to capture Narvik, violating the sovereignty of neutral Norway. Given the presence of a powerful fleet in Great Britain, the second route seemed easier and more preferable.
Narvik, modern photo
The fears of German industrialists and generals were by no means unfounded. Similar plans have indeed been developed in Great Britain since the First World War. In 1918, they were not implemented only because they were opposed by the commander-in-chief of the Navy, Lord Beatty, who stated:
“It would be morally unacceptable for the officers and sailors of the Grand Fleet to try to subdue a small but strong-minded people by force. the same grave crimes that the Germans commit."
Admiral David Beatty
It is not surprising that in 1939 the French and British immediately recalled the "Achilles heel" of the German military industry, and returned to discussing the possibility of occupying a part of Norwegian territory. Only the Ministry of Foreign Affairs opposed it. Stung Churchill recalled:
"The arguments of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs were weighty, and I could not prove my case. I continued to defend my point of view by all means and in any case."
W. Churchill. October 1, 1939
Nevertheless, the British government did everything to compromise Norwegian neutrality in the eyes of Germany. So, on September 5, 1939, an extensive list of goods was published that were now classified as war smuggling. British warships were given the right to inspect merchant ships of other countries. If Norway agreed to recognize these demands, it would lose part of its sovereignty, it could forget about its neutral status, and actually lose its foreign trade. Therefore, the country's government refused to obey the pressure from this side, but was forced to agree with the chartering of most of its merchant fleet by Britain - the British could now use Norwegian vessels with a total capacity of 2,450,000 gross tons (of which 1,650,000 were tankers). Germany, of course, did not like it very much.
The beginning of military preparations
On September 19, 1939, W. Churchill insisted on a decision to develop a project to create a minefield in Norwegian territorial waters and "block the transport of Swedish iron ore from Narvik." This time, even the Foreign Minister, Lord Halifax, voted in favor.
In Germany, according to captured documents, the first mention of Norway dates back to early October 1939. The Commander-in-Chief of the Naval Forces, Admiral Erich Raeder, informs Hitler of his fears that the Norwegians may open their ports to the British. He also notes that it would be beneficial for German submarines to get bases on the coast of Norway, for example in Trondheim. Hitler rejects this proposal.
Oskar Graf. Erich Raeder, portrait
Immediately I draw your attention: the point is not Hitler's peacefulness or sentimentality - he still realistically evaluates the state of affairs, and restrains the "appetites" of his military and industrialists. It is in this direction that he does not need war now. He would have agreed with Great Britain (which he always speaks of with respect and even admiration) - not as a junior partner, but on an equal footing. However, the trouble is, the proud British do not take him seriously yet, do not consider him an equal. And the French still do not understand anything, and are trying to be arrogant. But the British and French have not yet refused to use Germany and Hitler for their own purposes, so they do not want to fight in the main theater of hostilities: by making plans to seize strategically important mines, they hope to make Hitler more accommodating, directing his aggression in the right direction. Then the ore can be allowed to be sold to Sweden - in controlled quantities, keeping Germany on a short leash.
Meanwhile, the Soviet-Finnish war began, which Great Britain decided to use as an excuse "legally" (under the guise of sending expeditionary forces to Finland) to take control of a strategically important part of the territory of Norway. In a note dated December 16, Churchill frankly admitted that this could push Hitler to occupy all of Scandinavia - because "if you shoot at the enemy, he will shoot back."
Many in Norway were not happy with such a prospect, including Vidkun Quisling, the country's former defense minister and now the leader of the National Unity Party.
Vidkun Quisling
It is curious that, despite his nationalist convictions, Quisling had close ties with Russia: he was the military attaché of Norway in Soviet Petrograd, collaborated with the Nansen committee in providing aid to the starving, in 1921 he participated in the work of the humanitarian mission of the League of Nations in Kharkov. And he even married Russian women twice.
During a meeting in Berlin with Admiral E. Raeder, Quisling tried to convince him that Britain would occupy his country in the near future. Therefore, he suggested that Germany hurry up, considering the German occupation the lesser evil. These arguments and the general state of affairs seemed so serious to Raeder that he arranged for Quisling two meetings with Hitler (held on November 16 and 18). In conversations with the Fuhrer, Quisling, who had supporters in the military leadership of Norway, asked for help in carrying out a coup d'etat, promising to transfer Narvik to Germany in return. He failed to convince Hitler, the Fuehrer said that he "does not want to expand the theater of operations", and therefore "would prefer to see Norway (like other Scandinavian countries) neutral."
