• 1 “Årsskifte-Tidsskille. Europa under utforming i nasjonale folkesamfund”, Nasjonal Samling, 3 Janua (...)
• 2 “Hvad er Nasjonal Samling?”, Arbeiderbladet, 4 October 1934.

1In an interview in January 1935, the leader of the Norwegian fascist party Nasjonal Samling (National Unity, NS) Vidkun Quisling juxtaposed the “old order” of liberalism, parliamentarism, class struggle and Marxism with ‘a new order’, for which he, for the very first time, proposed the “foreign word […] corporatism”. Accordingly, the “European-American civilisation” was in a historical state of crisis which could only be countered by a ‘new order’ built on “organically organized social life” (samfunsliv), which would “create good and fair conditions for all”. If various nations would achieve this “organic unity” within their countries, they would also be able to establish a sustained peace order internationally1. This was a surprising statement because the NS had eschewed foreign terms and concepts such as fascism, national socialism, or corporatism as self-description since its foundation in 1933. Moreover, the party repeatedly had to fend off accusations from political opponents who outlined the NS leadership as “imported” fascists and as “Hitler’s agents in Norway”2. But with this interview, Quisling clearly positioned his party within the ideological camp of Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany, and portrayed corporatism as a historical force as well as a common feature among various nationalist movements in Europe. Why did a nationalist movement in Northern Europe turn affirmatively to such a ‘foreign’ idea indisputably connected to the corporatist model of Italian Fascism?

• 3 For an overview over recent literature on fascist internationalism, see M. K. Hamre, “‘Nationalist (...)

2This paper scrutinises the complex relationship between ideas of corporatism, the Norwegian NS, Fascist Italy and fascist internationalism in the 1930s, the latter broadly defined as the vision of international cooperation and affiliation among fascist movements and regimes3. On the one hand, I argue that Quisling’s reference to corporatism must be analysed from a short-term perspective in relation to his participation just a few weeks earlier at an international fascist congress in Montreux in December 1934. This event had been orchestrated by Fascist Italy to underline its ideological hegemony among nascent European fascist movements, and the Italian organisers explicitly used the myth of corporatism as a solution to social injustice and as a uniting principle for all European peoples. On the other hand, I argue from a long-term perspective that the NS fused the foreign corporative model provided by Fascist Italy with nativist traditions and used corporatism for its own ends as a signifier for a national and international ‘new order’ on the rise, based on ideas of solidarity.

• 4 A. Kallis, “Transnational Fascism. The Fascist New Order, Violence and Creative Destruction”, in F (...)
• 5 See R. Griffin, “Decentering comparative fascist studies”, Fascism. Journal of Comparative Fascist (...)
• 6 For studying fascism from the ‘periphery’ or ‘margins’, see R. Cârstocea, “Approaching Generic Fas (...)

3Seen from this angle, the NS becomes more than a mere recipient within an asymmetric power relation with Fascist Italy. Rather, this case study illustrates how minor movements became “active nodes not passive imitators” in the dynamic and highly unpredictable processes of interwar fascism4. Therefore, the paper contributes to a ‘decentering’ of fascism studies, challenging the previous tendency to relegate ‘peripheral’ or non-European case studies to mere ‘copies’ of ‘original’ fascist thought emanating from the two fascist ‘centres’ (Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany) in the interwar period5. Instead, this article is situated within a burgeoning field of transnational research that pays specific attention to processes of “cross-fertilisation, transfers, and adaptations” by showing how minor fascist movements in ‘peripheral’ regions such as Northern Europe adopted, adapted, naturalised and contested fascist ideas such as corporatism6.

• 7 M. Pasetti, “The Fascist Labour Charter and its Transnational Spread”, in Corporatism and Fascism. (...)
• 8 On CAUR, see M. Cuzzi, L’internazionale delle camicie nere. I CAUR, Comitati d'azione per l'univer (...)
• 9 T. Wyller, “Hovedtrekk av Nasjonal Samlings idéer om stat og samfunn”, Statsvetenskaplig tidskrift(...)
• 10 Thus, this article builds on my own research on fascist transnationalism and internationalism in N (...)

