Once occupied most people didn't resist. Or restisted passively. The resistance fighters was in a distinct minority. Though many would like to pretend it wasn't.
It's known for a fact that Germany did not want to annex Norway or anything like that, unlike the Soviet Union wanted to with Finland or Poland.
Such promises were made, but if Germany had won, that promise would probably have been broken. Especially the aryan Norway, which would have been a prize for the Nazi ideology though we'd probably would enjoy a higher status than, say Poland. They'd probably had gobbled up Sweden and perhaps Finland as well. If they'd won, of course.
Then there where the political differences. There was those who was sympathetic to the nazi view, but they were in a minority. A far bigger minority was communists as an example, and nazism and communism was natural enemies.
Another point was that we had just recently gained independence (back in '05) and that loss burned in quite a few people.
Not to mention that we managed to get our (elected and very popular) royal family and a provisional government in exile gave many people a greater motive and all the gold reserve, which gave us (them really, I wasn't born back then) the means as well as one of the largest merchant, transport and fishing (combined) fleet in Europe.
Norway was occupied by Germany as a race between the Allies and Axis to occupy the Scandinavian peninsula as a strategic point. Germany just won that race, but the English could very well have occupied Norway too.
In hindsight that proved to be more of a hindrance than help as it tied up more valuable soldiers and resources than it gained, but at the time they thought so. And yes, the allies (England reall) had plans to take Norway.
But resistance during such occupation IMO could only lead to endangering Norwegian civilians with reprisal actions.
They could and did.
I had a teacher in jr. high who lost both of his brothers and his mother to reprisals against civilians. But those were in far smaller scale than, say Poland. Remember Norwegians was considered an aryan race even more so than the Germans, and they were hesitant to kill many that way.
2. Hypothetical question: If Norwegians were occupied by France, UK, and the Allies, instead of Germans: Would they have resisted?
Some would probably do so, especially the Nasjonal Samling which was the name of the nazi sympathetic party in Norway. But Norway had an excellent relationship with England. Our queen in waiting was English (and that
meant something back then). I believe English promises that it would only last through the war would have been more believable than the German was, but that might just be in hindsight. It's difficult to be sure.
Maybe Norwegian resistance was just really caused by Germanophobia?
I doubt it. Most of our infrastructure and industry (with the very notable maritime exeptions) prior to the war was built by visiting german engineers and they was highly thought of. In addition we shared quite a bit of culture with Germany, several of Wagners operas for example prominently figures much of our shared heritage.
I've never heard of any dislike of Germany or Germans prior to WW2.
After the war, yes, but nothing in particular before that.
By the way I dont advocate cooperation with occupier like Quisling and such did. This is just the opposite of the coin. I advocate staying neutral. I think the Danes did that during their Strategic occupation by Germany.
Denmark didn't really have a choice in the matter. Unlike Norway they were overrun in a single day and given no chance to counter. Not their fault really. A small, flat and clearly laid out country like that was no match for the German War Engine.
While Norway with it's much longer and much more rugged terrain with many places to hide away was a more difficult matter. Not to mention that the flagship (Blücher) which was to take the Capital was sunk and bought us valuable time to get the means to resist. That and the town of Narvik who fought back for 19 days (the longest anybody had resisted the German war engine at the time) and drew the German attention to them.
All in all it took the Germans a month (minus 1 day) to fully occupy Norway.
It was a matter of topography and logistics, really.
It`s far easier to start a war than to end one.
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