onsdag 6 mars 2024

Sverre Riisnæs: SS-Sturmmann, Counsellor of State (1940-1941) and Minister of Justice (1941-1945)

 

Background

Sverre Riisnæs was born into a West Norwegian nationalist family, where the "Norwegian movement" was strong and the pure Norwegian flag without the "herring salad" was raised early on. The Germanic orientation also led to a German orientation, towards the "friendly people in the south". Sverre wanted to enlist for war service in the Imperial German Army for Germany during the First World War, but was rejected for formal reasons.

Public Prosecutor

In 1931, he got a temporary position as public prosecutor in Telemark and was then the country's youngest public prosecutor. At the age of 34, he had achieved a longer career than his father. As state prosecutor, Riisnæs was the prosecutor in the trial after the Menstad Law.

One of his legal opponents in both this and later trials was Viggo Hansteen, another was Trygve Lie. Defense Minister Vidkun Quisling showed great interest in the case and noted Riisnæs' efforts. Both this and other cases Riisnæs worked on at this time were politically inflamed.

From 1934 he was state prosecutor in Buskerud and Oppland, appointed permanently to the position in 1936. Here he was tasked, among other things, with being the prosecutor in the case against Per Imerslund and the other young National Socialists who had committed a burglary at Trotsky's in the autumn of 1936, and in a case where a group of socialists had attacked a square meeting organized by Nasjonal Samling in Gjøvik in the election campaign of the same year.

Throughout this period, Riisnæs showed great professional interest, constantly produced new articles and built up good expertise in the relationship between law and forensic medicine. Among other things, he was in professional discussions with the forensic capacity Gabriel Langfeldt, who in the preface to one of his books before the war thanked him for valuable input. In a new edition after the war, this thank you was removed.


Minister of Justice

After the German attack on Norway on 9 April 1940, Riisnæs was relieved when the Council of Administration took over after Quisling's coup government from the April days, since he suspected that he still had many enemies in the NS milieu after he had been the prosecutor in the Trotsky case and the "turf battle at Gjøvik ». Following inspiration from German and Norwegian friends, among them his childhood friend Gulbrand Lunde, he joined the Nasjonal Samling on 6 July.

The reward came already that autumn when national commissioner Josef Terboven appointed his government with so-called commissioner ministers, where Riisnæs became minister of justice. When Vidkun Quisling took over the government after the "act of state" on 1 February 1942 and led it with the title of minister president, Riisnæs was among those who were allowed to continue as minister.

As Minister of Justice, Riisnæs was responsible for the adaptation of the Norwegian courts and the Norwegian legislation which provided the legal basis for the various NS measures and the persecution of those who would not submit to them or the German occupiers.

In 1941, he was among the driving forces behind the creation of first the Norwegian SS and the following year the German SS Norway as part of the Waffen-SS together with his colleague, Minister of Police Jonas Lie. Riisnæs, for example, personally appeared at Per Imerslund's hospital bed when he came home injured from Finland, and they were reconciled after their different roles in the Trotsky affair. Imerslund was hospitalized twice, but died from other various injuries. He wrote several newspaper articles about his new disillusionment with NS. When NS tried to conceal his name, Riisnæs attended his funeral.

Together with Jonas Lie, he spent a period with the Waffen-SS in the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler in the Balkans, where Riisnæs worked as a war correspondent for NRK radio and the newspaper Fritt Folk. Riisnæs was also in Finland for a period, together with, among others, Karl Marthinsen.

I agree in principle that the Jews we have in the country must be removed. It was a failure in our racial pride and in our sense of responsibility for our Norwegian blood that led us to let the Jews in with us. We have to get rid of them.

- Sverre Riisnæs (answer to lawyer Leif Rogeir Jordal who objected to the detention of Hermann Fischer)

Riisnæs met Haj Amin al-Husseini several times in Germany.

For his efforts as an SS-Sturmmann (vice corporal) in the Waffen-SS, and for his political efforts, the militarily uneducated Riisnæs received the honorary rank of SS-Standartenführer, which corresponds to colonel in the Allgemeine SS. It was unusual to award such high ranks to non-military personnel; he had served conscription in Norway only as a private. But this can be understood to the extent that the SS-Hauptamt, SS' head office, had great confidence in Riisnæs. He was also awarded the War Merit Cross with Swords. During the war, Riisnæs often wore uniform with accompanying high leather boots, sometimes in shepherd's uniform, but usually in the German SS Norway uniform. Among some Hird members, this could arouse some irritation, as Riisnæs was known before the war as an NS sceptic, but from 1941 Riisnæs also had the task of being the Hird's legal adviser, and in this sense he also had a role in the Hird.

