Norway in the 20th and 21st Centuries

TL;DR - there are some Norwegian TV shows that will be even more fun if you have a little background in Norwegian history.

I've been watching Norwegian TV shows, and that sent me down an internet rabbit hole to understand some of the larger context and to go a little deeper on some points. (Aside: I am struck by how lucky I am to be able to sit on my couch with my tablet - a device with no moving parts - and have the entire history of the world - with moving pictures - at my fingertips!) Most of my information comes from Wikipedia, a source I figure to be fairly reliable (and one I give an annual donation to, because they are so very useful). Already, sitting down to write this piece has led me to several additional clicks and digressions, so this may take a long time to get finished!

I have always had a special interest in Norway, due to my family heritage. My maternal grandfather was born in Norway; my maternal grandmother was born in the U.S. but had elder siblings born in Norway. So I've had a sketchy knowledge of the history, have visited the country a few times, and even met the Norwegian relatives in one of those early visits. (Sadly the families all lost touch with the death of the older generations.)  This has no doubt given me a predilection to be more likely than the average viewer to watch Norwegian TV.

I watched a Masterpiece series called Atlantic Crossing. This is the 8-episode story of Norwegian Crown Prince Olav and, especially, Crown Princess Martha, during World War 2, from the invasion of Norway by Germany in 1940 to the surrender of German troops in 1945. Martha spent most of the war years in America, where she famously and possibly scandalously was great friends with FDR. From there, I encountered a movie called The King's Choice, which focuses on the first few days of the German invasion of Norway and the government and the King's response to it.

So here's a recap of some of the history of Norway in the first half of the twentieth century, including the events in these shows:

Current borders

In 1905 Norway finally threw off the oppressive yoke of its foreign ruler, i.e. the Norwegian and Swedish parliaments agreed Norway should be its own country with self-determination, for the first time since the middle ages. The Norwegians decided their own form of government should be as a constitutional monarchy, and so they elected a younger son of the King of Denmark to be their new king. (Aside: Norway had full women suffrage by then, far before England and the U.S., so it was not only half of the country deciding this, but all the adult citizens.)  Viewers of The Crown will be familiar with the duties of the British constitutional monarch: a lot of ceremonial and symbolic things, and specific recognition of the legitimacy of the Prime Minister and "the government"; Norway is similar, except the king routinely sat in cabinet meetings with the top ministers. Norway's new king enthusiastically embraced the Norwegian-ness of his new role and ensured his only son was raised thoroughly Norwegian.

So it was this elected King and his adult son and daughter-in-law, and their three young children, that were the royal family during the second world war. 

Norway, along with Sweden and Denmark, stayed steadfastly neutral during the first world war. They all three planned to do the same as the second world war broke out in continental Europe, and none of them had a large standing military. But this was a different time and new norms emerged. Norway's strategic importance came from its long, mostly ice free Atlantic coastline which gave year round open ports, unlike Sweden and Finland who became ice bound in the Baltic Sea. Germany did not have sufficient iron ore to support its war effort, and decided the Swedish iron mines in that country's far north would be their reliable source. The only way to get the ore to Germany in sufficient volume was via rail to Norway's northern coast and then via sea down to Hamburg and other ports. 

Finland was attacked and invaded by Russia (which was initially allied with Germany), partly to get access from the other direction to the Swedish ore. So Britain decided to invade Norway to secure the coastline, ports, and rail heads. Initially they asked for free passage from both Norway and Sweden to do this, and both countries declined. And so, in early 1940, Britain made a plan with France to invade anyway, hoping the Norwegians would bow peacefully to a fait accompli. But the allies squabbled over details and pushed their plans back by just a few days. During that delay, in April 1940, Germany invaded both Denmark and Norway, using the imminent British invasion as their reason. In just a few hours, little Denmark surrendered - including their king (the Norwegian king's older brother). (Aside: Denmark retained some internal independence for the first couple of years, but then became completely subordinate to Germany. But Denmark was the only country in Europe that effectively protected the entire Jewish population, evacuating essentially everyone to Sweden overnight, and it was done with the King's support).

The tiny Norwegian military, without any instructions from the dithering government, resisted the German invasion in Oslo long enough for the cabinet ministers and the royal family to escape to the northern countryside. This gave the Norwegian government time to decide on their response to the invasion: surrender or declare war on Germany, ally with Britain and France, and fight?

