Olaf W. Fermann: Head of the NS Foreign Organization and SS-Fachführer in the Persönlicher Stab Reichsführer-SS

The pre-war period

Fermann studied at Oslo commercial high school and graduated in 1910. He worked in the period 1916-1919 as a businessman in Russia and was for a time employed at the Norwegian consulate in St. Petersburg. He married the daughter of a German businessman in Russia and they had a son and a daughter, Ilsa Marquerite. During his stay in Russia, he led aid work for prisoners of war and received the Russian Red Cross' order of the 1st and 2nd class. During the revolution in Russia, he met Vidkun Quisling for the first time.

After a stay in Denmark, he came to Danzig in 1924 as an employee of Det Bergenske Dampskibsselskab, then became manager of an American transport company, and was stationed in Hamburg, Vienna, Zurich and Berlin, among others. He met Heinrich Himmler in 1927-1928 during a hunting party on landowner Werner Lorenz's estate Mariensee near Danzig. Lorenz was head of the SS in Danzig, and his sister, Erika Lorenz, was Himmler's private secretary. Lorenz eventually moved to Berlin where Fermann met Himmler on several occasions. Himmler's trust in Fermann was related to their mutual friendship with the Lorenz family and interest in Nordic-Germanic tradition and the past.

In 1933 he became a member of Nasjonal Samling, as one of its first members. Fermann was a wealthy man at this time and was among Quisling's and NS's strongest financial supporters. In the 1930s, he built up a significant industrial and trading business in Germany. Among other things, Fermann owned a factory in Burg in what later became East Germany.

Commercial activities

In 1940, Fermann was living in Germany, but he had long been planning to establish a company for coal imports. This was to be done in collaboration with Deutsches Kohlendepot. Sjursøya Kull og Koks A/S was bought and land on Sjursøya leased by the Swedish Port Authority. As early as 25 April 1940, he traveled to Berlin for a meeting with Ministerial Director Dr. Sarnow in the German Ministry of Trade, and here laid the foundations for close economic cooperation with the German authorities. In the early summer of 1940, he moved with his family from Germany to Norway and in 1941 entered into an agreement with the German Armee-Oberkommando on the import and delivery of all cement from Germany to Norway for the construction of Festung Norwegen. To implement this, Fermann took the initiative to collaborate with the Bergen businessman Thomas S. Falck, director of Det Bergenske Dampskibsselskab. In 1942 he also joined the board of the German Chamber of Commerce.

Political commitment

In the autumn of 1940, Fermann became head of the Nasjonal Samling's foreign organization. Furthermore, he led the Frontkjemperkontoret from March 1942 until the end of the year. The office recruited soldiers for the SS and helped with the reassimilation of front-line fighters after service on the Eastern Front.

Command Staff Reichführer SS

Heinrich Himmler & Olaf W. Fermann

In the spring of 1941, the supreme leader of the Schutzstaffel (SS), Heinrich Himmler, visited Norway. This is seen in the context of the Third Reich's plans for the colonization of the occupied areas in Eastern Europe and Russia. In February 1941, Fermann, together with NS ministers Jonas Lie and Sverre Riisnæs, were sent to Berlin for military "special training". After the German attack on the Soviet Union, Fermann was ordered to the headquarters of Himmler's command staff where, according to his later explanation, he was engaged in "agricultural research". In addition, he served as adjutant to SS-Hauptsturmführer Rudolf May who was responsible for the organization of the "anti-partisan warfare". Here he acted, among other things, as an interpreter during interrogations of Russian prisoners of war. He probably also took part in trips where Rudolf May had conferences with the leaders of Einsatzgruppe A and B about how to kill the Jews more effectively.

In the autumn of 1941, Fermann, then with the rank of SS-Untersturmführer, accompanied Himmler on a trip to Estonia, Poland and Ukraine. He was registered as an SS-Fachführer in the Persönlicher Stab Reichsführer SS, i.e. part of the Kommandostab Reichsführer SS (RFSS). Himmler had previously expressed a wish that Fermann should have a leading role in the colonization of the areas near Ljublin, where large agricultural areas would be made available to, among other things, Norwegian and Dutch farmers. Fermann stated in the trial after the war that he refused the offer and that he had a nervous breakdown after the discussion with Himmler. On or after his journey to the Eastern Front, he was awarded the German War Service Cross Second Class with sword.

According to Emberland/Kott, Fermann was an inveterate anti-Semite and probably had few qualms when it came to the murder of Jews. Back in Norway, he never wanted to talk about his experiences in Himmler's entourage.

In the autumn of 1942, a package ban was established for political prisoners in Germany and Norway. Fermann tried to get the package ban lifted, but he met with opposition from SD. He also got prisoners who were against Nasjonal Samling released through NSUO. (Nasjonal Samlings Utenriksorganisation which was led by Fermann) He also brought home people who had worked in Germany and were held back. When Germany was on the brink of collapse towards the end of the war, Terboven refused Norwegians who wanted to return both permission to leave Germany and entry to Norway. NSUO contacted all Norwegians they knew in Germany and asked them to go to Flensburg. Fermann provided cars. Terboven seized NSUO's funds. As so often, Fermann used his own money there. The border police at the German/Danish border received packages of food. In the last month of the war, 400 Norwegians were smuggled across the border.

Norwegian Red Cross

From 1943, Fermann was vice-president of the Norwegian section of the Red Cross and had the Ragnar Berg convalescent home established at Voksenkollen for injured Norwegian front-line fighters, where Per Imerslund, among others, stayed in 1942-1943.

During the war, Fermann lived with his family on the property Trollvasshytta at Lillevann in Oslo. He bought this in 1940 for NOK 120,000 from the joint-stock company AS Trollvasshytta and the Association of Municipal Officials.

The National Treason Settlement

After the war, Fermann was convicted in the Norwegian treason settlement. The prosecutor was Supreme Court lawyer Gunnar Meyer. Fermann was initially sentenced to 20 years' penal servitude and confiscation of assets. In the Court of Appeal, 75 witnesses were summoned and the trial was expected to take three weeks. The sentence was reduced to 9 years' imprisonment and large fines, but he was acquitted on the counts of treason and infidelity.

Aftenposten claimed that in the days of liberation in May 1945 he tried to redeem himself "for a bit of his national betrayal" by sending a check for eight million kroner to the Norwegian Red Cross. A peculiar letter accompanied the cheque, which "is now put in glass and frame", the newspaper said.

Fermann had the case related to his work in the Norwegian Red Cross reopened and was acquitted of this in the Eidsivating Court of Appeal on 26 August 1967. He died in 1975.