Life in Nazi Occupied Norway

The Occupation

More than 86 years ago, one of the most powerful nations the world had ever seen was ravaging Europe. On April 9th, 1940, under Operation Weserubung, Nazi Germany invaded Norway but it wouldn’t be until the 10th June that they finally took full control over the country. The Norwegian army put up the strongest resistance towards Germany that was ever seen and even gave Hitler his first military defeat of World War Two, but it wasn’t enough. The reason Hitler wanted to invade Norway was because of the iron being transported from Sweden through Norway and then being shipped to Britain.

A First Encounter

In an interview in 1994, my grandparents, Margit and Arthur Storfjell, talked about their lives under Nazi control. The first time they really saw the Germans was in a naval confrontation with British in the Ofotfjord fjord. The British were forced to retreat but they came back three days later with more battleships and sunk thirteen German ships and only lost one. My grandmother worked as a nurse and cared for injured British and German soldiers. She said that many of those soldiers were less than twenty years old and many of them cried out “Mamma, Mamma!”

Changes

When the Germans took Norway after the foreign forces left, they introduced new rules and changes. My grandparents described the many changes introduced by the Germans. They couldn’t talk, they had their radios taken away, they had all their rifles taken, they would be sent to a concentration camp if they were caught singing the Norwegian national anthem. As my grandfather described “We were turned into minors without a voice.”

Humans or Monsters?

Throughout the war, there were two Nazi officers living in the same house as my grandparents and my uncle. One morning, Ketil Storfjell (my uncle) and one of his cousins had sung the Norwegian national anthem, in the afternoon, both of the German soldiers came to my uncle and grandparents and said that they had been awakened by such a nice melody that morning but they also said “Just remember one thing, if you know that we are the only ones upstairs, you may sing as much as you want to.” These two soldiers showed my grandparents that not all Nazi soldiers were monsters, some were just human beings. 

Towards the end of the war, there were other soldiers that came, they were not the kind soldiers that had warned my uncle to save him from a concentration camp, they were violent and brutal. My grandmother was terrified of them, terrified of being punished for not complying with their orders. They came into their kitchen and took what they wanted. They had a truck of things they had stolen from other houses. These were the Germans that Norwegians feared. 

The end or the beginning?

After the liberation, my grandparents said that there was the biggest 17th May celebration they had ever seen. They celebrated like there was no tomorrow with two Russian soldiers that my uncle Ketil had delivered food to in the German prisoner of war camp. In a symbol of gratitude, those two soldiers helped my grandparents plant potatoes. After those soldiers returned to Russia, they were never heard from again. The War ended but its impact was heavily felt, my grandparents always said that they always saw the Germans differently to other people. They always felt uneasy about them. This was the effect that the war had on the victims. The beginning of the fear of an entire country.

Reported by Thomas S