January 1941: Heinrich Himmler's cultural trip to NS Norway

The SS commander Heinrich Himmler went on a race safari to his beloved Norway in 1941. He was looking for the Germanic primordial stock and the fierce Viking descendants.

No one landed at Fornebu Airport in January 1941.

Shortly after the landing, Heinrich Himmler swears in the first Norwegian SS volunteers in a solemn ceremony. Regiment Nordland has been established. Members of this regiment will later take part in war crimes against the civilian population during Germany's campaign in the east.

This is the first of two visits this spring. Apart from two short inspection trips to occupied Poland and the Balkan front, the visits to Norway are Himmler's only trips abroad this six months. In total, he spent 21 days in the country.

According to the researchers Terje Emberland and Matthew Kott, who have mapped his journey in Norway in the book "Himmler's Norway", it shows how highly he prioritized Norway.

In addition to his calendar, they show that he has just under 20 conferences with Norway as the theme, both before and after the visits to Norway.

On his visits to Norway, Himmler demonstrates a completely dismissive attitude towards the Norwegian leader Vidkun Quisling. Himmler barely bothers to meet him. So what does he spend the three weeks he is in Norway on?

The primal voice of the race

Fornebu, 18 January 1941: The plane with Himmler lands. He is received by the highest German commander in Norway, Josef Terboven and the German police chief in Norway. The entourage travels directly to the German honorary cemetery at Ekeberg, where they lay a wreath. They then stroll down to the Seamen's School, where Himmler gets to see the famous rock carvings with his own eyes.

In the following days, Himmler spends almost all of his time cultivating his enormous fascination for Norwegian culture. Among other things, he visits the Folk Museum on Bygdøy, the Maihaugen on Lillehammer and the Nidaros Cathedral.

The highlight is the visit to the Viking Ship Museum on Bygdøy, with a function in the museum's restaurants where folk dances, folk songs and readings from old sagas were performed for Himmler. 

He also gets a private concert with long-player Ola Brenno. In the picture you can see a deeply concentrated Reichsführer-SS listening raptly to the game of longing. Himmler had long believed that in the Nordic folk music you could hear the race's "primordial voice".

The furious Gudbrandsdalen

Himmler then goes up to the Gudbrandsdalen – the foremost bastion of the Nordic race. Both Norwegian and German race researchers believed that it was here that the Nordic race type still existed in its purest form. While the race was in many places diluted by foreign blood and the race's soul corrupted by foreign culture, according to Himmler's men in Gudbrandsdalen, almost one hundred percent pure specimens of the species were still found.

For the first time since the famous visit, the farm opens up to the Norwegian press. The visit has been a burden for the family for many years and they will therefore not allow themselves to be interviewed about the matter. However, they want to clarify that no one on the farm has had anything to do with either Nasjonal Samling or National Socialism.

Together with Jonas Lie, among others, Himmler is shown around the impressive medieval farm. After the tour, Himmler is served coffee and sour cream porridge in the richly decorated Stolpestugu from 1783.

Otta station, Saturday 1 February at 15:45: Himmler's extra train arrives at Otta station. Here he is met by a motorcade which takes him towards Dombås and the old royal estate Tofte on Dovre.

Himmler's county theory

During the visit, Himmler constantly gets new ideas about matters that he believes need to be investigated more closely by his experts. For example, he gets the idea here that there must have been a close connection between Norway and ancient Greece.

The authors Terje Emberland and Matthew Kott write in their book Himmler's Norway:

"The Reichsführer-SS provides evidence that place names in Norway agree with old place names in Greece. "Phyle", the individual genera, and the term "county", which is found in Norway today, are probably related".

By LucciNation