NORWEGIANS DURING THE GERMAN INVASION IN 1940

The shooters on the roof
A curious boy on Lille-Tøyen.
Finn E. Vikskjold, Oslo

On 9 April 1940 I lived in Lille-Tøyen, at Økernveien 57.
This day must have been in Easter week because I was not at school. My mother was hanging up clothes when I arrived out early in the morning. We saw a plane coming in the direction of Holmenkollen with smoke
coming out of the tail section, and she said to me: "Finn I think it's war!"
I was curious, and suddenly I found myself on the other side of Lille-Tøyen - that is, out on the field diagonally above Finn E. Vikskjold (right) together with his brother in 1945.

Tøyen nursing home.

Out on this field, there was a small yellow house and on the roof of this, there were two men shooting with a rifle at German transport planes that came in at low altitudes. German soldiers sat smiling in the plane and waved at us! The two "shooters" ran out of cartridges for their rifles, got cursed, and climbed down and each got a revolver.

They continued to shoot at the planes while the Germans
were amused by the two gunners. The same day, or the next day (uncertain), I stood alone opposite the University and watched the Germans march. This was the event of the invasion day, but there were many more exciting experiences over the next five years for a curious 8-year-old boy!
Stavanger

<«<And quite rightly, when we got there, we saw a sight that we will never forget>> A few days after the invasion, the 19-year-old "> entered her diary in dramatic Stavanger days.

Olava Serine Normann Øverland (93), Stavanger:
On 9 April 1940, the Germans came to Norway to take it under their
military administration. The reason was; they said, that if it had not been done by Germany, it would be done by England.

The worst of the worst
But the English knew better; already while German troop transport and
ammunition ships were on their way to Norway, the English made use of their effective means: laying mines along the entire west coast of Norway.
But the worst of the worst was that the Germans still got into Egersund on 9 April at 5 o'clock in the morning, and landed there two thousand German soldiers. And several other places in the country at the same time. It was seven in the morning. I had gotten up early and saved the bed very well that day and the school books that I was supposed to use were in the school bag. Then I hear someone on the stairs.

It's mother, she exclaims in shock: "<Mother, it's war!>>".
I couldn't understand it, but at the same time, I clearly heard two planes circling directly above the city and firing panic shots at the rooftops. Out in the fjord, Germans were trying to bombard Valbjergstårnet, but visibility was too poor. I imagined the horror and horror of the war in all its misery, as I had read in the history which was about the civil war in Russia from 1918-20. All my dreams and hopes were dashed, because I showed that the war was the worst thing that could happen to a small freedom-loving people.

Yes, think, the culture of mankind is at the same level as 10,000 years ago, namely that discord between the countries is settled by war!! Yes, it's not just the very carnage and fires that war brings with it, but it is famine and the pestilence that wanders one after the other in hell! And the development of the world stands quite still and declines rather than rise.
Quietly I looked at my cozy cave, I knew and felt at once that it would be a long time before I saw it again, if it was not smashed at all.

My father was the warden of the prison on the square, he took it over on April 1st, we were barely settled, when this, the most unexpected of all, happened: the war. The prison is right next to the square and, so it is very exposed. All that was left was to fly from one window to the other, to look at the gunpowder smoke. When I came down to the kitchen, the table was set, but there was no eating from it. All that was left to do was fly from one window to the other, to look at the gunpowder smoke from Valbjergstårnet and at the huge German Messerschmidt planes that flew non-stop directly over the rooftops and made an anything but pleasant sound.

At ten minutes past ten, the airplane alarm went off, and we hurried down to the basement, Nils-Arnt, Mum, and I, where we sat freezing with some sacks around us, until Dad came to collect us in the other basement where the prisoners were, because it was nice and warm there. At half past ten, the typhoon announced with long blasts that the danger was now over. During the attack, the plane made its flights so close to the roofs of the houses that when we were sitting in the basement it was so noisy that we could not hear what the other was saying. It was as if a drill came in and drilled into the house and was slowly pulled out again.