4This paper uses a four-part structure when addressing the question of how far the corporative model of Italian Fascism functioned as “a keyword for the export of Fascism” in the case of Norwegian Fascism7. Firstly, it discusses based on Norwegian historiography how corporatist ideas circulated in Norway before the foundation of the NS in 1933. Secondly, the analysis demonstrates how the NS party manifesto from 1934 envisioned corporatism vaguely as a promising alternative to capitalist liberalism and as a solution to the parliamentary crisis. Thirdly, the paper explores how the idea of corporatism connected the Norwegian NS to the Italian organisation Comitati d’Azione per l’Universalità di Roma (Action Committees for the Universality of Rome, CAUR, 1933-1939) and its so-called Montreux Front8. CAUR promoted corporatism internationally as a way to overcome class struggle and achieve organic unity in the nation, and in 1935, the NS took up this propaganda actively. Finally, the article examines briefly the legacy of the corporatist NS program and its fragmentary implementation in the 1940s during the German occupation of Norway (1940-1945). Next to various primary sources, this paper builds on former research by scholars who elaborated on ideas of corporatism and organic society in authoritarian, right-wing and fascist movements in the early 20th century in Norway9. Inspired by the so-called transnational turn within fascism studies, I contribute to this growing body of research through my emphasis on processes of transnational entanglement (beyond mere inspiration) between Norway, Italy and other European fascist movements10.

• 11 Political corporatism can be defined “as a system of political representation based on an ‘organic (...)
• 12 See S. Ugelvik Larsen, art. cit., pp. 95-97.

5Elements of modern political corporatism can be traced to the Norwegian constitution of 181411. Stein Ugelvik Larsen identifies privileges and special positions granted by the constitution to specific groups such as farmers, members of armed forces and civil servants as early elements of corporatism. These also include the partition of the Storting (parliament) into two chambers called Lagting and Odelsting12. After the First World War, corporatist ideas were discussed on both sides of the political spectrum in Norway. Det Norske Arbeiderparti (the Norwegian Labor Party, DNA), which briefly joined the Communist International in the early 1920s, rather foregrounded a program of planned economy than the replacement of the parliamentary system with a top-down model of state corporatism. On the Norwegian political right, corporatism was perceived as a tool that could solve class struggle ‘organically’, and thus as a method to counter fears of a Bolshevist revolution.

• 13 R. Clark and T. Grady, “European Fascist Movements. An Introduction”, in European Fascist Movement (...)
• 14 See K. Meyer, “Krisen som kommer”, Nationalfascisten, 1927. On the National Legion, see T. Emberla (...)
• 15 Quoted in S. Garau, op. cit., p. 147.
• 16 On the FL, corporatism and the inspiration from Fascist Italy, see ibid., pp. 144-151.
• 17 As argued by Ø. Sørensen, op. cit., pp. 48-64.
• 18 On the “distant kinship” between economic planning in Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany and Roosevelts’ (...)

6All over Europe, new movements appeared in the interwar period that drew on “wartime cultures of violence and benefited from political opportunities and fears that accompanied post-war state-building”13. Even in Norway, which had remained neutral during the First World War, several organisations that were inspired by Italian Fascism were founded in the 1920s in reaction to fears of increasing communism. These included the minuscule Den Nationale Legion (National Legion) that existed only from 1927 to 1928. It was one of the first Norwegian political movements to proclaim corporatist ideas as a solution to class struggle in its main organ called Nationalfascisten14. Another more influential example was the anticommunist and antiparliamentary Fedrelandslaget (Fatherland League, FL), which was founded two years earlier in 1925 by the national hero Fridtjof Nansen and the first Prime Minister of independent Norway, Christian Michelsen. Its goal was to create a government of national unity that combined all non-socialist (borgerlig) parties in order to bypass the electoral procedure. The FL invoked from the late 1920s on corporatist political reforms. Therefore, the Italian Fascist philosopher Giovanni Gentile contemporarily noticed its outlook as “anti-communist and markedly corporatist”15. The FL radicalised under its chairman Joakim Lehmkuhl in the early 1930s and issued a program in 1933 that took direct inspiration from the Italian Carta del Lavoro (Charter of Labor, established in 1927). Therein, the FL demanded a new law of labor, the implementation of corporatism, national solidarity and the prohibition of strikes and lockouts in Norway16. Intriguingly, next to Fascist Italy, the FL’s main organ ABC also pointed out the new German government headed by Adolf Hitler as well as Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal in the United States and their approaches against unemployment as potential role models for Norway17. This indicates the “distant kinship” between the political left and right in the interwar period when it came to solutions for how to solve social issues connected to a massive increase in unemployment due to the economic crisis rooted in the Great Depression of 192918.

