SS Day 1943
Poster issued by the Germanske SS Norge (Germanic SS of Norway) for its Schutzstaffel (SS) celebrations to be held on the 14th and 15th of August, 1943 in Oslo. Illustrated by Harald Damsleth.
Originally called the Norges SS, the Germanic SS of Norway was a subdivision of the Nasjonal Samling, albeit with close ties to the Allgemeine SS of Germany. The statute of the Germanic SS of Norway held that it was to function as a “link between the Germanic peoples and lead the construction of the Greater Germanic Union”.
Local SS organizations in Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands and Norway were known collectively as the Germanische SS (Germanic SS), distinguishing their populations as pureblooded Aryans. The esoteric racial doctrine of the SS considered inhabitants of northwesterly Europe a human reservoir of Germanic blood, believing that racial characteristics are tied to the natural environment from where they were derived. Following this logic, the Germanic peoples were said to be imbued with a certain hardness and combat readiness due to the harsh climate of northern Europe that they evolved to inhabit, making them ideal warriors.
The poster’s imagery is a nod to this ancient warrior past of Norway, with a soldier in a modern German stahlhelm clad in chainmail, bearing a shield emblazoned with a rounded swastika standing atop a traditional Viking longship. As seen in this poster, Fascist ideology tends to draw elements from the past that are incorporated into a contemporary narrative of interconnectedness and meaningfulness that is applied to a people’s current existence. It is this unique temporal relationship that distinguishes Fascism from generic nationalism, bestowing it with a deeply spiritual component that elevates it to a belief system beyond a mere political ideology.
The Nasjonal Samling was no different, with Kjeld Stub, an influential ideologue within the party claiming that their movement did not represent “ordinary politics, but a new spiritual uprising, both of a religious and national nature”. Their practices reflected this intent to revitalize a glorified past, with the Nasjonal Samling naming their paramilitary wing the ‘Hird’ or ‘Hirden’, after the medieval Norwegian name for the King’s guard.
The Nasjonal Samling espoused the idea of a revolutionary rebirth of a mythical atemporal people, whose true values and a primordial purity had been suppressed in recent history, yet lay dormant within the people’s genome as an ancestral memory. Their party program called for its people to discover within themselves their heroic destiny as modern Norwegians to bring about Norway’s rebirth from decadence. The clearest expression of this oscillation between an idealized past and future rebirth can be found in the nationalist cultural productions of the era, as seen in this poster as well as other similar illustrations by Harald Damsleth, in which the members of the movement are portrayed as contemporary descendants of the venerated Vikings. Within this matrix, modern peoples are understood as vessels of a slumbering greatness, and fascism as answering a thousand-year-old call to the destiny of a cultural community. Conversely, if this cultural rebirth would fail to materialize, it is said that their people would face annihilation.
The poet Åsmund Sveen, who became an important cultural bureaucrat during the German occupation, wrote as late as 1944 that he was ‘a spiritualist and idealist’ who saw the Nasjonal Samling as a historical-political movement that represented the final showdown with materialism and rationalism:
“This movement must give birth again [gjenføde] to the world of the white man; otherwise the West is doomed. That the economic liberalism of the West, which has degenerated into unrestrained capitalism, is now facing abolition, is something everyone must realize. The Asiatic socialism of the East, Bolshevism, is philosophical materialism in practice…One thing is certain – everywhere it signifies the hatred of God and the rebellion against the divine message. The people’s only salvation from this demonic chaos is a new idealistic movement that seeks spiritual acknowledgement and stems from elemental religiosity. By movement I do not mean any kind of political party, I mean an innovative historical idea, an idea of God, a great wave in the sea of history.”
Vidkun Quisling, leader of the Nasjonal Samling, would reflect this sentiment in a statement made in 1945, while he stood trial for high treason:
“For me, politics is not a question of party interests, a career trajectory [levebrødspolitikk], or personal ambition and hunger for power. It is self-sacrifice and acts in the service of the historical development for the good of my own people, and for the promotion of the Kingdom of God on earth that Christ came to establish. If my actions have been treacherous—as they have been portrayed—then I wish to God for the sake of Norway that many of the sons of Norway become traitors like I am, only that they are not thrown into prison.“
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Poster issued by the Germanske SS Norge (Germanic SS of Norway) for its Schutzstaffel (SS) celebrations to be held on the 14th and 15th of August, 1943 in Oslo. Illustrated by Harald Damsleth.