When we got out of the basement, the phone rang. It was Dad's colleague,
warden Bolstad at circuit prison A who inquired about how it was
gone during the air raid. She had already got her dear weak mother in the country Then I had to look to get off at Martin Pedersen, where I was a businesswoman. On the way I got hold of a newspaper, where it was written in bold type: Bergen and Kristiansand bombarded. Oslo taken. German cruisers have passed Oscarsborg and penetrated into Horten." "German soldiers are landed in
Trondheim and Egersund.

Miss Helland a/e Trygve Gjessen locked herself in just as I arrived, and
I went over to her to hear what she had done. She had already got her dear weak mother in the country. - Then Lunde Pedersen came striding in, and I went in and stood behind the counter as usual. He was completely amazed and amazed that it had all happened so quickly, and
he thought that this must have been planned years in advance, which I also agreed with.

The work went on as usual, everyone was calm, but a lot of rumors swirled around. Mother called and wanted us to evacuate the same day to Vikedal, but I got on the back foot. Then Dr. Oftedal came and told about t/j "<Ægir" which had been hit by bombs from a German plane at Hundvåg, 15 had died, as many were badly wounded, so underwear
and clean bedclothes had to be obtained. We piled what was in stock of down blankets etc. into the car, and then we had to fill and sew.

The swastika hangs on the police chamber!
When Miss Lindland came home from dinner, the first thing she said was: The town is taken! The swastika hangs on the police chamber!”

I hurried up there, I couldn't imagine that anyone could act so
quickly, faster than almost the thought itself, but a swastika flag hung in the police chamber and waved in the wind, and a German soldier stood
guard on the platform. It was bitter to see how we all stood there, unable to lift a finger, because that could destroy the country; to call down the wrath of the Germans on us, because it was called that they had come here to defend us. Arriving at the cathedral, I see that the swastika is waving on the telegraph and the post office and the square is teeming with German soldiers, who wandered off and found themselves so perfectly at home.

They had probably studied the city maps of Stavanger for a long time because they didn't need to go to the police station or any other place.
I ate my dinner at home, mother certainly wanted to go; I did not.
The afternoon at M.P. they came from the fire brigade, the crew had doubled, so they had to have 60 woolen blankets, 30 neck pillows, and various other things, so there was a lot to do.

It looked pretty weird
An order was announced from the chief of police that everyone had to
be inside the doors and blinding carried out at 7. When I got home from work at 6, there were window frames nailed to the windows of the prison, so it looked quite strange. A crowd of people had gathered in the square and the rumors grew and grew. Mother and I said goodbye to Father and then went home to Anna Henriksen in Våland. At Våland school, the German cross also hung and the Germans had to sleep there at night.

Kirsch Halvorsen" wanted to take the "<German" and ran like crazy with rifles and grenades, but luckily "Maja" got him. Uncle Leo also came home at half past eight, he had been present when the German ship sank, which t/j Ægir» had shot at. The night passed quietly for us, Anne Marie and I on the floor, Mum and Aunt Anna in separate chairs, Uncle Leo and Ludvig in bed. In the morning we were up early, it was the planes that woke us up. We ate breakfast and headed down. There were a colossal number of people on their feet. In Musegt. mother and I met midwife Langballe.

She said we just had to get out of town as soon as possible.
When we got there, we saw a sight that we will never forget
Already when we were at Bredevannet, we understood that something must be going on, firstly, there were many large planes in the air, secondly, there was a terrible noise in the direction of the square, and quite rightly, when we got there, we saw a sight that we will never forget.
Tanks, trucks, cars by the dozen, I couldn't count them all, besides, they were all black and dirty. Cannons and anti-aircraft guns; yes, I don't know the number.

And at the harbor were 3 troop transport ships which they were still unloading. It was as if they never ran out, because there were just more and more of all these horrible instruments of murder. It's a civilization!!!!
Poor mother, who is nervous before, was quite perplexed, and when they lined up one Anti-aircraft fire a little below the prison was a hundred and one out. When we got home, Dad told us that they hadn't slept all night, because they had been going all night with the landing of thousands of
soldiers, and all the cars and all the tanks and guns.