This position of Hitler remained unchanged for quite some time. As early as January 13, 1940, in the combat log of the headquarters of the German navy, it was written that "the most favorable decision would be to preserve the neutrality of Norway." At the same time, it is noted with concern that "England intends to occupy Norway with the tacit consent of the Norwegian government."
And in Britain, Churchill really, as they say, went ahead. In Oslo, a phrase he said during one of the receptions caused great concern:
"Sometimes it is possible and wish that the northern countries were on the opposite side, and then it was possible to capture the necessary strategic points."
Ordinary British imperial cynicism, which Churchill himself did not hide in his memories and which he was never shy about.
The French allies of the British were not too far behind. For example, the commander-in-chief of the French army, General Gamelin, on January 15, 1940, sent to Prime Minister Daladier a plan for opening a front in Scandinavia, which provided for the landing in Petsamo (northern Finland), "seizing ports and airfields on the western coast of Norway", "extending the operation to Swedish territory and the occupation of the Gällivar mines. " Actually, France stubbornly did not want to conduct hostilities with Germany, but, as we can see, they really wanted to make war with neutral Scandinavian countries. Moreover, on January 19, 1940, Daladier instructed General Gamelin and Admiral Darlan to prepare a plan for an attack on the Baku oil fields - well, the French really wanted to fight at least someone other than Germany. The British thought more broadly: on March 8, 1940, a report was prepared, according to which, in addition to Baku, Batumi, Tuapse, Grozny, Arkhangelsk and Murmansk were recognized as promising targets for a possible attack against the USSR.
N. Chamberlain, E. Daladier, A. Hitler and B. Mussolini in Munich
But let's go back a little, to Germany, whose British and French agents did not receive money in vain, and there were no fools in the General Staff. The Anglo-French plans for Norway could not be kept secret, and on January 27, 1940, Hitler ordered the development of a plan of military action in Norway in the event of its occupation by Great Britain and France. And in Paris on the same day the Allies (Britain was represented by Chamberlain and Churchill) agreed to send 3-4 divisions of British and French "volunteers" to Finland. But then the allies disagreed about the point of landing for these troops. Daladier insisted on Petsamo, while Chamberlain suggested not to waste time on trifles and immediately seize Narvik, as well as "gain control over the iron ore deposits in Gallivar" - so as not to go twice.
The fatal incident with the transport ship Altmark
On February 14, 1940, an event occurred that served as a catalyst for further military preparations on both sides. The German transport ship Altmark, which carried 292 Englishmen from British ships sunk by the "pocket battleship" Admiral Spee, entered the Norwegian port of Trondheim, intending to continue to Germany by skerry channel. On February 17, a British squadron (cruiser Aretuza and five destroyers) sighted the Altmark in Norwegian territorial waters and attempted to board the ship. The captain of the German ship ordered to send him to the rocks, the crew to disembark. The British destroyer Kossak, pursuing the Altmark, opened fire, which killed 4 and injured 5 German sailors. The captains of the two Norwegian gunboats in the vicinity did not like this arbitrariness of the British. The Norwegians did not enter the battle, but at their request the British destroyer was forced to withdraw. The Norwegian government sent a formal protest to the UK against the actions of its warships, which was arrogantly rejected by London. From these events, Hitler concluded that Britain did not take Norway's neutral status seriously, and Norway, in the event of a British landing, would not defend its sovereignty. On February 20, he instructed General von Falkenhorst to begin the formation of an army for possible operations in Norway, telling him:
“I have been informed of the intention of the British to land in this area, and I want to be there before them. The occupation of Norway by the British would be a strategic success, as a result of which the British would gain access to the Baltic, where we have no troops or coastal fortifications. move to Berlin and inflict a decisive defeat on us."
Commander of the Army "Norway" Nikolaus Falkenhorst
The plan of military operations in Norway was called "Weserubung" - "Exercise on the Weser".
The French were also eager to fight. On February 21, President Daladier proposed using the Altmark incident as an excuse to "immediately seize" Norwegian ports "with a surprise strike."
