Abstract
The article considers the story of the Norwegian sports strike during the Second World War. What kind of resistance does the story reveal? What was the effect of a boycott of leisure activities like sports? The Norwegian sports organizations, unlike other international sports organizations, came to see themselves as part of the resistance movement against the Nazi regime during the German occupation from 1940 to 1945, using non-violent, civil disobedience as their weapon. Unprecedented historically and internationally, this meant that Norwegian sportsmen and women, for four and a half years, stopped participating in any way in sport. The boycott comprised sportsmen and spectators, regardless of whether the contestants were friends or foes, Allies or Nazis, Norwegians or German. Based upon previous and recent research the article contends that the sports strike can be considered an effective act of civil disobedience. It demonstrated in a visible way that civil resistance was possible, while the German and Nazi authorities sought to promote sports as a means of creating an impression of normality. Finally, the story of the sports strike can be read as a tale of the limitations of totalitarian regimes.
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