During the war, Olava Serine Normann Øverland helped start <> which eventually became Rogaland Theatre, then she worked as an actress in Oslo - at Chat Noir, Centralteatret, Oslo Nye, and Riksteatret. She further trained at the Journalistakademiet, in the first cohort there, and became
a journalist at Aftenposten - where she worked for 40 years.

Ørland
Transferred by the Gestapo to a prisoner of war in Poland He skied 14 miles to sign up for his company - and ended up as a prisoner of war for several years. Per Otgar Lüdemann, Oslo: At the outbreak of war on 9 April 1940, my father, Otgar Lüdemann, was a lawyer and conscript captain in the Army. He was 44 years old. We lived in Brekstad, Ørland
in Sør-Trøndelag. During the Norwegian operations in Nord-Trøndelag, he was a company commander in Nord-Trøndelag infantry regiment no. 13 (I.R.13).

In his later report on his company during the operations, the so-called fencing report, he writes the following in the first paragraph of the part dealing with the mobilization: Skied 14 miles "Personally, I received the mobilization order on the radio on the morning of April 9. April at 11 p.m. and reported to me the following day in Kvam, where I.R.13 had withdrawn the departments that were to be set up." Otgar Lüdemann was sent as a prisoner of war to Poland in January 1945. With the ship Donau from Oslo to Stettin.

On 4 May 1940, an order was given to surrender to the occupying power. The officers were held as German prisoners of war in the Steinkjersannan military camp until they were released in June. My father was first arrested as a political prisoner in Trondheim from 27 May to 11 June 1943. He was arrested again on 13 July 1943 in the afternoon when he participated in an inspection at Austrått, Ørland, and sent on the same day to Grini prison camp in Bærum where he was held from 16 July to 24 August 1943.

From there he, as some other political prisoners transferred by the Gestapo to POW (on the German ship Danube from Oslo to Stettin, after the war Polish Szczecin), first to Schildberg, Polish Ostrzeszów, 13 miles south of Poznań in German-occupied Poland, until 19 January 1945, and from 26 January 1945 in Luckenwalde, 5 miles south of Berlin. The officers returned to Oslo from the German prisoner of war by Danish
ship on 4 June 1945.

Bærum
As a car from a slaughterhouse
Knut Carlberg saw that the Germans rescued the wounded in a very special car. Knut Carlberg himself tells about what happened: I was only 7 years old that day, but almost everything that happened is etched in my
memory. We stayed at Stabekk in Bærum, not far from Fornebu airport. I remember standing in the window and looking at the large planes that filled the air, and at the same time a couple of Norwegian "fighters" that tried in vain to take up the fight. A little later in the day, the Germans had taken Fornebu airport.

German aircraft, a large JU 52, took off from Fornebu in a northerly direction. This was in the same direction as we lived. The plane was heavily laden and was therefore unable to get over the hill to the north of the airport. Couldn't take off. It took away some fir trees and crashed in a garden only approx. 150 meters from where we lived. It crashed in one set when the plane was probably loaded with a good amount of ammunition. A good number of spectators naturally gathered, albeit at an appropriate distance.

It did not take long before German soldiers were on the scene to take care of the dead and wounded aircrews. One of the pilots lived, and funnily enough, he only spoke French! The Germans had probably hijacked the first and best car they could find because when they arrived at the scene of the accident, they had a large yellow lorry with the FELLES SLAKTERIET written in big red letters on it!! Needless to say, this created quite a few smiles and humorous reactions!

Oslo
<<You shall never, never speak to them or accept anything from them>>

Four Children's Experiences of the first hours and Days of the War. Is it dangerous? asked Knut. Karen Marie Winje (83), Oslo: Early in the morning, we were woken up by the phone, Father got up and took it out in the hall next to the bedroom. We heard him mumble something and then he hung up. Mother had gone out to find out what it was, but the phone immediately rang again and Father picked it up again. We only heard one short answer, and the phone was hung up.