• 19 C. Bundgård Christensen and T. ?Emberland, “Nordic Heretics. A National Socialist Opposition in No (...)
• 20 On the influence of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy on the NS in its formative years, see D. O. Bru (...)

7When the NS was founded on 17 May 1933, fascist and corporatist ideas had already been debated in Norwegian politics for several years. Even the small forerunner organisation of the NS, the Nordisk Folkereisning (Nordic Peoples’ Movement, 1931-1933), discussed the need for a government of experts (fagstyre) instead of a party government. However, corporatist ideas were just one among many hopes connected to the NS, which consisted from the beginning of “various factions, spanning from racial revolutionary national socialists, via fascist and right-wing authoritarians, to conservative Christians”19. Quisling became NS leader (fører) equipped with the unconditional and anti-democratic leader principle that also characterised Hitler’s and Mussolini’s leadership20.

• 21 E.g. D. O. Bruknapp, art. cit., p. 11; Ø. Sørensen, op. cit., pp. 78-80; S. Garau, op. cit., p. 21 (...)
• 22 “Nasjonal Samlings program”, Nasjonal Samling, 15 March 1934.
• 23 Ibid.
• 24 S. Garau, op. cit., p. 217.
• 25 E.g. “Hvad vi vil. Folkerepresentasjonen”, Nasjonal Samling, 13 September 1934; “Hvad vi vil. Stat (...)

8In March 1934, the NS published its first and only party manifesto that outlined a program shaped by ideas of corporatism, even though the term itself was not used explicitly. Several historians argued that the corporate state in Italy served as an inspiration for the ideas presented in the manifesto21. The party program, which was never replaced until the NS was abolished in 1945, was guided by the idea of national solidarity. The overall aim, as it was stated in the introduction, was the creation of “national unity” in Norway without class contrast and political parties, based on an “organic and solidary Norwegian society” that was governed by “a strong and stable leadership”22. Hence, Article 1 of the manifesto requested “a dynamic national government independent of party politics”23. In Article 2, the NS demanded that cultural and business life had to be gathered in so-called laug (guilds) of occupational groups, which should be organised in a corporate chamber called Riksting (lit. realm thing). The NS also requested better public administration and more state control over local municipalities, indicating a strong, authoritarian (rather than totalitarian) top-down state model24. The manifesto also included ideas of a planned economy and the prohibition of lockouts and strikes that were combined with the promise of overcoming unemployment. Next to the manifesto itself, ideas of corporatism were frequently discussed in the NS press25.

• 26 S. Ugelvik Larsen, art. cit., pp. 95-109.
• 27 On this “myth of corporatism”, see D. Roberts, Fascist Interactions. Proposals for a New Approach (...)
• 28 S. Garau, op. cit., p. 210.
• 29 See M. Birkeland, op. cit., p. 88.

9The main reason why the NS adopted political corporatism was the vision to end “class antagonism through the creation of corporations that united employers and employees where they could resolve their differences”, as Stein Ugelvik Larsen pointed out26. The NS built on a myth of corporatism as a universally applicable tool to overcome class struggle and achieve organic unity. This myth emerged internationally in the late 1920s and early 1930s despite the functional flaws and internal criticism of corporatism within Italy27. However, the NS corporatist outlook remained vague and “lacked a detailed analysis of what the new corporate structures would actually look like”28. The manifesto itself was rather a brief draft than a comprehensive program. Even some NS members seemed to be confused about how the corporatist system should be organised and which functions the different corporatist bodies would fulfil29.