Now Norway was virtually doomed, and only a miracle could save it from invasion. The only question was which of the opposing sides would have time to complete preparations for the occupation of the first.
Preparing for an invasion: who's first?
On March 4, 1940, Hitler issues a directive to complete the preparations for the invasion.
On March 8 of the same year, Churchill, at a meeting of the British War Cabinet, presented a plan for the immediate landing of British amphibious forces at Narvik with the aim of "demonstrating force in order to avoid the need for its use" (a wonderful formulation, isn't it?).
On March 12, the British government decided to "return to plans for the landing in Trondheim, Stavanger, Bergen, and also in Narvik." Four squadrons of British cruisers, four fleets of destroyers were supposed to go on a military campaign, the number of the expeditionary corps reached 14 thousand people. Moreover, the detachment landed in Narvik was to immediately move to the iron ore deposits in Gallivar. The start date of this operation was set on March 20. All these aggressive actions towards Norway and Sweden were justified by the help of Finland, which was defeated in the war with the USSR. On March 13, British submarines moved towards the southern coast of Norway. And on the same day Finland surrendered! The "beautiful" pretext for the Anglo-French occupation of Scandinavia was lost, and it must be assumed that the British and French general staffs expressed themselves that day exclusively in obscenities. Churchill, on the other hand, probably had to drink a double portion of brandy to calm his nerves. In France, the Daladier government was forced to resign. The new head of this country, Jean-Paul Reynaud, was determined to see the case through and still occupy Norway. W. Churchill became his ally in the implementation of these plans. On March 28, 1940, a meeting of the Allied Supreme Military Council was held in London, at which Chamberlain agreed with the demands of Reynaud and Churchill, and on his own behalf suggested that the Rhine and other German rivers be mined from the air. Here Reynaud and his military advisers tensed a little: it is one thing to fight in distant and neutral Norway, and another is to get an answer from angry "Teutons" on their front, where the military of both sides congratulated each other on religious holidays and played football on the neutral zone. Therefore, it was decided not to touch the rivers of Germany. The plan for the invasion of Norway, codenamed "Wilfred", envisaged the mining of Norwegian territorial waters (April 5) and the landing of troops in Narvik, Trondheim, Bergen and Stavanger (April 8).
"Since our mining of Norwegian waters could have caused Germany to retaliate, it was also decided that an English brigade and French troops should be sent to Narvik to clear the port and advance to the Swedish border. Troops were also to be sent to Stavanger, Bergen and Trondheim." Churchill writes in his memoirs with the usual sweet cynicism.
War in Norway
On March 31, 1940, the British cruiser Birmingham, the destroyers Fearless and Hostile set off for the Norwegian shores in order to intercept all German ships (even fishing trawlers) and cover the British ships laying mines. But those came only on April 8th. While waiting for them, the British captured three German trawlers.
At this time, the Wilfred plan was slightly adjusted and divided into two: R-4 - the capture of Narvik was scheduled for April 10, and Stratford - the capture of Stavanger, Bergen and Trondheim on April 6-9.
On April 1, Hitler was informed that the Norwegian anti-aircraft and coastal batteries had been given permission to open fire without waiting for orders from the high command. This order was directed against Britain and France, but Hitler, fearing the loss of the surprise factor, makes the final decision, setting the invasion of Norway and Denmark on April 5th. However, as it usually happens, it was not possible to prepare for the specified date.
On April 5, 1940, England and France handed notes to Norway and Sweden stating that the Soviet Union was planning to attack Finland again and establish bases for its navy on the Norwegian coast. Also "on a blue eye" it was reported about the planned actions of the allies in Norwegian territorial waters in order to "protect Scandinavian freedom and democracy from the threat from Germany." It should be said right away that they knew nothing about Hitler's plans in London and Paris, and the possibility of real German aggression against Norway was not even considered. As a result, the military clash with Germany came as a big surprise to them. Even the detection by aircraft of the German fleet moving towards Norway (April 7, 13:25) was ignored. Churchill writes in his memoirs:
"We found it hard to believe that these forces were heading to Narvik, despite reports from Copenhagen that Hitler was planning to seize the port."
But let's not get ahead of ourselves.
On April 6, 1940, directives to the command of the expeditionary forces in Norway and Northern Sweden were approved in London.