A third time it rang, now we sat up German soldiers marching on Karl Johans gate past the Grand Hotel. Scanpix our beds, all three children who were in the same room. And we heard Uncle Karl shout:
<<It's a bloody war!>>

Serious, mother and father came to us and explained that Norway was at war and that meant that German soldiers had arrived in Oslo. We shuddered only at the words Attic soldiers,

• Do we skip going to school? I asked.
• Will we be bombed? Kari asked, almost hysterically.
• Is it dangerous? Knut asked.

Kari was barely nine years old, I was seven years old and Knut was three years old. The only one who had now heard nothing was Elisabeth, aged 12, who had her own room. She slept as she did many nights and evenings during the war and often had to be woken up, almost harshly.
They were gone for five years. After an early breakfast, I saw a neighboring family coming down the road past us.

They had proper packing with them. Elisabeth was like lightning on
the way to her friend.

• Lucky pigs, are they going on another Easter holiday? I asked.
  It was Elisabeth who answered me:
• No, they are only going to visit their grandmother.

They were gone for five years. There was no school this day, instead, we jumped paradise in the garden, just Kari and I. No children came into our garden, they always used to do otherwise, and we weren't allowed
to go out into the road either. On the other hand, we saw a company of German soldiers marching past and learned from the first that we should both fear and hate them.

Don't stand there and look at them, Mother shouted, - come in! You shall never, ever speak to them or accept anything from them.
Succeeded in dispelling the anxiety for long periods of time.
Already in the evening, the bombing of Fornebo began, and we had to go down into the basement. There, the washroom was furnished as a bomb room with wooden logs inserted to support the roof, sandbags in front of the window, carpets and lights, a hob, and a bread box.

So nice! I thought.

Won't Torbjørn and Vesla come down soon? asked Kari, terrified that
those who lived on the second floor wouldn't get down. But they came, and Torbjørn had large white sheets with him and set to work drawing
silhouettes of us, one by one we sat quietly with bright light from the side while he drew. And when he wasn't drawing, he played with a comb or saw and joked and managed to dispel his anxiety for long periods of time. Elisabeth sat engrossed in a book if she did not fall asleep. The basement was furnished with the possibility to lie down and sleep.

Will there be a flight alert tonight too? I asked hopefully many evenings beyond the April days. It's so much fun when Torbjørn plays. My sister looked at me. I don't think it's funny. Think about it! Would you like a cup of cocoa? interrupted Mother quickly.

<<We drive home»>
On April 10, everyone was to leave Oslo. There was a great danger of attack both from the air and on the ground. We were piled into my father's car: mother and father, four children and a dog, some clothes and food, and the course was set for grandmother's house at Tretten in Gudbrandsdalen, where we had been at Easter.

The queue of cars out of Oslo up Trondhjemsveien was long and slow. It went by jerky and it got hotter and hotter inside the car. I'm so sick, Elisabeth exclaimed first. - Me too, we said, one by one. And then the vomiting began. Father had to swerve to the side and stop, and in turn
and disorder we were out throwing up.

When Knut couldn't get out of the car but threw up on his mother's neck, his father said: - This won't work, we're driving home! We had been on the road for several hours and had barely reached Grorud. He thus swerved out of the entire queue and drove towards Oslo again. No more queuing! Everyone was too sick to protest, even Kari accepted the reversal.

Instead, Father drove to Frognerseteren to avoid city streets. It was extra great to come to Frognerseteren, and there was even something to buy there. In the evening we drove home again. The car crept down towards the town in the dusk, all six of us on the lookout for any German soldiers who would stop us. But Oslo was completely quiet. Later we heard that the worst fighting between Norwegian forces and Germans took place up in the valleys, especially near Grandma's house.

Adults had the most worries during the war, but Knut stammered for many years after 1940. A few days after 9 April, he asked: Oh, d-d-de k k war all s-s-places, m-m mother?

Bærum/Klekken
The meeting with the Germans started frighteningly, but they also provided the necessary help. Per Grønneberg Andresen (82), Bærum:
One morning we woke up to the phone ringing. Father got up and said that this was strange, that someone called so early in the morning. He disappeared into the cabinet where the phone was, and we heard him talking loudly and excitedly. Then he stormed into the bedroom again and began to pull on his trousers, while he told his mother that it was Uncle Sander who had called, and he told her that war had broken out in Norway and that he had to enlist as a soldier.