• 30 “Norges faglige riksting”, Nasjonal Samling, 26 July 1934.
• 31 “Det faglige riksting konstituert”, Nasjonal Samling, 2 August 1934.
• 32 See H. Dahl, Quisling: en norsk tragedie, Oslo, Aschehoug, 2004, p. 163.
• 33 S. Garau, op. cit., p. 215.
• 34 See S. Ugelvik Larsen, art. cit., p. 98; S. Garau, op. cit., pp. 209-216.

10This vagueness was illustrated in the NS conceptualisation of the Riksting, which was envisioned as a kind of Norwegian corporate chamber analogous to the one established in Italy in 1928. The idea was to enable an “organic development of the society […] by creating a national organ for business and labor”30. A provisional “professional Riksting” was established on a voluntary basis at an NS party meeting in Trondheim in July 1934, when 300 representatives from all over Norway met in order to constitute what the NS referred to as the “first corporative organization in Norway”31. Beyond this first practical attempt, the key idea was to implement the Riksting legally in the Norwegian constitution. Quisling even proposed this to the Norwegian parliament, which declined the request32. The NS envisioned a bipartite corporate system based, on the one hand, on an economic chamber (Næringsting) which would be responsible for economic matters and unite the interests of employers and workers while still allowing a certain degree of autonomy. This system would not only have been “a tool to seek a new balance among competing interests in Norwegian society, but also a way to redistribute power to the advantage of specific economic groups, notably farmers and the urban middle class”33. On the other hand, the NS envisioned a cultural chamber (Kulturting) to be responsible for the country’s cultural organisations. Together, these two chambers would have formed the Riksting which was initially seen as a supplement and not a replacement of the parliament (Storting) that ought to remain in charge of the political affairs. However, from 1936 onward, the NS radicalised and wished to abolish the Storting altogether34.

• 35 As Quisling admitted in an interview he gave to the Italian journal Corriere della Sera. “Caratter (...)
• 36 “Fascisme over Europa”, Nasjonal Samling, 1934.
• 37 See M. K. Hamre, “Norwegian Fascism”, art. cit., p. 48.

11Embracing corporatism and other elements of Italian Fascism did not imply that the NS fully supported or succumbed to Mussolini’s regime. As outlined earlier, the NS always perceived itself as an independent, Norwegian movement. However, already in its formative years, the NS was leaning towards the Third Reich as its prime foreign role model. This was not only because of the geographical proximity between Germany and Norway but also due to the common belief in the superiority of the Nordic respectively “Germanic” races35. Nonetheless, the NS portrayed fascism positively as a general phenomenon, which was praised as the “first wave of the national storm flood rushing over Europe”36. Thus, the NS located itself within the community of fascism as a European phenomenon based on shared ideas of antiliberalism, anticommunism, and increasingly also corporatism37.

• 38 On fascist temporalities, see F. Esposito and S. Reichardt, “Revolution and eternity. Introductory (...)
• 39 F. Wilhelmsen, “From new order to the millennium of white power: Norwegian Fascism between party p (...)
• 40 On “palingenesis” as a key element of fascist ideology, see R. Griffin, Fascism. An Introduction t (...)
• 41 See M. Birkeland, op. cit., p. 82.
• 42 See S. Ugelvik Larsen, art. cit., p. 96.