Meanwhile, even Swedes suffering from the most severe Russophobia began to understand that the Western World of "freedom and democracy" for their country is much more dangerous than the "totalitarian" USSR. On April 7, official Stockholm rejected the Anglo-French demarche, stating that Sweden would resist the violation of its neutrality. But in London and Paris no one was interested in the opinion of the Swedish government.
On April 7-8, the British fleet begins its advance to the shores of Norway.
On April 8, twelve British destroyers, under the cover of the cruiser Rigown, begin mining the Norwegian territorial waters off Narvik. The Norwegian government protests but hesitates to order its fleet to resist these illegal actions.
On the night of April 9, a mobilization order was issued in Norway - this country is going to fight with Britain and France.
On April 9, British newspapers reported that on the eve of the ships of the naval forces of England and France entered Norwegian waters and set minefields there, "to block the way into these waters for ships of countries trading with Germany." The ordinary British are delighted and fully support the actions of their government.
Meanwhile, the implementation of the Weserubung plan began in Germany. April 9, 1940the first German landing parties capture the main ports of Norway, including Oslo and Narvik. German commanders announce to the local authorities that Germany is taking Norway under protection from the invasion of the French and the British - which, in general, was the pure truth. War Cabinet member Lord Hankey later admitted:
"From the very beginning of planning and until the German invasion, England and Germany kept more or less on the same level in their plans and preparations. In fact, England began planning a little earlier … and both sides carried out their plans almost simultaneously, and in the so-called act of aggression if the term really applies to both sides, England is 24 hours ahead of Germany."
Another thing is that Norway did not ask Germany for protection.
The German invasion forces were significantly smaller than the Anglo-French ones: 2 battle cruisers, a "pocket" battleship, 7 cruisers, 14 destroyers, 28 submarines, auxiliary ships, and infantry formations of about 10 thousand people. And this - on the entire coast of Norway! As a result, the maximum number of paratroopers attacking in one direction was no more than 2 thousand people.
The Norwegian campaign of the German army is interesting in that during it, for the first time in the world, parachute units were used that captured airfields in Oslo and Stavanger. The Oslo parachute landing was an improvisation, as the main invasion force was delayed by a torpedo attack from Fort Oskarborg on the cruiser Blucher (which eventually sank).
Oscarborg fortress, top view
Oscarborg fortress
I had to spend some time on air strikes on Oskarborg (after which the fortress capitulated), and send paratroopers to Oslo. Five companies of German paratroopers, having landed on the territory of the airfield, boarded the confiscated buses and trucks and calmly, like tourists, went on them to capture the capital, which surrendered to them - without a fight. But the parachutists decided to do everything "beautifully" - to march along the streets of the city. If not for this German love for parades, the king, the government and the country's top military leaders, who miraculously managed to escape, could have been arrested.
The cities of Bergen, Stavanger, Trondheim, Egersund, Arendal, Kristiansand surrendered without resistance. On the approaches to Narvik, two ships of the Norwegian coastal defense tried to engage in battle with German destroyers, and were sunk. Narvik himself surrendered without resistance.
On April 9, 1940, Quisling made a radio address in which he announced the formation of a new government, demanded an immediate cessation of mobilization and the conclusion of peace with Germany.
The news of the German invasion of Norway threw the British military command into a state of shock. All further actions of the British are purely a hysterical fit of a child who rolls on the floor in protest against the actions of his mother, who did not give him the shown candy. The cruisers at Narvik were hastily disembarked by four landing battalions, forgetting to unload the weapons attached to them, and went to sea (weapons were delivered to these units only 5 days later). Escort ships that were supposed to lead ships with troops to Trondheim have been recalled to Scapa Flow - precious time is running out, the Germans take positions and organize defenses. The British, instead of opposing German invasion forces on land, are trying to defeat Germany at sea. After the landing of the German landing, the British destroyers attacked the German ones near Narvik, but did not achieve success. Only on April 13, after the approach of a new detachment led by the battleship Worspeit, did the German ships manage to sink - as a result, the crews of these ships joined the German land units, significantly strengthening them.
The weakest positions of the Germans were in central Norway. The only German units in Trondheim were few in number, the English fleet blocked the bay, two narrow passages in the mountains separated this part of the country from Oslo, from where help could come. The British landed troops north and south of Trondheim, but the extremely effective and practically unpunished actions of the German air force demoralized the British. The British paratroopers first went on the defensive, and then were evacuated on May 1 and 2, 1940.
