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Norwegian Nazis On The Rise

About 70 years have gone by since the Norwegian resistance movement was fighting against Nazism and the occupation of Norway. Today, Nazis in the Nordic countries, or National-Socialists as they call themselves, have formed their own so-called resistance movement. They plan on starting a political party, according to NRK.

The Resistance Movement

The resistance movement (Den nordiske motstandsbevegelsen) believes that Norway has secretly been occupied of a Jewish-Zionist foreign power and that Norwegian democracy is therefore illegitimate. 

They believe that the Holocaust is a lie, homosexuality in public and same-sex marriage should be forbidden, and that schools should have nationalistic core values. They want a “racially customized” form of government where anyone who is not of Northern European or similar ethnicity will be thrown out of the country. 

Not A Political Threat

Terje Emberland who is a senior researcher at the Center for Studies of the Holocaust and Religious Minorities told NRK that he doesn’t worry about Nazism becoming a political threat in Norway because we have experience with having been occupied. However, he points out that they are a threat to the groups that they target. That could be Jews, asylum centers, journalists and other groups. 

When NRK asked “How much impact can such an organization have? Are they trying to hide that this is something that they stand for?”

Emberland replied “No, they’re not trying to hide it. They are on the contrary, standing up for their values and honoring Hitler, denying the Holocaust, harassing Jews, and so on. So that in that respect, this organization is so extreme and so evident in their old Nazi ideology that in many ways, it is unlikely that they’ll get any kind of political support.”

Nazis On The Shooting Range

NRK has identified 30 Norwegian activists of the movement. Seventeen of them have been sentenced a total of 24 times in Norwegian courts in the past decade. Many of these sentences were for serious crimes. Six of them were for violence and three of them were for breaches of the Firearms Act, according to NRK.

Several members of the Nordic Resistance Movement have legal weapons and are actively training to use them. At least 3 members practice shooting at a shooting range in Elverum. These 3 people have lost permission to have private weapons but are still allowed to rent guns for target practice at the shooting range, according to NRK. 

The owners of the shooting range are not allowed to deny individuals access to their facilities unless the police has given them a reason to do so. 

Demonstrating Again

The National-Socialists, as they liked to be called, have had protests in Sweden, where most of their members reside. Now, they are planning a demonstration in an unknown city in Norway this summer to protest against LGBT rights.

Jakob Ravndal who researches extremism warns not to make this into a bigger problem than it is. 

“They have to be taken seriously, but at the same time, we shouldn’t exaggerate their significance- neither politically nor with regards to violence. We’re talking about a very, very small group of people with an ideology that will have great difficulty gaining a foothold in this country,” he told NRK

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