12However, corporatism was not necessarily perceived as something that was imposed from abroad or considered foreign. Rather, it was naturalised and incorporated into the NS ideology through the lens of fascist temporality38. As Fredrik Wilhelmsen has shown, the NS constantly “evoked an image of being in a historical-transitional-period, where an era marked by materialism would be replaced by a new spiritual and idealist era, headed by NS itself”39. In this thinking, egalitarian liberalism and parliamentary democracy had to be overcome by a resurrection (palingenesis) of alleged older ideals stemming from the Middle Ages and the Golden Viking era40. Corporatism was thus conceived as a tool that retrieved mythologised ideals of a harmonic, organic old Northern society based on solidarity, which had not yet been corrupted by materialism and the ‘misleading’ ideals of equality promoted by the French Revolution41. It was no coincidence that the Norwegian corporate chamber was to be called Riksting, the Old Norse name for the historically governing assembly of northern Germanic societies. Thus, Quisling and the NS legitimised and naturalised corporatism by anchoring it in their version of history. In this line, the NS also portrayed the constitution of 1814 (which the NS defended) as a step towards corporatism while criticizing the parliamentary system that evolved gradually in the 19th century as an aberration of the core ideals of the constitution42.

• 43 On the Montreux Congress, see M. A. Ledeen, Universal Fascism. The Theory and Practice of the Fasc (...)
• 44 Comités d’Action pour l’Universalité de Rome, Das Organisationsfundament der Korporationen. Mit ei (...)
• 45 Quoted in H. Dahl, Quisling. A Study in Treachery, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1999, p. (...)
• 46 Comités d’Action pour l’Universalité de Rome, Réunion de Montreux. 16-17 Décembre 1934, XIII, Ro (...)

13In the course of 1934, the Italian organisation CAUR headed by Eugenio Coselschi approached various supposedly kindred fascist movements in Europe and invited their leaders to the world’s first international Fascist Congress, which would take place on 16-17 December 1934 in Montreux, Switzerland43. The key mission was to unite various European fascist movements under the banner of universal fascism, a concept that proclaimed the ‘spiritual’ hegemonic leadership of Fascist Italy as a universal third way beyond liberalism and communism. Corporatism was a crucial aspect of this ideology and CAUR promoted corporatism internationally as a template to overcome class struggle and achieve organic unity. For instance, CAUR published a booklet in multiple languages that highlighted the universal character and role model effect of the Italian state organisation for other peoples in the entire world. The booklet informed, among others, about a new Italian law from 5 February 1934, defining the constitution and function of corporatism in the Fascist state, organized in 22 different corporative chambers44. Vice versa, corporatism also functioned as a signifier for CAUR to detect movements abroad as kindred, fascist allies. Strikingly, CAUR president Coselschi invited Quisling to Montreux because of the corporatist outlook of the NS party program. Quisling, for whom the Montreux Congress became the first journey as a party leader outside Norway, argued in his response that “our movement has so much to learn” from Fascist Italy45. CAUR, on the other hand, presented the NS in documents distributed at the Montreux Congress as “inspired by Italian Fascism”46.

• 47 B. Scholz, “Italienischer Faschismus als ‚Export’-Artikel (1927-1935). Ideologische und organisato (...)
• 48 See Comités d’Action pour l’Universalité de Rome, “Réunion de Montreux”, op. cit., pp. 58-61. As (...)
• 49 On Moţa’s role at the conference, see R. Cârstocea, “Native Fascists, Transnational Anti-Semites. (...)

14Much has been written about the “éclat of Montreux” due to severe disagreements between the various participating movements47. Quisling even became one of the key antagonists of Coselschi’s agenda to unite European Fascism under Italian leadership. The NS fører refuted a civilising mission of Fascist Italy for the rest of Europe because he differentiated between a ‘Latin’ and a ‘Nordic’ contribution to European civilisation, the latter seen as independent from Italy’s Southern influence. Therefore, Quisling criticised in his speech the fact that no representative of Nazi Germany had been invited, indicating the influence of the Third Reich on Northern Europe48. The Romanian delegate Ion Moţa even created a schism at the congress when, in contrast to the Italian organisers, he argued that any attempt to form a “Fascist International” had to be directed explicitly against “International Jewry”49. However, a focus on the inconsistencies obscures the fact that there were also, in part, great consensuses on other questions among the participating movements, foremost on the idea of corporatism as a uniting principle of fascist internationalism.

