Eugen Nielsen: Anti-Masonic Consultant for the Sicherheitsdienst

Ideological inspiration

In 1927, Nielsen was a board member of Karl Meyer's fascist party Den Nationale Legion, where he met the writer-philosopher Erling Winsnes, who lent him the book Freemasonry's revelation of the German general Erich Ludendorff. The book's main thesis was that the Masonic movement's apparently respectable and Christian facade hid a demonic Jewish brotherhood with plans for complete world domination. Furthermore, the book revealed the eternal conflict between the "Germans" and "Semites", a battle that had to be won if the Nordic people were to survive.

The anti-publisher

In 1928, Nielsen started the publishing house "Antiforlaget A/S", to publish and distribute anti-Semitic and anti-Masonic literature, and thus became one of the first propagandists of National Socialism in Norway. The first book the publisher published was the Norwegian translation of Ludendorff's Freemasonry's revelation. In connection with the publication, Nielsen began a correspondence with the general that lasted until his death in 1937. Gradually, the impulses Nielsen received from the general's wife Mathilde Ludendorff's pseudoscientific political-religious philosophy became just as important. In the following years, Nielsen published several of the Ludendorff couple's books, and distributed German, Swedish and Danish National Socialist, anti-Semitic, anti-Masonic and anti-Catholic literature, including books by the leading German anti-Semite Theodor Fritsch and the NSDAP's "chief ideologist", Alfred Rosenberg.

NNSAP and Fronten

In the autumn of 1932, he founded the party Norway's National Socialist Workers' Party or NNSAP. From 1932 until he resigned from NNSAP in 1934, he published Fronten as the official party organ, with Adolf Egeberg jr. as an editor. Fronten was a loss-making enterprise, and Nielsen sponsored the publication with several thousand kroner annually. Here he published several of Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson's articles against Freemasonry and other movements. At the same time, Fronten gave Nielsen free rein to publish his own political thoughts, including in constant articles with anti-Semitic and anti-Masonic propaganda. Several harsh outcomes against the Nasjonal Samling (NS) were also published. The newspaper was first published every 14 days, later more sporadically, and the last issue was published on 1 September 1940.

Nielsen resigned from NNSAP after a few years in the party, following a conflict with the leadership over the desired party profile. Where the mostly younger party leadership saw their main task as the fight against Bolshevism, Nielsen's focus was to a far greater extent attacks on Jews and Freemasons. Furthermore, there was dissatisfaction with how Nielsen led the party more as his own business than as a political movement.

World War II

During the German occupation, Nielsen moved on the fringes of NS, without ever formally joining the party. He maintained contact with his old friends in the radical National Socialist wing, many of whom had found a political haven in German SS Norway, and he actively supported the pan-Germanic opposition in NS.

Nielsen was no supporter of the German occupation or Hitler. On the other hand, as a staunch opponent of Freemasonry, he assisted the German security police Sicherheitsdienst (SD) in Masonic matters from the summer of 1940 onwards. He claimed that the NS leadership was infected by Freemasons and warned the Germans against a number of Quisling's closest associates.

When the Norwegian Freemasonry was closed in 1940, Nielsen was tasked with managing its assets and prevented them from being sent to Germany. After liberation, two car loads of Masonic belongings were found in his home at Frogner. He was imprisoned and put in Akershus fortress on trial for treason.

After the war

During the legal purge in Norway after World War II he managed to get his case delayed until 1950, after first having been arrested between 13 May 1945 and 1946. He died in 1963, and left behind a sizeable collection of weapons. Parts of the collection was sold in 1993 at Christie's. Money was channeled to a foundation Arkitekt Eugen Nielsens Stiftelse, which among others supported Arnfinn Moland with 50,000 kr to write the strongly NS-critical book Over grensen? Hjemmefrontens likvidasjoner under okkupasjonen av Norge 1940–1945.