Johan Bernhard Hjort: Co-founder of Nasjonal Samling

Early life and career

Hjort began studying law and graduated in 1919 with a cand.jur., equivalent to a master's degree. Shortly after graduating, Hjort was employed by the law firm Bredal, Fougner and Schjødt, which at the time was one of Oslo's leading firms. After a year, he was asked to leave in order to gain more experience as a temporary judge. Hjort then worked for a year in Aker before joining the Union of Norwegian Cities (Norges Byforbund, now KS) as a legal consultant.

Following the First World War, Norway experienced significant economic troubles. Through his position at the Union of Norwegian Cities, Hjort gained in-depth knowledge of the poor finances of the municipalities and the state. Together with his friend Trygve Hoff (later editor of Farmand), Hjort prepared an alternative state budget in 1923 to improve the budget overview. As a result, he was eventually tasked with an investigation assignment for Johan Egeberg Mellbye in the Farmers' Party and a position as an advisor for the Lykke government under Finance Minister Fredrik Ludvig Konow.

As Hjort prepared his economic reports, focused on the state's poor finances and the politicians' inability to balance the budget deficit, his confidence in the existing non-socialist parties weakened. In 1927, Hjort joined the Fatherland League and was elected to the Aker county council for the Conservative Party. In the 1930 parliamentary elections, Hjort campaigned for a non-socialist victory, and attacking revolutionary aspects of the Labour Party. Responding to an article by Edvard Bull Sr. (Labor Party politician and later Foreign Minister) in the journal Vor Verden, Hjort argued that one could not give power to an admitted revolutionary party even if it won the election, as this would be tantamount to "bolshevism by parliamentary means" ("bolsjevismen ad parlamentarisk vei").

Involvement with Nasjonal Samling

Beginning

Hjort was in contact with a circle of concerned establishment figures, to which Vidkun Quisling had also been invited. From the spring of 1930, they met for dinner at Frederik Prytz's house at Hafrsfjordsgaten 7. In May 1931, Quisling was appointed Minister of Defense in Peder L. Kolstad's government, formed by the Farmers' Party. During the throne speech in April 1932, Quisling gave a speech in the Storting in which he accused the two socialist parties (the Labor Party, DNA, and the Communist Party of Norway, NKP) of treasonous connections with the Soviet Union. The circle around Prytz attempted to use the speech to promote Quisling's political position and weaken the socialist parties.

In May 1932, the circle from Hafrsfjordsgate formed an informal group called "Polkom"; from Hjort's office, this group worked to exploit Quisling's accusations and information against the two socialist parties. This marked the start of Hjort's period of close collaboration with Quisling. Polkom's work was aimed at getting the non-socialist parties to declare DNA and NKP illegal, as they aimed to overthrow the system. During the summer and fall, Hjort developed a plan, based on constitutional theory, for a coup d'état carried out by the government against the Storting. Under this plan, parliamentarism was to be abolished and the threat from the socialists neutralized.

Hjort's basis for taking such drastic action was his sense of crisis. As Hjort saw it, the plan was constitutionally legitimate, and he saw a unifying anti-socialist leader in Vidkun Quisling. To showcase the constitutional legality of the coup d'état plan, Hjort referred to 1814, 1884 and 1905; three major years in Norwegian political history. However, the success of the plan depended on broad support, and to ensure this, a meeting was held on October 26, 1932 at the home of landowner Carl Otto Løvenskiold at Bærums Verk.

Founding of Nasjonal Samling

Jens Hundseid's government fell in March 1933, and Polkom - in which Hjort played a central role - explored the possibility of a broad non-socialist coalition that would include the Farmers' Party, the Fatherland League, and others. However, a lack of interest in this front meant that on 17 May, in the newspaper Tidens Tegn, Quisling presented a program for a separate party, Nasjonal Samling. As de facto deputy leader of the new party, Hjort threw himself into the election campaign for the 1933 general election, in which his wife Anna Cathrine also participated.

The newly founded party did not get any MPs. Hjort lamented about Quisling's leadership style, which he felt was unclear and amateurish. In the spring of 1934, NS made a new attempt at non-socialist cooperation, led by Hjort. However, these negotiations were unsuccessful, and in March 1935 the Labor Party formed a government with the support of the Farmers' Party.

In addition to his legal practice, Hjort continued to work organizationally for NS. He also investigated how laws and the Constitution must be amended to meet "the demands of the new era". He also put forward a proposal in the spring of 1935 to reintroduce the "Jew clause" (a historical ban excluding Jews from Norway) in the Constitution. Despite the fact that Hjort was a co-founder and de facto deputy leader of NS, his ideas about the organization of the state were in theory within the limits of democracy. Hjort was also not a supporter of a planned economy, and he distanced himself from German National Socialism.

