Nasjonal Samling

Nasjonal Samling appears in the account as a party whose public religious alignment and internal currents did not fully coincide. Its symbol was identified as the cross of St. Olav, while some younger members pursued a markedly heathen alternative. That contrast became important to later arguments about the party’s history and about the political uses of pre-Christian Nordic identity.

Party and Religious Alignment

Nasjonal Samling used the old sunwheel cross as a Christian symbol, identifying it as the cross of St. Olav. The book distinguishes that official alignment from the outlook of the party’s youth division, whose members were described as strongly heathen and as intending to open an Ásatrú church in Norway. That initiative was suppressed. The episode points to a current within the organization, but does not establish that it defined the party’s policy as a whole.

Vidkun Quisling’s own religious thought also complicates any simple characterization of the party. He developed a system he called Universism, drawing on varied philosophical and religious ideas. The account allows that the system could be considered pagan or pantheistic in one sense, but stresses that Quisling consistently deferred to Christian forces inside and outside Nasjonal Samling. The claim that the party actively encouraged the revival of the old Nordic religion is therefore described as misleading: a mystical or partly pantheistic element in Quisling’s thought did not amount to an organizational commitment to heathenism.

Internal Opposition and Nordic Tradition

Hans S. Jacobsen represents a more explicit challenge to the party’s Christian orientation. An early activist, he later resigned because he disagreed with Quisling’s direction. Jacobsen objected in particular to Nasjonal Samling’s official endorsement of Christianity’s basic values. He instead favored the pagan element of German National Socialism, rejected Christianity because of its Jewish origins, and emphasized pre-Christian Nordic traditions as expressions of the folk.

That position led Jacobsen to criticize the party’s adoption of the cross of St. Olav as non-Nordic. He sought to promote his ideas within Nasjonal Samling through his journal Ragnarok, named for the Nordic myth of apocalypse and rebirth. His case reveals a real ideological fault line, but also its limits: Jacobsen’s efforts to redirect the party did not prevail, and he is described as largely forgotten in Norway.

Later Political Appropriation

Varg Vikernes invoked Quisling as a point of resemblance and affiliation. The account identifies a shared extreme vision of a Norway exclusively for Norwegians, while noting that Quisling’s name itself carried a potent charge for contemporary social-democratic audiences. Vikernes presented the relationship as both ideological and familial, claiming descent from an ancestor named Susanne Qisling and describing himself as having Quisling blood.

Vikernes also said he had tried to arrange a wreath for Quisling’s grave on the fiftieth anniversary of Quisling’s execution, but could not attend. This gesture and his ancestry claim show how he made the party’s history serve a personal political identity. The account’s distinctions remain essential: the heathen ambitions of some young members and Jacobsen’s opposition to Christian party values are documented currents, not proof that Nasjonal Samling as an organization adopted the Nordic religious program Vikernes attributed to it.