._ "Thi~upreme ~~~ tommend a reprieve . -Neither could Vidkun Quisling Dies j the- state prosecutor. King Rejects Appeal' "Quisling sent the king a letter In which he pointed out he was in- For Betraying Norway, nocent, but added he did not ask for a reprieve, To4ay; "Mrs . Quisling, however, request- Traitor Executed Firing Squad ed a reprieve on .behalf of` her hus- y band. In a cabinet meeting yester- iffs 'Plea For Ve ency day, the king rejected Mrs . Quis- King Rejects ling's petition for mercy and de- Oslo, Oct. 24.-(AP)-Vidkun Quisling, Norway's arch cided the sentence would be car- was sealed with the collapse last ried out. spring of his one support-German traitor, was executed by a firing squad .before dawn to-day, "Quisling's relatives were noti- military might. paying the final price for dealing with an enemy his king', fied of the execution at 9 a.m. this He drove with six associates to li and countrymen defied throughout the bitter years of the morning ." the Oslo police station in a bullet- secrecy surrounded the execution, a Quisling was sentenced to death pro6f limousine and -surrendered war. The greatest for treason by a high court Sep- May 9. Immediately he was ar- , Foreign Affairs Office spokesman said. tember 10 and his sentence was raigned on a charge of treason.lI,' D Maintains Innocence confirmed October 13, when his Then, as he was later to do at his sI appeal was denied. trial, he maintained that all he had fi Quisling was awakened in his In the done was for the good and rushed quickly before the slightly more than five of Norway.,'! cell years he ruled Norway as Adolf Germans Given Information firing squad of 10 Norwegian mili- Hitler's puppet, the name of Vid- His three-week trial began Aug- tary police . The only witnesses kun Abraham Lauritz Quisling be- ust 20, before a high court of three were an unidentified member of came a synonym for traitor . judges and four laymen . The prose the state prose- Satellite of Nazis cution accused him of conferring; cution, a clergy- He was virtually unknown out- with Hitler and other high Ger- man and the of- side his own country before he !nan officials months before the ficer who gave emerged in April, 1940, as a colla- invasion, urging them to such the order to borator with the German invaders action . Subsequently, it was charg- fire, ` of his homeland . Behind him was a ed, he delivered defence data to T h e_ youths_. record of political failure and the Germans and aided their occu- who = formed the dis- pation of Norway by urging her, content with his profession, the troops not `firing squad'had army. Even after the Nazis lifted to resist. been forced to him to power he could rally He . was accused also of collabor- flee the country no ating with the Nazis in deporta- confidence among his people. tions and oppressions during Q u i s - Strikes and sabotage marked his that led to ling's puppet re- early deaths of hundreds of Jews and gime . Members rule ; and his regime survived patriots. only by Nazi force of arms . 'Quisling's of the squad had Born defence was that he been on the of peasant stock in the acted solely to advance. Norway's alert for the last southern province of Telemark, interests in a German-dominated July -18, 1887, Quisling became a Europe. Sometimes hysterically, week for their brilliant he task . student and entered the called himself "the saviour of Scan- Quisling stum- army, in which he won speedy ad- ; dinavia," the "martyr of Norway." bled to his death vancement, serving as military at-~ In his final plea he was "Quisling, through a mur tache at Petrograd and Helsinki ini the patriot ." 1918-20 . In 1922-23 he represented' Experts examined him and found ky, drizzling Vidkun Quisling him rain in the dis- the International Russian Relief sane. mal execution square of the anci- Organization m the Ukraine- and The court decreed him guilty Crimea, later working on Russian September 10, and ordered his ent Akershus fortress. To the end death he maintained that he was a pa- and Armenian relief problems . before a firing squad. Al- j He left Russia in 1930 and lowed only to appeal his sentence, triot. He had sent a letter protesting : re- not his innocence to King Haakon. turned to Norway, where, having the verdict, Quisling was resigned from the army granted unprecedented permission The Government had not planned : in 1928 to appear to announce the execution for three, after a quarrel with the general before the supreme staff, he court personally to ask its leniency . or four days to avoid publicity and , found himself forgotten . His plea public curiosity. However, one Oslo Sentenced for mercy was unavailing, By Exiles the highest tribunal confirming the morning newspaper learned of Entering politics, he was named death sentence October 13. Quisling's death in time to catch its by the Farmers' Party Government last edition with a brief sentence of 1932 as minister of defence and that he was executed. The story as such presided over his country's brought forth a Justice Ministry disarmament. After a few obscure communique some seven hours political battles, he founded in later. 1933 his own party, the "Nasjonal Remove Brain for Study Samling," which failed in two elec- The body presumably will be tions to gain a. single seat in the turned over to relatives for burial Storthing (parliament) or poll- as in Quisling's native province of, much as two per . cent: of the vote . Telemark . A foreign affairs spokes-i With his party's collapse, Quis- man intimated that his brain would I ling dropped into . political oblivion, be removed for study. not to reappear until Norway was Anneaus Schjoedt, state prosecuJ under the German boot. for who presented the case against Theoretically he became -second the pallid former puppet dictator, to the German civil governor in and Henrik Bergh, Quisling's de- internal administration of the fence lawyer,_ said they had not country, although a host of Nazi 49 been notified in advance that Quis- civil officials and the Gestapo ling was to be executed to-day. stood between him and.. actual' AR The Norwegian embassy in Lon- power. In October, 1942, the exiled Nor- EUROPEAN wegian Government in London 1939 don announced that Quisling was] shot sentenced him to ?-death for his, at 2.40 a.m, puppet role, but his NORWAY The doom actually embasidsy saeoyalth R Nor- QUISLING wegian Ministry of Justice issued the following statement : "The .sentence of death passed on Vidkun Quisling on October 13 by the Supreme Court of Oslo was carried out by shooting at 2.40 a.m., Norwegian time..