Tore Jan and I were chased out of bed and told to get dressed quickly and put on our knickers and sweaters, even though the sun was shining outside. As we raced around, we heard a loud whirr and we saw some strange dark planes, a bit square and almost like they were made of corrugated iron. They had black and white crosses under the wings
and on the side and almost flew sideways.

Mother and Tore Jan and I were to lie in the bear den, while Father spoke to someone on the phone. From our hole, we could see and hear some shooting and thundering, and high up in the air we could see some small planes that looked like silver crosses fluttering about. It was Norwegian fighter planes, Mother said, that were going to try to drive the Germans away. But it was just that there were so many Germans, and sometimes we saw the little silver cross get a big black tail of smoke and whiz down towards the ground. Mother held us around and said we were safe here until Father returned.

Was first sent to Klekken
After a long time, Father came back and said that we were to be evacuated, and he was to drive in the new car. He was to pick up Grandma and Mrs. B. with the baby twins Tuppen and Lillemor, and Sverre was to come with us. It was quite cramped in the car, and we sat on each other's laps and were scared.

Father said he would drive us to the Klekken Hotell, where we were to stay, while he drove on to sign up as a soldier for the Norwegians who were on the hill near Hønefoss. There were quite a few others at Klekken, and everyone talked about the war and had heard a lot, but hardly anyone knew anything. They had heard that Oslo was going to be bombed and that Fornebu airport had been captured by the Germans.

Father left with some other guys he met at the hotel, Mother cried, and Grandmother prayed to God. Grandma believed in God very much, and when we visited her, we always got a glass of milk and got to look at her illustrated Bible. There were some rather exciting pictures of a man hanging by his hair in a thorn hedge and Jonas who was pictured inside a giant whale.

The wedding was postponed I don't remember how long we were at Klekken, but after a while, someone came and told us that the Germans were coming and we had to get away. Everyone started to walk,
some got to ride in the horse and cart, and we trudged off with suitcases and packages along the road my father had traveled.

At last, we arrived at a place where we were allowed to live in a house right up on the edge of the forest at the top of the village. It would turn out to be a good choice, even if it was in Haugsbygd. From here we could look down on the main road and down at a shop. The merchant's daughter was getting married.

One of the first days, the farmer's wife told me, but now it must have been postponed indefinitely. Wounded soldiers came Mother was worried about me, because I was quite warm, and Mrs. B. said I had a high fever. It was enough from the smallpox vaccination, she thought, and I had to lie down in a bed in the farmer's living room. Here I lay and was quite dizzy and didn't know very much of what was going on. Someone said that the Germans had passed Klekken and that the hotel had been burnt down. There was going to be a battle in the village, where the Norwegian soldiers had made everything ready to take on the Germans.

Gradually I heard people and cars coming, and Mrs. B. and the farmer's wife were working with soldiers who had been driven from Klekken to us because they were wounded. I heard them moaning and complaining in the next room, but I was so messed up in my head that I didn't really care. Mother and grandmother looked after me and the other children, who were eventually shuttled down to the basement to be there. Had to move on to a seat. When evening came, some soldiers came and said that we could not be in the house during the battle which they expected would take place during the night or the next day.

The farmer said he had a seat a little way into the forest and the
the horse got ready for the sled, I was wrapped in lots of bedclothes and got to ride with grandma, the twins, and Sverre and Tore Jan who were small, while the others had to walk. Far inside the forest, we came to a seat where a fire was lit, and everyone huddled together to keep warm. Mother took my temp and said I had approx. 40 in fever. I was probably the only one who thought it was too hot on that Setra. After a day in the forest, the farmer thought it might be safe to go back to the village. He could hear no more shooting, and it seemed the worst was over.

