The Forgotten Army
The Forgotten Army The Norwegian Army-in-exile 1940-1945 Malik Christoffer Olsen Spring 2020 Master's thesis in Peace and Conflict Studies, Department of Archeology, Conservation and History, University of Oslo Word Count: 33590 All of us who, by the game of destiny, would become the main actors during the war years will someday be brought before the court of history. This verdict of history is unlikely to be the same as the one we are inclined to render today. The picture of what has happened in these years is incomplete and will continue to be so, but out of all this obscurity rises today and will always rise the image of men who had their own time’s and will have the future’s esteem and love. — Otto Ruge at the funeral of Carl Gustav Fleischer, 23 October 19451 1 “General Fleischers siste ferd”, Arbeiderbladet, 24 October 1945 (my translation). 1 Summary Having been forced to leave Norway in early June 1940, Norwegian authorities decided to continue the fight against the Germans from the UK. The policy the Government settled on, however, was to contribute to the war effort primarily by making use of the naval and air forces at its disposal. Meanwhile, the Army would be given a low priority, barely having reached a size of 4,000 by the end of the war. This thesis looks at the decisions and factors that influenced the creation, organisation and employment of the Norwegian Army-in-exile. The questions it seeks to answer is why the Army remained numerically small in size, why it was barely used in combat operations and whether this was a continuation of Norwegian defence policy in the interwar years.
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