Remember little Norway had only been independent for 35 years at this point. Surrendering would put them under Germany's thumb, though with a puppet Norwegian government headed by a Nazi-associated member of parliament, Quisling, who had proclaimed himself head of government and seemed to have Hitler's backing. (Does the name ring a bell?) The only possibility of fighting was if the allies came with troops and ships, and they were busy fighting and losing in France at that time - the Dunkirk evacuation yielding the continent to Germany was still a couple of months away. But if Norway went to war, there would be likely massive loss of Norwegian life and destruction of their country.

As the cabinet wrestled with the ramifications of their possible choices, the King and the Crown Prince independently reached a decision. The Crown Princess and her children had fled to Sweden, seeking refuge from her uncle, the King of Sweden, and eliminating a possible pressure point. If the cabinet decided to surrender and recognize the unelected Quisling as head of government, the King and his entire house would abdicate rather than legitimize this puppet regime. Who knows how influential that was in the cabinet's decision? At any rate, tiny Norway declared war on Germany.

Britain executed part of their original invasion plan by occupying the Faroe Islands and Iceland, both at that time considered part of Denmark. Allied troops did land in northern Norway, and actually defeated German troops there and held them off for months. But eventually, the allies decided the position was untenable, they wanted the troops for continental Europe, and they evacuated, leaving the Norwegians to years of occupation and resistance. 

The cabinet and King and Crown Prince fled to Britain, where for a while the King and Crown Prince lived in Buckingham Palace with their cousins the British royals. The Crown Princess and the royal grandchildren proved an embarrassment to Sweden after they rejected a German plan to bring three-year-old Harald to Norway to be the new King of a puppet regime. (Tiny Sweden was trying hard to persuade Germany of the value of maintaining nominal Swedish sovereignty and neutrality in a very friendly regime, rather than simply annexing them.) So the young royals made their way to Finland and then to America on a still-neutral American ship that was fetching home Norwegian-Americans and others who had ties that gave them visas to get there. For a while, the Crown Princess and her children lived in the White House with a smitten FDR, making it official that the Norwegian royals had the nicest reception of any refugees anywhere any time. 

Norway, like France, maintained a government-in-exile in Britain, sponsoring many effective resistance efforts. One notable one included thwarting Germany's atomic bomb efforts through destroying a plant making "heavy water" needed for these weapons. Norway suffered greatly during the occupation, with the Nazis seizing and sending food to Germany, leaving the Norwegians to grow cabbages in every square foot of arable land. In 1944, after D-Day, the Soviets combined with the Norwegians to open a northern front, recapturing the mineral rich north. The hapless Finns had much of their northern territory permanently ceded to the Russians with the allies' blessing at the end of the war. Little Norway escaped that same fate due to support from Britain and the U.S., and now shares a far-northern border with Russia. The Royal Family returned to Norway after Germany's surrender to much acclaim and remains very popular there. The current King Harald V is the little boy who evacuated during the German occupation.

Fast forward to the latter part of the twentieth century and early days of the twenty-first. Norway is one of the richest countries in the world, with enormous reserves of oil under the North Sea yielding huge revenues, much of which goes to the government and is used for the benefit of the people, not private oil companies. They try to balance their green values with being a major world oil producer. They have a social welfare model and multi-cultural values, like the rest of Europe having accepted many more refugees than the United States. They also have a significant racist faction and have experienced white terrorism with significant loss of life. 

So with this backdrop, we (finally!) come to the two near-future 21st century Norwegian series I've been watching. The first, Beforeigners, has so-far a single season, and a second under way. I wrote in May 2020: "my absolute current favorite is Beforeigners from Norway via HBO. The premise is amusing: people from ancient times start to appear in present-day Norway in sufficient numbers over sufficient years to present an immigration issue that challenges the culture. It's neo-nordic-noir; our heroes are a present day troubled and cynical detective and his rookie Viking shieldmaiden partner. There are also some naked men."

And one I've just barely started: Occupied. It's premise is just on the edge of plausible:  A very green Norwegian prime minister chooses to shut down all oil and gas production in order to go renewable and prevent more global warming. Europe needs the Norwegian supply and is in crisis as a result. Russia sees an opportunity and with Europe and America's passive acceptance steps in "just to re-start critical energy supplies". When I first started this 3-season series last year, I was taken with it. But in last year's considerable constant real-life political angst, this tale of consciences struggling with compromise and collaboration versus resistance was too hard for me to concentrate on, and I only watched a couple of episodes.

Now, with my more in-depth background understanding the Norwegian experience and occupation in WW2 and the subsequent Russian invasion in the far North, there are additional overtones to the story I will look for. It's available on Netflix, and it'll pop up in my rotation fairly soon.