• 50 See Comités d’Action pour l’Universalité de Rome, “Réunion de Montreux”, op. cit., p. 36.
• 51 Statements in favor of corporatism were made by two-third of the delegates from a dozen European f (...)
• 52 Ibid., p. 60.
• 53 See M. A. Ledeen, op. cit., p. 122.
• 54 See Comités d’Action pour l’Universalité de Rome, “Réunion de Montreux”, op. cit., p. 88.

15CAUR president Coselschi conceptualised corporatism at the conference as a revolutionary force that could “conquer the world” while countering both material communist class struggle and egoist liberal capitalism50. Accordingly, corporatism constituted the key to social justice in each nation. In the following discussions, most delegates openly agreed upon corporatism as a guiding principle of fascist internationalism51. Among those, Quisling argued for the general implementation of the corporate ideal through the formation of a “strong government”, whose form (dictatorship or not) would differ in the various countries52. Moreover, Quisling suggested the formation of an executive committee, which was then established as the Coordination Commission for the Understanding of Universal Fascism with members from seven different countries including Quisling himself53. Ultimately, the sixth resolution of the Montreux Congress confirmed the importance of corporatism as a core principle of fascist internationalism54.

• 55 “Årsskifte-Tidsskille: Europa under utformning i nasjonale folkesamfund”, Nasjonal Samling, 1935.

16Once back in Norway, Quisling triumphally reported to his party (in the above-mentioned interview) that he had met “national leaders” from various countries, who “completely independently” from each other had come to “analogous answers” on the pressing questions of European decay and crisis. Accordingly, he had gained a strong impression of how new ideas such as corporatism “are rapidly advancing everywhere, and that through all the difficulties and dangers that threaten Europe, it is only a matter of time before the new order of things breaks through to victory over our entire continent.” Hence, far from a mere import from Fascist Italy and a symbol of Italian leadership, he envisioned corporatism as a signifier of the rise of a general new order within independent countries. These countries had to create “their own solutions with their own resources and adapted to their own circumstances”55.

• 56 See V. Quisling, “CAUR, handwritten note”, Riksarkivet Oslo, PA-1308, Gc L0020, 1935/1936.
• 57 V. Quisling, “Organisational chart in French”, Riksarkivet Oslo, PA-1308, Gc L0020, 1935/1936.

17On this basis of national independence and sovereignty, Quisling joined further meetings of the CAUR executive committee in Paris, Amsterdam and again Montreux in the course of 1935. The delegates even discussed the possibility of hosting another large congress in Oslo56. On the committee’s behalf, Quisling drafted a detailed organisational chart for a future fascist world organisation called ‘New Order’ based in Rome. The draft included a universal congress, a president, regional offices, a coordination committee, and departments working on specific topics such as corporatism57. However, Quisling’s draft for a new world organisation petered out in the CAUR headquarters in Rome in early 1936.

• 58 CAUR’s decline was also linked to an Italo-German rapprochement resulting in the proclamation of t (...)
• 59 However, the contact between the NS and the Italian CAUR continued until 1939, when the Norwegian (...)
• 60 As argued by C. Hoffmann, “Die reine Lehre einer politischen Sekte. Antisemitismus in der norwegis (...)
• 61 As illustrated in Quisling’s plan for a “Nordic World Federation”, presented in the Summer of 1936 (...)

18In general, CAUR’s international project declined from late 1935 on among others due to the brutal, imperialist Italo-Ethiopian War (1935-1936) which alienated many of the minor fascist movements58. In the following years, the relationship between CAUR and Fascist Italy on the one side, and the Norwegian NS on the other side, deteriorated considerably59. Moreover, the NS underwent a process of radicalisation in the years 1935 to 1936 towards obsessive antisemitism that was fueled by internal dispute, conspiracy theories and the rise of the Third Reich60. Accordingly, Quisling replaced his view on corporatism as the key idea of fascist internationalism. Instead, he envisioned fighting “Jewish internationalism” as embodied in the League of Nations and the Communist International as the new key mission of fascist internationalism61. This illustrates how the myth of corporatism, coupled with ideas of Fascist Italy as a leading role model, lost its momentum in Norway from 1936 on, especially in comparison to radical antisemitism.

