Varg Vikernes and Snorre Ruch's accomplice relationship

Varg Vikernes and Snorre Westvold Ruch's accomplice relationship centers on the journey to Oslo and the killing of Øystein Aarseth. Ruch drove Vikernes from Bergen, accompanied him to the apartment building, and was present as the plan ended in violence. Yet their later accounts placed them in sharply different roles: Vikernes described Ruch as a close associate and Mayhem bandmate, while Ruch portrayed himself as an indifferent accessory who neither wanted nor opposed the killing. The distinction matters because the surviving narrative is not simply a record of shared actions; it is also a contest over what those actions meant and who was responsible for them.

Association and divided loyalties

Ruch was connected to both men. He had recently joined Mayhem as a second guitarist, playing alongside Aarseth, and Vikernes later described him as Aarseth's best friend. For a limited period, Ruch also lived in Vikernes's apartment in Bergen and was a common friend in their circle. This placed him not at the edge of the dispute, but between two people with whom he had different relationships.

Ruch's own retrospective account diminished those connections. He said he did not care about Aarseth and had nothing to do with him, and described his position on the proposed killing as neither for nor against it. The book finds that posture difficult to reconcile with his recent membership in Mayhem and the importance of the band in the underground scene. Vikernes, by contrast, emphasized the closeness between Ruch and Aarseth, saying Ruch joined the journey because he intended to show Aarseth new guitar riffs. The accounts thus disagree not only about Ruch's intention, but about how much the two men mattered to him before the crime.

From proposal to journey

According to Ruch, Vikernes first put forward the idea. Ruch characterized himself as uncommitted, but said Vikernes was authoritarian and could persuade people to go along with him. Their initial arrangement, in Ruch's telling, was for Vikernes to travel alone. A few hours before departure, Vikernes changed the plan: because he believed he was well known and might be recognized while driving, he wanted Ruch to drive instead.

Ruch said Vikernes traveled concealed in the back of a Volkswagen Golf beneath T-shirts. He was not initially meant to enter Aarseth's apartment building with him. Before they left the car, however, Ruch asked whether Vikernes wanted him to come along as moral support; Vikernes agreed. That change made Ruch's participation more than the provision of transport, while still leaving an important boundary in his account: he said he never entered the apartment.

The journey was also described as having been surrounded by preparations intended to make the men appear elsewhere. According to testimony later given at Vikernes's trial, a third friend remained in Bergen while Ruch drove the seven-hour trip to Oslo with Vikernes. A video both men had already seen was allegedly rented and played in the apartment, so they could describe it if questioned. An ATM card was left with the friend, who was meant to withdraw money from Vikernes's account late that night; the wrong card was left, and the withdrawal did not happen. These details belong to the account of the prosecution's case, rather than to an uncontested account of what each participant intended.

Outside the apartment

Ruch's account draws a sharp line between accompanying Vikernes and entering the apartment. He said he loitered in the stairway, walked to the top, and stopped outside Aarseth's door. There, he said, he shuddered. He heard noise inside and then saw Aarseth come out with Vikernes close behind him, covered in blood. Ruch described the scene as a departure from what they had expected: he said the plan had been for the killing to happen quickly inside the apartment, not to become a prolonged confrontation in the building.

He said he ran down the stairs, passed the two men, and went out into the square, then began walking toward the car. Vikernes followed. This account makes Ruch a witness to the immediate aftermath, but not a participant inside the apartment; it cannot, by itself, settle the extent of his prior involvement. The trial account, meanwhile, characterized the killing as premeditated and identified Ruch as one of two accomplices who helped Vikernes. The difference between these frames—Ruch's account of a limited role and the prosecution's description of organized assistance—runs through the relationship's later interpretation.

Cover story and conflicting recollections

Ruch recalled that, on the way back, he slept while Vikernes had slept on the drive to Oslo. He said he had a fever, and that they returned to Bergen and went to a printer's errand the following morning. They also returned the rented video, which Ruch described as part of making their alibi as convincing as possible. His account therefore describes active participation in a shared cover story after the journey, even as he denied having entered the apartment or having much personal investment in the killing.

In questioning, Ruch said the story they had made up began to unravel. He described the difficulty of three people maintaining one version through interrogations lasting seven hours, and said he eventually stopped trying to sustain it. Vikernes disputed the idea that a confession was necessary for the case to catch up with him: he pointed to fingerprints left in blood and the contract he had brought to Oslo. The book also records that Vikernes carried a contract for releasing Burzum material on Aarseth's label, dated it on the ninth, and later said the date was an error. Ruch's account of the alibi and Vikernes's emphasis on physical and documentary evidence offer different explanations of how the story failed.

Their post-arrest relationship remained hostile and defensive. Ruch said he did not understand what Vikernes wanted from his version of events, and that Vikernes had drawn him into the mess; he added that he did not blame him so long as Vikernes did not shift blame onto him. Vikernes, for his part, said Ruch testified against him and tried to secure his conviction. Vikernes further claimed that Ruch received an eight-year sentence for psychological support despite having done nothing, an assertion that reflects Vikernes's own account of the trial rather than a neutral description of Ruch's conduct.

The relationship as a dispute over responsibility

The book treats both men's versions as flawed. Ruch's claim of indifference sits uneasily beside his Mayhem membership, his close association with Aarseth, and his presence on the trip. Vikernes's account stresses Ruch's friendship with Aarseth and his role in the journey, but it also comes from a convicted participant with a strong interest in explaining the crime and distinguishing his own actions from those of his companion. Neither man's retrospective characterization can erase the concrete overlap: Ruch drove Vikernes to Oslo, waited in the stairway, witnessed the immediate aftermath, returned with him to Bergen, and later described efforts to maintain an alibi.

The relationship therefore remains more legible in its actions than in its declared loyalties. The same journey can be presented as reluctant compliance, practical assistance, or participation in a prearranged crime; the same silence outside the apartment can be framed as distance from the killing or as one part of a divided plan. By setting the two accounts against the trial testimony and the logistical details, the book presents their partnership as both consequential and contested: a shared course of conduct followed by an enduring struggle over how much each man chose, knew, and should bear.