Excerpt from NorgesLexi:

Haugsbygd in Ringerike municipality was the village that was hardest hit during the campaign in 1940. Hønefoss was taken without a fight on 14 April 1940, but in Haugsbygd north of the town, Norwegian units from Vestoppland Infanterireg gathered. No. 6 stood up to prevent the German advance and succeeded during hard battles in the fresh snow on 15 April. In the morning hours the following day, however, the Germans deployed armored vehicles for the first time in the Klækken area, and the Norwegian units were blown up.

When the fighting was over, Haugsbygd consisted of most parts of smoldering fire plots with 133 buildings completely damaged and as many partially destroyed. The livestock had been burned inside, shot, or driven away. Both Norwegian and German forces suffered heavy losses and several civilians lost their lives, including by regular executions.
Almost everything was burned down When we came out of the forest, we could see that only our house and the house below had not burned down. The barn where the merchant's daughter had stored all the equipment and the wedding gifts was just a smoking heap, and the house below us had not caught fire but was completely riddled with bullets.

Otherwise, all the houses within sight of the edge of the forest were much like I had seen them on the posters before the war. Was discovered by the Germans. The farmer saw no Germans and no Norwegians either, and we hurried down to the cellar, where we thought we were safest. Here we sat for a long time wondering what was happening around us. Suddenly we heard voices, someone shouted in another language and ran outside, but no one shot. Everyone had to be completely quiet, and the ladies were
crying, and everyone had scared faces. Grandma mumbled all the time, probably talking to God.

It didn't help much, because now we heard heavy footsteps upstairs from the kitchen, suddenly the cellar door was torn open and someone shouted. The farmer stretched his arms above his head and crawled up the stairs, and we heard him being commanded from above. Then all the rest of us had to get up. Mrs. B. did not want to and kept the twins down
in the basement. Then a German soldier came down and took the babies from her and handed them up to the others in the kitchen. Mrs. B. fainted, and the farmer and mother had to drag her up the stairs to the kitchen. Up here, the babies went from arm to arm.

The German soldiers, who remembered them, smiled and gurgled just like Norwegians usually say to babies. Mrs. B. came to herself again and did not look so scared anymore. A man who knew German spoke to us and the Germans and after a while, they left again, and we could move up from the basement because the Norwegians had retreated up the valley, and there was no more shooting here now, said the Germans.

Had to go out in the dark
We were told that there was a state of emergency, and no one was allowed to go out after dark. The Omno was hit outside after 6 p.m., they would be shot by the sentries. I was terribly sick and lying in bed in the living room just messing around. Mother became more and more worried, and by late evening she had decided that something had to be done. The others begged her not to do anything stupid, but Mother didn't give in and disappeared outside until it was about 8 p.m. She was not shot, but arrested.

She managed to get a German officer to explain that she needed a doctor and returned with a German sanitary doctor who gave me medicine and promised to send an ambulance the next day to pick up Grandma and me and drive us to the train in Hønefoss. He said that Oslo had not been bombed, everything was quiet and calm, and the Germans were in complete control. We could safely travel home to Høvik.

Was transported in a German ambulance
The next morning a German ambulance arrived, green with large red crosses both on the side and on the roof. I was carried out on a stretcher and placed in the ambulance while Grandma sat on a chair next to me, and we hobbled off down the road towards the main road. I had gotten much better from the medical doctor's medicine, and when we got to Hønefoss it was no problem to get up and go to the train. It took some time to get to the station, because we had to cross the road, and it was not so easy. Here a giant train of Germans marched and drove through the city.

The field kitchens were particularly strange. Here pots and pans hung and rattled as they drove. There was smoke and steam from the stove, and the cook went and lit the fire. Heavy cannons and wagons of all kinds were pulled by cars and horses, and on the cannons and wagons sat green-clad soldiers with rifles and helmets. Many people stood watching, and some soldiers waved and smiled, while most Norwegians just looked serious.

Then we took the train to Høvik, and at home, everything was as before. The neighbors said that they had hardly seen a German and that all the rumors about bombings and other horrors were just nonsense. I was with my grandmother until my mother came by train a couple of days
later and we moved home to Ekebergveien again.

HITLER ATTACKED NORWAY IN 1940 (First Part in English)

By Tore Christiansen - 09 April 2023 - HUMAN SYNTHESIS