• 62 S. Ugelvik Larsen, art. cit., p. 101.
• 63 N. Karcher, op. cit., p. 663.

19Notwithstanding, ideas of corporatism as a model of state organisation did not vanish within the NS but blossomed anew when Nazi Germany occupied Norway in 1940 during the Second World War. This catapulted the formerly minuscule NS party (that never achieved more than 2% of votes in nationwide elections) into the role of a state party. The so-called ‘New Order’ was established on 25 September 1940, and the German Reichskommissariat under Josef Terboven was appointed as the supreme civilian authority. Henceforth, the NS remained the only legal Norwegian party and represented most of the commissarial state councilors, whom Terboven appointed as heads of the Norwegian governmental ministries. On 1 February 1942, Quisling became the official head of state as Minister President when the so-called National Government (Den Nasjonale Regjering) was formed, a position he held until the end of the occupation on 8 May 1945. The NS collaboration regime was characterised by a dual structure with overlapping responsibilities between German and Norwegian authorities, whereas the former could intervene whenever it saw German war interests in danger. However, from the Autumn of 1940 on, Hitler and Tervoben “gave the NS extensive freedom to implement their ideas of a Neuordnung [New Order] in the state, the regional councils and municipal authorities”62. Henceforth, “the Nazification of the Norwegian society became the main task of the party”63.

• 64 On the German organisation, see S. Baranowski, Strength Through Joy. Consumerism and Mass Tourism (...)
• 65 See Ø. Sørensen, op. cit., pp. 120-124.

20Both Fascist Italy and, even more so, Nazi Germany remained focal points of inspiration when it came to the transformation of Norwegian society towards the idea of national solidarity and corporatism. For instance, the NS mirrored the German Kraft durch Freude (Strength through Joy) organisation when establishing the Sol i Arbeid (Sun in the workplace) organisation in September 194364. Foreign inspiration was also shown when the NS drafted twice a new law of labor (one in 1942, one in 1944) which sought to implement the fascist leadership principle in Norwegian working life and institutionalise cooperation between traditional corporations, working sections and the state. Beforehand, a special committee studied extensively and critically both the Italian Carta del Lavoro from 1927 and the German Gesetz zur Ordnung der nationalen Arbeit (Work Order Act) from 1934. However, the NS did not simply copy those foreign laws but fused them with Norwegian labor traditions and principles in their drafts. In the end, the planned labor law was never implemented, hampered by the ongoing war efforts65.

• 66 See S. Ugelvik Larsen, art. cit., p. 104.
• 67 N. Karcher, op. cit., pp. 677-678. On the resistance of the school teachers, see also N. Karcher, (...)

21This illustrates the discrepancy between the NS’ far-reaching theoretical paper plans on corporatism and the fragmentary or defective implementation in practice. Two reasons, in particular, hindered the emergence of a full-grown corporatist system in occupied Norway. First, the German occupiers often overruled NS initiatives and thwarted the plans of their Norwegian collaborators. For example, it was Reichskommissar Terboven who finally canceled the NS’s corporatist vision to establish the corporate chamber Riksting to protect German interests. Thus, the Quisling regime only succeeded in establishing the relatively unimportant culture chamber (Kulturting) in 1942, which only met twice and had a mere advisory function rather than directive authority66. Second, the NS’s plans for Nazification through the implementation of a corporatist system were met with stern opposition from vast parts of the Norwegian civil society and various economic sectors. This was best illustrated when the NS government decreed two laws in 1942: The first law attempted to achieve Gleichschaltung among Norwegian teachers through the establishment of Norway’s National Socialist Union of Teachers which was regarded as a step towards the creation of a corporate top-down system within the education sector. The second law made membership in the youth section of the NS party obligatory for children aged 10 to 18. However, these decrees resulted in nationwide protest in the Spring of 1942, “which became the strongest example of civilian resistance in occupied Norway” and “a major political disaster” for the NS, as Nicola Karcher recently argued67. In the end, the government was forced to cancel its plans and the education sector never came fully under control of the NS.