NEWS DESK MICHAEL WALSH, 1^st March 2001

CHILDREN PAY THE PRICE OF NORWAY’S HUMILIATION

The Norwegian government is facing a series of highly embarrassing lawsuits following shocking revelations that they routinely mistreated children simply because they were born of German fathers. In what has been described as racism gone mad, children including infants were savagely treated and even killed in vile experiments because of the vindictiveness of a government that had been exiled and humiliated by the Reich.

To thwart Britain’s invasion of neutral Norway in April 1940 the German Reich counter-attacked. The then Norwegian government fled and abandoned their country to its fate. During the occupation an estimated 50,000 Norwegian ladies formed liaisons with German troops just as English ladies fell for the charms, even becoming brides, of American troops.

As a consequence approximately 12,000 children were born of mixed nationality but of the same race. As a constant reminder of the Norwegian establishment’s humiliation these children were reviled as Tyskerbarna (German bastards) and maltreated. Now the survivors are seeking justice and the Government and many of its institutions have been exposed as child molesters and torturers.

Many of these tragic children, indistinguishable from their contemporaries, were locked away in orphanages and asylums for years. There they were maltreated, sexually abused and often beaten mercilessly for no other reason that their ‘daddy’ was a German.

Forming the basis of their legal claim specialist lawyer Randi Hagen Spydevold is claiming compensation from the Norwegian government for the children’s immense suffering. Since the matter has been highlighted hundreds of other victims have come forward to recount their own experiences at the hands of the unforgiving allied collaborators.

"My clients lives have been wrecked by a combination of official stigma and individual brutality. When I first heard of the plight of lebensborn victims a year ago I was outraged." she said.

In a horrifying detail Ms. Spydevold described human rights abuses that went far beyond brutality. She cited one dreadful example where the Norwegian government collaborated with America’s Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to use these unfortunate children as guinea pigs in vile drug experiments. As a result at least four children were killed during the 1950s and 1960s.

Another victim, Karl-Otto Zinken, 60, described how after the war’s end he was placed in a mental institution where he was beaten, tortured and used regularly as a sexual toy by two ‘doctors’. He said: ‘The Norwegian authorities simply shut their eyes and let it happen.’

Another victim, Tove Laila was taken to her German grandparents in the German city of Eberswalde in 1942 after her father was killed in action. ‘It was the happiest period of my life.’ She smiled. But in an agreement reached by the allies in 1947 she was returned to Norway where her stepfather routinely beat and sexually abused her. ‘Nobody was the slightest interested in her welfare, or that of other such children.’ Ms. Spydevold said.

Tor Brandacher of the Association of Lebensborn War Children said documents suggest that it was Norwegian government policy to portray women who dated and had children to German soldiers as ‘mentally deficient’.

The embarrassed Norwegian government is now trying to distance itself from complicity, arguing that their cases are ‘spent’ due to the ill-treatment occurring more than thirty years ago. The survivors however are adamant that the government should address one of the most shameful chapters in Norwegian history.

58-year old Gerd Fleischer said: ‘I grew up as a second-class person in hell. As a civilised nation, Norway must finally apologise and bring all the facts to light.’

This is likely to be resisted as any enquiry will inevitably expose the cowardice of the wartime Norwegian government which had so ignominiously fled – despite their being in no physical danger – even leaving their breakfasts behind, during the initial occupation. The irony is that during the German occupation of Norway the nation’s children were better cared for that after the ‘liberation’.

Note: For the full spin-free story of Norway’s role during the Second World War and Winston Churchill’s conspiracy to promote Hitler’s invasion of Norway, read "The Slaying of a Viking": The Epic of Vidkun Quisling by Michael Walsh.

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