The British decided to fight for the strategically important port of Narvik. By April 14, the number of their troops in this city reached 20,000. They were opposed by 2,000 Austrian Alpine riflemen and about the same number of sailors from the sunken German destroyers. Austrian fighters fought like lions against the superior forces of the British, and in this regard, one recalls an anecdote popular in post-war Germany - about two great achievements of the Austrians who managed to convince the whole world that Mozart was an Austrian and Hitler was a German. Fighting at Narvik continued until May 27, 1940, when the new British Prime Minister W. Churchill decided to evacuate these units, which are now needed to defend the coast of England itself. On June 7, the last British soldiers left Norway. If it were not for Quisling, who created his own government, King Hakon VII of Norway may have agreed to an agreement with the Germans, like his Danish "colleague" - Christian H. Now, deprived of power and the opportunity, at least something to offer Hitler, he is forced was humbly bowing to London.
King of Norway Hakon VII
The remnants of the Norwegian army surrendered on 12 June.
Danish Blitzkrieg
With the capture of Denmark, Germany did not have any problems. An hour after the start of the war, the king of Denmark and the government of the country notified Hitler of the surrender, the Rigsdag approved this decision on the same day. On April 12, the Commander-in-Chief of the Danish Armed Forces over the radio thanked his subordinates - "for inaction when German troops entered the country!" And the Danish king Christian X congratulated the commander of the German army on "a job brilliantly done." The Germans did not begin to deprive him of the throne. During the war, this pitiful king regularly supervised the implementation of the country's enterprises of the tasks of supplying Germany with food and industrial goods.
King Christian X on a daily horse ride in Copenhagen, 1942
Nazi "Source of Life" in Norway and the USSR
Let's return to Norway, captured by Germany. This country did not endure any special "horrors of occupation". But the notorious Lebensbern (Source of Life) program for the "production of racially high-grade children", which was supposed to be later transferred to German families for education, began to operate. In Norway, 10 points of this "Aryan factory" were opened (in which "racially valuable" unmarried women could give birth and leave a child), while in another Scandinavian country - Denmark, only 2, in France and the Netherlands - one each. In a speech of October 4, 1943, Himmler stated:
"Everything that other nations can offer us as pure blood, we will accept. If necessary, we will do it by kidnapping their children and raising them in our environment."
And this was probably the main crime of the Nazi regime in Germany, because it was not industrial goods, not food and not works of art that were stolen from the conquered peoples, but the future. Moreover, it was the Nazis who had to abduct children, mainly in Eastern and Southern Europe. According to the testimony of the head of Lebensborn, Standartenfuehrer M. Zollman, given to him at the Nuremberg tribunal, many children suitable for the program were found in the occupied regions of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. Of course, the Lebensborn points on the temporarily occupied territory of the USSR were not open - fair-haired and blue-eyed children aged from several months to three years were simply taken from their parents and sent to Germany. After four months of treatment in special boarding schools, who did not remember (or forgot) who they were, the children ended up in German families, in which they believed that they were raising German orphans. On April 28, 1945, the Lebensborn archives were burned, so the exact number of Soviet children kidnapped by the Nazis is unknown. Considering that only in April 1944, 2,500 children from the Vitebsk region were exported to Germany, their total number may be about 50,000. In Norway, things were different, the program was overseen by Heinrich Himmler, connections between German men and Norwegian women were encouraged, no violence was used against them. Today's Norwegians can tell as much as they want how desperately they "resisted" the German occupation, bravely attaching the notorious paper clips to the lapels of their jackets. This does not negate the fact that even at the end of the war, in 1945, every seventh marriage in Norway was registered between a Norwegian and a German. But the marriages of Norwegians with Germans were registered only 22 - because in the German army there were many men and few women. It all ended very sadly.
Norway after the war: shameful revenge on women and children
Immediately after the end of World War II, the "harsh Norwegian men", who were polite and obedient good boys under the Germans, decided to take their revenge on women and children. The provisional government of Norway, which suddenly remembered its "humiliation", adopted an amendment according to which marriage with Germans was declared "a highly unworthy act", meaning "the severance of civil ties with Norway." Parliament approved this amendment. As a result, 14 thousand women were arrested who had children from German soldiers and officers (they were officially called "tyskertøs" - German girls), many of them were deported to Germany, 5 thousand were sent to specially created filtration camps for a year and a half. All "tyskertøs" were stripped of their Norwegian citizenship (only a few were given it back in 1950).