In March 1935, Hjort took over the leadership of Hirden, who partly acted as security guards at NS meetings, but whose primary task was to discipline and educate its members. Hirden was modeled after the German SA. With his Prussian background, sergeant training from the Armed Forces and natural authority, Hjort was made for the role. Hirden was the activist core of NS, with a couple hundred members. At a meeting in Gjøvik on Ascension Day 1936, Hjort addressed several thousand attendees and opened with "Countrymen, traitors, monkeys and others". The meeting ended in chaos and street fighting, the so-called Torgslaget.

Internal struggle and break with NS

Johan Bernhard Hjort had little patience with people he regarded as "fools" or amateurish, and he believed there were many of them in NS. In addition, Hjort was an able organizer, and a good speaker. Quisling's lack of these qualities was very problematic for the party. A battle for the leadership of NS was therefore inevitable.

In the summer of 1936, Hjort traveled to Germany to seek support for NS. Probably with the help of his German brothers-in-law, he met Heinrich Himmler, among others. He was well received, but received no financial support. However, Himmler offered to link NS to the German SS, which Hjort is said to have rejected.

Back in Norway, he became involved in the NS action against Trotsky. Hirden broke into Konrad Knudsen's house in Hønefoss, where Trotsky lived, and took a number of documents that Hjort handed over to the police. The case attracted enormous attention and was for NS a successful provocation. NS's fight against communism and Judaism took center stage, and Trotsky was eventually expelled.

In the election campaign before the 1936 general election, Hjort gave everything. At the same time, he was under pressure from internal intrigues in NS and the knowledge that he was neglecting his family in favor of politics. However, NS had a poor showing in the election and was once again left without MPs. In the internal dispute that followed, Hjort proposed far-reaching organizational changes. Hjort's proposals were rejected, and in the fall of 1936 the conflict between him and NS intensified. In February 1937, he left the party, and several other key figures left NS at this time as well.

Prelude to war

On 14 June 1937, Himmler visited the lawyer Rüdiger von der Goltz (Hjort's brother-in-law) to meet Hjort and be briefed on the National Socialist movement in Norway.

The years of hectic political activity had a negative effect on Hjort's law practice; his finances had been supported by his wife's uncle Johan Throne Holst, a debt he now had to work to pay off. Hjort kept in contact with other NS breakaways, and he wrote for the right-wing, nationalist and NS-critical journal Ragnarok.

The Kristallnacht of 9 November 1938 shocked Hjort; "Germany's friends are looking for an honorable defense and a reasonable motive for all this. They refuse to believe that German order and discipline have come to an end and that the German state must give the people this kind of circus performance for the sake of domestic peace." At the same time, Hjort had accepted the Nuremberg Laws and argued in the autumn of 1938 that a race war was looming, with the "Nordic tribe in the world decreasing in numbers, while other races multiply like rats".

In September 1939, World War II broke out, and in November the Winter War began with the Soviet Union's attack on Finland. Germany had signed a non-aggression pact with the Soviets and therefore remained passive, which was a hard blow for Hjort. Several of Hjort's friends, including his father, traveled to Finland as volunteers. He considered going himself, but decided against it for the sake of his family. Up until 1940, Hjort was engaged in strengthening the armed forces, and he and his two sons received voluntary military training themselves.

German invasion

On April 9, 1940, Germany invaded Norway. Hjort was a conscripted sergeant and reported for duty, but like so many others, he was told to wait. In the evening, he heard his former colleague Vidkun Quisling declare on the radio that a new national government had taken over. Greatly provoked, Hjort contacted other pro-German Norwegians: Victor Mogens, Per Imerslund, Albert Wiesener, Otto Sverdrup Engelschiøn and Hans S. Jacobsen. Hjort's plan was to contact the Germans to stop Quisling's coup attempt.

On April 14, the Administrative Council was established, and Quisling's coup attempt had failed. During the spring, Hjort began working to help and release the Norwegian prisoners of war. By the end of May 1940, 11,000 Norwegian prisoners of war had been released. However, the work came at a price, as the officers had to swear an oath not to take up arms against the occupying forces. Hjort was later criticized for this, and a number of officers, led by Otto Ruge, chose captivity instead. Hjort was also an active writer in Tidens Tegn. He was most outspoken in Ragnarok, where he wrote that one had to be optimistic and build the country; as "then both Norway's independence and a friendly relationship with our kindred people in the south will come as a matter of course."

