Reviewed by: Church Resistance to Nazism in Norway, 1940–1945 by Arne Hassing Oddvar K. Høidal Arne Hassing. Church Resistance to Nazism in Norway, 1940–1945. New Directions in Scandinavian Studies series. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2013. Pp. xix + 384. The Norwegian Lutheran Church’s support for the resistance movement was critically important during the German occupation. As Arne Hassing shows in his long-awaited study, the Church provided the large majority of Norwegians with the certitude that they were right in opposing Vidkun Quisling’s Nasjonal Samling (National Union—NS) movement. The Church contributed an invaluable moral dimension to the campaign against Nazification. Because Norwegian religious resistance received recognition abroad for its effectiveness, Hassing’s book is welcome from a transnational perspective. It fills a void that previously existed by the absence of scholarly English-language literature on kirkekampen (the church struggle). In Norway, on the other hand, many books and articles have appeared that examine aspects of the subject minutely, but Hassing’s intent was broader: to write “the first critical book-length history of the church’s resistance to Nazism” (p. xii). His study therefore meets a special need. Church Resistance to Nazism in Norway is in part intended to be a companion volume to Torleiv Austad’s collection of major documents: Kirkelig motstand: Dokumenter fra den norske kirkekamp under okkupasjonen 1940–45 med innledninger og kommentarer (Church Resistance: Documents from the Norwegian Church Struggle during the Occupation, 1940–45, with Introductions and Commentaries) (Høyskoleforlaget, 2005). Hassing therefore cross-references his citations with documents in Austad’s compilation. These form, however, only a portion of the source material used by the author, who has carried out the most extensive archival research on kirkekampen to date. He visited not only Norwegian archives but also collections in Sweden, Germany, Switzerland, Great Britain, and the United States. He acquired an equally good command of secondary [End Page 477] sources in Norwegian, English, Swedish, and German. Church Resistance to Nazism in Norway is consequently useful for anyone interested in the occupation, from readers lacking knowledge of Norwegian to advanced researchers who can utilize references to Austad’s collection. The book is organized into seven parts, the first and last dealing with the Church prior to and after the war, while the five main sections cover the Church’s evolving position during the occupation. In Part I, Hassing sets the scene by examining the strengths and weaknesses of the Norwegian Church. It benefited from observing what occurred in Germany, where Hitler gained support from the majority of Lutherans. Their Norwegian co-religionists, however, rejected Nazism already before the war. The Church was further strengthened by the anti-authoritarianism of its fundamentalist members. But Hassing also points to weaknesses, including the Church’s long-standing subservience to the state, the embedded nature of the clergy within the bureaucracy, plus deep divisions between liberal and conservative factions. Why the outcome in Norway proved to be different from Germany, writes Hassing, “is the question that this book attempts to answer” (p. 17). He does so by covering chronologically how the Church did not merely respond to Nazi moves, but often took the initiative. Although Hassing maintains that the Church was “comparatively late” in adopting a “posture of resistance” (p. xiii), his text actually shows that its leaders acted effectively as the occasion required. Once Reichskommissar (Imperial Commissioner) Josef Terboven, Hitler’s highest official, gave government control to the NS-dominated Commissarial Council in September 1940, Bishop Eivind Berggrav of Oslo took action to form the Christian Consultative Council (CCC), unifying conservatives and liberals. The CCC in January 1941 strongly condemned NS violence and disregard for the law in a pastoral letter that was read from the pulpit and spread abroad, gaining international publicity. Most importantly, this “first collective attack on the new order” (p. 77) generated public support. During 1941, Berggrav worked out theological justification for opposition to the state, creating the “subversive” doctrine that Church obedience was conditional, determined by whether the government acted morally. The crisis that Berggrav anticipated arrived when Terboven appointed Quisling Minister President as head of government on February 1, 1942. The latter was determined to implement...
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Sep 7, 2023
Jens Haugan 
Open Access
