Translation of document C-65

                            MEMO
   [Enclosure in a letter of Reichsleiter Rosenberg to the
                    C.-in-C. of the Navy]

                                                   [illegible notations]
Re: Visit of Privy Councillor Quisling — Norway.

Rounding out previous information, I inform you that Quisling is
considered as one of the best known Scandinavian officers of the General
staff, that he was military attache in Finland, and that he represented
British interests in Moscow from 1927 to 1930 before the breaking off of
diplomatic relations between the Soviet Union and Great Britain. He was
Norwegian Minister of War from 1931-1933, being a representative of the
Norwegian peasant party, then resigned and founded a National Radical
Socialist party under the name of “National Party.” This party held and
still fields anti-Semitic views and stands for the closest collaboration
with Germany, has 15,000 registered members, and Quisling estimates the
number of his immediate supporters as between 2 and 300,000, that is,
that 10 percent which, even
amidst the manifest anti-German feeling in Norway and Sweden today, are
in favor of collaboration with Germany. His party has also not taken any
part in the elections for the Great Assembly [Storthing].

The reasons for a coup, about which Quisling made a report, would be
provided by the fact that the Storthing had, in defiance of the
constitution, passed a resolution prolonging its own life which is to
become operative on 12 January. Quisling still retains in his capacity
as a long-standing officer and a former Minister of War, the closest
relations with the Norwegian Army. He showed me the original of a letter
which he had received only a short time previously from the Commanding
Officer in Narvik, Colonel Sunlo. In this letter Colonel Sunlo frankly
lays emphasis on the fact that: if things went on as they were going at
present, Norway was finished. He only hoped that there would still be
sufficient of the nation left to be able to create a people out of the
remains which could then build up Norway again well and truly. It was
right that the race of today should be relegated to obscurity, and one
had to admit it didn’t deserve any better fate; for as he saw it, the
Norwegians had committed an offense against the unalterable law of the
universe. This law demanded work and idealism, and stupidity had never
been regarded as a plausible excuse. “I shall not do anything for the
old boozer Madsen (Minister of Trade), the enemy of Defense Monsen
(Minister of War), and the blockhead Nygolswold (Prime Minister). It may
on the contrary be a good idea and a useful one, to spend one’s time in
risking one’s neck for the national revival.” Signed Konrad Sunlo.

Arntsleiter Scheidt, who had been to Norway several times, and has a
number of acquaintances there, says that the Commanding Officer of the
largest drilling-ground. Hroslev, had expressed similar opinions, as had
also the head of the Military Academy at Halden, Captain Fritzner.

The king knows Quisling very well from the time when he held office and
he believes that the king also had a high opinion of him, even though he
is, by and large, pro-British in his views. The Jew Hambro is cited as
Germany’s greatest enemy, and as possibly the most powerful personality
in politics, who practically controls the policy of Scandinavia at the
moment. He is President of the Storthing, who at the same time holds the
office of President of the Foreign Committee. He is also leader of the
League of Nations Delegation and Leader of the strongest political
party, the so-called “Conservatives.” with whom the fate of
the present minority Government rests. Hambro also controls the
communication system in Norway, and so there is reason to fear — and
indeed shortly to fear — that as far as the anti-Russian feeling is
concerned, which has increased by reason of the Russo-Finnish conflict,
this will gain in strength in favor of England and against Germany in an
increasing degree.

A plan has been put forward which deals with the possibility of a coup,
and which provides for a number of selected Norwegians to be trained in
Germany with all possible speed for such a purpose, being allotted their
enact tasks, and provided with experienced and die-hard National
Socialists, who are practiced in such operations. These trained men
should then proceed with all speed to Norway where details would then
require to be further discussed. Some important centers in Oslo would
have to be taken over immediately, and at the same time the German Fleet
together with suitable contingents of the German Army would go into
operation when summoned specially by the new Norwegian Government in a
specified bay at the approaches to Oslo. Quisling has no doubts that
such a coup, having been carried out with instantaneous success — would
immediately bring him the approval of those sections of the army with
which he at present has connections, and thus it goes without saying
that he has never discussed a political fight with them. As far as the
king is concerned, he believes that he would respect it as an
accomplished fact.

Quisling gives figures of the number of German troops required which
accord with German calculations.

                          [Signed]
                                                            A. Rosenberg