"Society resorts to such measures to preserve the purity of the clan", - Norwegian newspapers calmly wrote about this, calling at the same time to inform on neighbors in order to wash away the "racial shame" from the nation. With children from the Germans, who were called "tyskerunge" or "German bastards" (not yet born - "Nazi caviar"), they also did not stand on ceremony. These children were officially declared "disabled and antisocial psychopaths."
Eugenic laws are now remembered only when speaking of Nazi Germany. Meanwhile, in Norway, the same ones were adopted in 1934 - simultaneously with the same Germany and Sweden. Of course, later than in the USA (1895 - Connecticut, 1917 - already 20 states), Switzerland (1928) or Denmark (1929). But earlier than in Finland and Danzig (1935), and in Estonia (1936). So the talk about the danger of the "Nazi genes" of the children of German soldiers and the threat these children pose to the sovereign Norwegian democracy did not surprise anyone. About 12 thousand "German bastards" taken from their mothers were sent to shelters for the mentally retarded or to psychiatric hospitals.
The memories of some of them have survived. For example, Paul Hansen said: "I told them: I'm not crazy, let me out of here. But nobody listened to me."
He was discharged from a psychiatric hospital only at the age of 22.
Harriet von Nickel recalled:
"We were treated like the dregs of society. When I was little, a drunken fisherman grabbed me and scrawled a swastika on my forehead with a nail, while the other Norwegians watched."
There is ample evidence of the extremely ill-treatment of these children in "medical facilities". Beatings were common, but rape was also practiced, not only of girls, but also of boys. Thor Branacher, another victim of the Norwegian "democracy", reports:
"Many of us were abused. People stood in line to rape 5-year-old children. Therefore, it is not even compensation from the Norwegian government that is important for us, but public disclosure of what was happening."
Norwegian lawyer Randy Spidewold, who later represented the children in court, claimed that drugs and chemicals, such as LSD and Meskalin, were tested on some of them. These "studies" were attended by Norwegian military doctors, representatives of the CIA, and even doctors from the University of Oslo.
One of the "tyskerunge" was Annie-Fried, who was born on November 15, 1945 to eighteen-year-old Sunni Lyngstad from the German soldier Alfred Haase. The girl was lucky: saving her daughter from the distraught post-war Norwegian democracy, Sunni managed to send her with her mother to the Swedish city of Torshella. At present, Annie-Fried Lyngstad is known to the whole world as "the dark one from the ABBA group." which, in general, was to be expected).
Anni-Fried Lingstad, lead singer of the group "ABBA" - "tyskerunge", who managed to escape the revenge of the sovereign Norwegian democracy
The "Tyskerunge" who remained in free and democratic Norway could only dream of the fate of Anni-Fried. They were able to leave mental hospitals and boarding schools only in the 60s of the twentieth century, while remaining practically all despised outcasts. Until the mid-1980s. the problem of "German children" was a closed topic in Norway. The liberalization of the Norwegian society proceeded by leaps and bounds, "successes" were evident, but they concerned anyone, but not children from the marriages of Norwegians and Germans. In 1993, the Islamic Council was created in the country, the purpose of which was "activities aimed at ensuring that Muslims can live in Norwegian society in accordance with Islamic teachings." In 1994 the first mosque was opened. But even in 1998, the Norwegian parliament refused to set up a special commission to study the issue of "tyskerunge" discrimination. Only in 2000, Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg decided to apologize for the "excesses" of the past years. This was done, as it were, by the way, during the traditional New Year's address to the citizens of the country.
Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg, who found the strength to apologize to "tyskerunge"
And only in 2005, the survivors of these repressions managed to get the Ministry of Justice to pay 200 thousand kroons (about 23.6 thousand euros) compensation - but only to those of them who can provide documents "about especially grievous harassment."
159 former "tyskerunge" considered this amount insufficient and appealed to the Strasbourg Court of Human Rights, which in 2007 made a decision to refuse to consider their cases, arguing this decision by the expiration of the statute of limitations.