Legal purge in Norway after World War II

The legal purge in Norway after World War II took place between May 1945 and August 1948 against anyone who was deemed to have collaborated with the German occupation of the country. Several thousand Norwegians and foreign citizens were tried and convicted for crimes committed in Scandinavia during the Second World War. However the scope, legal basis, and fairness of these trials has since been a matter of some debate. A total of 40 people — including Vidkun Quisling, the Minister President of Norway during the occupation — were executed after capital punishment was reinstated in Norway. A further five were sentenced to death in Poland in 1947 for their actions in Norway.

The German invasion of Norway during World War II created a number of constitutional issues, chiefly related to what was the legitimate Norwegian government, and whether the constitution and Norwegian code of law remained in effect during the occupation. Although the occupying power, under Reichskommissar Josef Terboven and the puppet Norwegian regime under Vidkun Quisling claimed that the Norwegian government had abandoned its authority in the spring of 1940, the Norwegian government claimed that it had merely capitulated the military struggle for the homeland, while the executive branch had been given special powers by the Norwegian parliament through the Elverum Authorization. The Norwegian government's claim was upheld both by parliament and the Norwegian Supreme Court after the war, which in turn led to an extensive set of indictments and convictions against Norwegian citizens for treason, and German citizens for war crimes.

As early as 1941 and 1942, the Norwegian government in exile put into effect a number of decrees regarding treasonous acts. Capital punishment was reinstituted as an option, prison sentences under hard labor were approved, higher upper limits for financial penalties, and a new controversial measure known as "loss of public confidence," (tap av almenn tillit), effectively depriving those convicted of various civil privileges. These decrees reached a final, workable form on 15 December 1944, the so-called Landssvikanordning. Crimes defined in these decrees notably included membership in Nasjonal Samling, the Norwegian fascist party that collaborated with the Nazis.

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