Al Murray

So on the 11th of November, 1939, there's an agreement with the Norwegian Shippers Association

that charters the largest merchant vessels in the Norwegian merchant fleet to Britain.

And then Norway does do a deal with the Germans on the 23rd of February 1940, agreeing exports from Norway to Germany.

So it's a bit of a to and fro, isn't it?

There's one character involved in this who is very, very keen on...

doing what he can to embugger the German effort, and that's Winston Churchill, who's back at the Admiralty, of course, and he wants to mine the Leeds right at the start of the war, even though it's a terrible violation of Norwegian neutrality.

Yeah, and he's sort of going to give up what they're going to do about it.

Well, they may not.

On the 11th of November 1939.

They may not.

And you obviously don't want to force them into the bosom of the Germans.

But he, right from the start of the war, is very, like, front foot about this.

Yes.

Essentially.

Raeder keeps chipping away at Hitler.

And of course, the Germans aren't answerable to any allies either, so they can make a decision on this.

And on the 8th of December, he again says, you know, we should occupy Norway.

He says this to Hitler directly.

And this coincides with the report that Vidkun Quisling, who is the leader of the tiny national assembling, the National Union Fascist Party.

Yeah, it's a minority party.