Originally called the Norges SS, the Germanic SS of Norway was a subdivision of the Nasjonal Samling, albeit with close ties to the Allgemeine SS of Germany. The statute of the Germanic SS of Norway held that it was to function as a “link between the Germanic peoples and lead the construction of the Greater Germanic Union”.
Local SS organizations in Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands and Norway were known collectively as the Germanische SS (Germanic SS), distinguishing their populations as pureblooded Aryans. The esoteric racial doctrine of the SS considered inhabitants of northwesterly Europe a human reservoir of Germanic blood, believing that racial characteristics are tied to the natural environment from where they were derived. Following this logic, the Germanic peoples were said to be imbued with a certain hardness and combat readiness due to the harsh climate of northern Europe that they evolved to inhabit, making them ideal warriors.
The poster’s imagery is a nod to this ancient warrior past of Norway, with a soldier in a modern German stahlhelm clad in chainmail, bearing a shield emblazoned with a rounded swastika standing atop a traditional Viking longship. As seen in this poster, Fascist ideology tends to draw elements from the past that are incorporated into a contemporary narrative of interconnectedness and meaningfulness that is applied to a people’s current existence. It is this unique temporal relationship that distinguishes Fascism from generic nationalism, bestowing it with a deeply spiritual component that elevates it to a belief system beyond a mere political ideology.
The Nasjonal Samling was no different, with Kjeld Stub, an influential ideologue within the party claiming that their movement did not represent “ordinary politics, but a new spiritual uprising, both of a religious and national nature”. Their practices reflected this intent to revitalize a glorified past, with the Nasjonal Samling naming their paramilitary wing the ‘Hird’ or ‘Hirden’, after the medieval Norwegian name for the King’s guard.
The Nasjonal Samling espoused the idea of a revolutionary rebirth of a mythical atemporal people, whose true values and a primordial purity had been suppressed in recent history, yet lay dormant within the people’s genome as an ancestral memory. Their party program called for its people to discover within themselves their heroic destiny as modern Norwegians to bring about Norway’s rebirth from decadence. The clearest expression of this oscillation between an idealized past and future rebirth can be found in the nationalist cultural productions of the era, as seen in this poster as well as other similar illustrations by Harald Damsleth, in which the members of the movement are portrayed as contemporary descendants of the venerated Vikings. Within this matrix, modern peoples are understood as vessels of a slumbering greatness, and fascism as answering a thousand-year-old call to the destiny of a cultural community. Conversely, if this cultural rebirth would fail to materialize, it is said that their people would face annihilation.
The poet Åsmund Sveen, who became an important cultural bureaucrat during the German occupation, wrote as late as 1944 that he was ‘a spiritualist and idealist’ who saw the Nasjonal Samling as a historical-political movement that represented the final showdown with materialism and rationalism:
“This movement must give birth again [gjenføde] to the world of the white man; otherwise the West is doomed. That the economic liberalism of the West, which has degenerated into unrestrained capitalism, is now facing abolition, is something everyone must realize. The Asiatic socialism of the East, Bolshevism, is philosophical materialism in practice…One thing is certain – everywhere it signifies the hatred of God and the rebellion against the divine message. The people’s only salvation from this demonic chaos is a new idealistic movement that seeks spiritual acknowledgement and stems from elemental religiosity. By movement I do not mean any kind of political party, I mean an innovative historical idea, an idea of God, a great wave in the sea of history.”
Vidkun Quisling, leader of the Nasjonal Samling, would reflect this sentiment in a statement made in 1945, while he stood trial for high treason:
“For me, politics is not a question of party interests, a career trajectory [levebrødspolitikk], or personal ambition and hunger for power. It is self-sacrifice and acts in the service of the historical development for the good of my own people, and for the promotion of the Kingdom of God on earth that Christ came to establish. If my actions have been treacherous—as they have been portrayed—then I wish to God for the sake of Norway that many of the sons of Norway become traitors like I am, only that they are not thrown into prison.“