In the unclear situation after the invasion, Hjort was well suited as a middleman as he was both a respected Supreme Court lawyer and fluent in German. Hjort also dealt with finding work for the released prisoners and with insurance settlements after the fighting through the War Injury Insurance Fund. During the summer of 1940, Hjort was constantly involved in the various negotiations between the German and Norwegian sides. These culminated in Terboven's proposal for a Riksråd. Hjort was open to a position on this council, but withdrew when Terboven demanded that NS be represented.

As late as August 1940, Hjort attempted to bring the major parties together, and he had meetings with representatives of the Conservative Party, the Labor Party, the Liberal Party and the Farmers' Party. He was not alone in his desire to make the best of the situation. Einar Gerhardsen had similar ideas, but they were quickly torpedoed by the Germans when Terboven declared on September 25 that Nasjonal Samling was Norway's only legal political party.

Imprisonment

With clear lines drawn after Terboven's speech, Hjort withdrew from party politics for the last time and devoted all his time to law. With his knowledge of German affairs, he was a resource for other Norwegian lawyers. There were many cases when Norwegian resistance fighters needed defence counsel. It was a legal voyage through increasingly troubled waters; the Supreme Court was dismissed, and the occupation forces were constantly pushing for lawyers to adapt to the new conditions. He also held lectures in the German-controlled Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation, alongside individuals like Albert Wiesener, Jonas Lie, and Ranik Halle.

In January 1941, the Norwegian Bar Association was pressured to include an article in the Norwegian Legal Gazette on "The development of constitutional law in Norway" by Rudolf Schiedermair, Terboven's legal adviser. Hjort took it upon himself to write a response with the assistance of other Norwegian lawyers and Frede Castberg. Hjort's response was diplomatic in form, but nevertheless ruthless when Hjort concluded that the Germans had violated international law by their conduct during the occupation, and that Quisling had committed a coup d'état.

Hjort must have known what such public criticism of the occupying forces would lead to, and he was arrested on October 21, 1941. Hjort was first detained at Møllergata 19 (Oslo's main police station at the time) and then transferred to the Grini prison camp in December 1941. The time in solitary confinement at Møllergata 19 was a difficult period for Hjort, but the community at Grini with many acquaintances made his imprisonment easier. In fact, many of the most important of the Norwegian social elite were at Grini. After the liberation, it was seen as a badge of honor to have been imprisoned there. From then on, Johan Bernhard Hjort was definitely considered to have been on "the right side" of the war.

In Germany, his brothers-in-law tried to get him released, and Rüdiger was allowed to meet Terboven in November 1941. But the German Reichskommissar was outraged and stated: "The pig sits down and writes an article" (German: "Das Schwein setzt sich nieder und schreibt einen Artikel".) Hjort's attempts to speak out against the occupation forces were not taken kindly. At the same time, his arrest was also linked to his brother-in-law Johan Holst's escape to Sweden.

On February 6, 1942, Hjort was sent to Germany on the prison ship "Donau" and placed in the prison at Alexanderplatz in Berlin. Hjort's brother-in-law Rüdiger approached Himmler, and the SS commander was open to an agreement that resulted in Hjort being released, but having to stay in Germany with his family until the end of the war.

In May, Rüdiger was allowed to meet Hjort to explain the conditions, but Hjort's family in Norway, Anna Cathrine and the six children were reluctant to settle in Germany.

Anna Cathrine Hjort was allowed to meet her husband in Berlin, but she and the children were equally dismissive. There were rumors and many people believed that Hjort was now willing to cooperate with the occupiers. Hjort was released, but in so-called civilian internment. Rüdiger got him a job as a legal consultant in the oil company Continentale Oehl Gesellschaft in Berlin. By October, after strong German pressure, the family had given in and settled on the Gross Kreutz estate in the village of the same name 20 km west of Potsdam. The estate was owned by Hjort's cousin Bodo von der Marwitz.

Post-war career 

After the war, Hjort fought as a supreme court lawyer for the artistic freedom of controversial artists and for the natural legal rights of homosexuals. In 1957, in one of the most famous and widely debated court cases in Norwegian post-war history, Hjort was the defense lawyer for novelist Agnar Mykle, who was accused of immoral and obscene writing in his books. Hjort was a long-term leader of Riksmålsforbundet, an association that fought for the free evolution of the Norwegian language, in the direction of Riksmål. He was a prolific writer and lecturer and a frequent contributor to public debate. Among his books are Justismord (1952), Dømt med rette? (1958), and Demokrati og statsmakt (1963). He also translated Kipling's Just So Stories into Norwegian.

Johan Bernhard Hjort died on 24 February 1969, aged 74, after a short illness.