Nasjonal Samling (Norwegian for "National Gathering", "National Unification" or sometimes informally as "National Socialist Party", hereafter abbreviated as NS) was a fascist party in Norway active in the period 1933–45. Founded by former minister of defence Vidkun Quisling and a group of sympathisers such as Johan Bernhard Hjort – who was to lead the party's paramilitary wing (the Hird) for a short time before leaving the party in 1937 after int...
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Nasjonal Samling (Norwegian for "National Gathering", "National Unification" or sometimes informally as "National Socialist Party", hereafter abbreviated as NS) was a fascist party in Norway active in the period 1933–45. Founded by former minister of defence Vidkun Quisling and a group of sympathisers such as Johan Bernhard Hjort – who was to lead the party's paramilitary wing (the Hird) for a short time before leaving the party in 1937 after internal conflict. The party claimed to have been founded on the 17 of May, Norway's national holiday, but was in fact founded several days earlier, on the 13.
While the party failed to muster considerable support in the national and local elections before the war, it made its mark on Norwegian politics nonetheless. Despite the fact that it never managed to get more than 2.5% of the vote, it became a factor by polarizing the political scene. All of the established parties in Norway viewed it as a Norwegian version of the Nazis, and generally...
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