Riisnæs got involved in the case after the murder of the policeman Arne Hvam on the Halden train in October 1942. He argued that the frontiersman Karsten Løvestad, accused of the murder, should be sentenced to death, but he did not trust the People's Court and therefore ensured that the case went to a German court. Riisnæs tried, following an initiative from Erling Bjørnson, to prevent Eileen Cohn, Bjørn Bjørnson's wife, from being entitled to copyrights after Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson.


The time after the war

The court decided that Riisnæs was to undergo new psychiatric observation, and he was therefore sent in August 1947 to Reitgjerdet Hospital in Trondheim. It was full there, so he spent three months in the old Criminal Asylum from 1895 in Trondheim under very simple conditions and had to sleep in straw, without bedding.

At Reitgjerdet, Riisnæs' madness unfolded further. He claimed to be Hitler's legal heir and demanded to be prosecuted accordingly by the staff and the other patients. During this period he wrote incomprehensible letters to his family. In June 1948, the doctor at Reitgjerdet declared that he was insane and that the criminal case against him should be suspended in accordance with Section 285 of the Criminal Procedure Act. Gradually the eccentric behavior subsided, Riisnæs became healthier and eventually boasted that he had manipulated the doctors into declaring him ill. He eventually got qualified work as the head of the hospital's library.

In 1957, the last of those convicted of treason had been released on probation, but Riisnæs was still locked up at Reitgjerdet. After ten years at Reitgjerdet, in the early summer of 1958, Riisnæs was deployed to a small farm at Fosen in Trøndelag, where he assisted the family in the day-to-day work. He stayed there for a year and a half. After that he went back to Reitgjerdet to be formally discharged from the hospital in February 1960. He was admittedly not cleared. He was now sent to a farm in Solør, where his brother had arranged a place for him.

After several more or less good solutions beyond the summer of 1960, Riisnæs was allowed to move onto a very simple small farm in Oppåsen in Hof-Åsa, formerly Hof municipality, now Åsnes municipality Solør. He got materials from the forest owner and renovated the place, cultivated the land and lived off the yield and the monthly contribution he received as a psychiatric patient. The small farm was called "The Eagle's Nest", and former frontline fighters kept coming to visit.

Through his son, Riisnæs got in touch with some former Austrian friends from before the war, and he wanted to travel to visit them, but could not get a passport until he was discharged. At the same time, he risked the case against him being reopened. After a lot of bureaucratic back and forth, the 76-year-old Riisnæs received a message on 12 August 1973 that the case against him was out of date, and that he was getting his citizenship rights back, including his passport. He had had some contact with his wife up to this point.

In the spring of 1974, Riisnæs traveled to Italy, where he had found a place in a monastery in Sicily. Here he converted to Catholicism. Only interrupted by a short trip back to Norway, he stayed here until late autumn 1975. He went to visit acquaintances in Vienna and stayed with the widow of a friend. The stay, which was intended to be a short visit, lasted until February 1985, when he broke his femoral neck and had to return home to Norway. He was admitted to Hovseterhjemmet in Oslo and lived here until his death on 21 June 1988, aged 90. He was laid to rest at Ullern cemetery in Oslo on 24 August 1988.

After Riisnæs was discharged from Reitgjerdet, he was interviewed by the head of news at NRK, Per Bøhn, in 1982 and 1984, in Vienna and in Oslo. The recordings were restricted for the sake of the descendants, but the restriction was lifted on 10 March 2020. It appears from the interview that Riisnæs had no regrets. Riisnæs still admired Quisling, whom he considered an honorable person, and he was sure that Quisling would go down in history on a par with the great saga kings, such as Olav the Saint.


Inga kommentarer:

Skicka en kommentar

Sverre Henschien: Leader of the Førerguard (1944-1945)

Born 29 July 1897 in Levanger, Nord-Trøndelag, Norway. Sverre Henschien was the Leader of the Førerguard from 1944 to 1945.