Folklore Fights the Nazis: Humor in Occupied Norway, 1940-1945

by Kathleen Stokker

    Armed with jokes, puns, and cartoons, Norwegians tried to keep their spirits high and foster the Resistance by poking fun at the occupying Germans during World War II. Despite a 1942 ordinance mandating death for the ridicule of Nazi soldiers, Norwegians attacked the occupying Nazis and their Norwegian collaborators by means of anecdotes, quips, insinuating personal ads, children’s stories, Christmas cards, mock postage stamps, and symbolic clothing.
    In relating this dramatic story, Kathleen Stokker draws upon her many interviews with survivors of the Occupation and upon the archives of the Norwegian Resistance Museum and the University of Oslo. Central to the book are four “joke notebooks” kept by women ranging in age from eleven to thirty, who found sufficient meaning in this humor to risk recording and preserving it. Stokker also cites details from wartime diaries of three other women from East, West, and North Norway. Placing the joking in historical, cultural, and psychological context, Stokker demonstrates how this seemingly frivolous humor in fact contributed to the development of a resistance mentality among an initially confused, paralyzed, and dispirited population, stunned by the German invasion of their neutral country.
    For this paperback edition, Stokker has added a new preface offering a comparative view of resistance through humor in neighboring Denmark.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Humor, World War II, War

280 pages, Paperback

Published February 15, 1997

Reviews

[Sleepless Dreamer · Rating 4 out of 5]

I may be ridiculously behind all of my reviews but I finally understand what's going on in Statistics so at least there's that.

Anyway, to the book!

I did not expect to be so engaged and drawn into the world of occupied Norway in 1940-1945 but Stokker's work here is truly phenomenal. This book, as the title says, is a study of humor in occupied Norway. Stokker goes through the chronology of the war while also using some chapters to discuss specific phenomenons. She bases herself on several diaries (I've pretty much fallen in love with Greta Dahl through her diaries) as well as archives and newspapers. 

Her main thesis is that through the occupation, the Norwegian humor reflected the issues that troubled them, their hopes, and their desires. The humor helped Norwegians feel united and fight against the Nazism. Even if the humor was not an accurate deception of what happened, the humor was a space for Norwegians to express themselves. 

And my god, this book just made me want to laugh and cry at the same time. You read a witty joke only to read one paragraph later that the person who wrote that joke had been executed. This book highlights the sheer absurdity of the situation, from the Nazis banning the color red and all the way to the banning of radios. 

It's fascinating because it seems that for the most part, Norwegians opted to fight through these means. There's something very powerful about making big statements that showed unity through small things, like wearing a paperclip or deciding collectively to give Germans a cold shoulder. They could have decided to go for a work strike, or heck, we're seeing right now violent protests. And while there's no way to know what's the best way to achieve one's means, the collective nature of the Norwegian resistance was really interesting. 

This book manages to really humanize the war. I find it challenging to truly visualize WW2 but Folklore Fights the Nazis shows that these were real people, making puns, going on public transportation and joking about Hitler's mustache. In many ways, it makes it all even sadder because you feel the losses more vividly.

Beyond that, as a Jew, it's way too easy for me to judge people who supported the Nazis. I mean, from my side, it seems like a very easy dilemma with a right and a wrong. While Stokker in no way support Nazis or even attempts to excuse them, I felt like this book shed some light on why someone would become a Nazi in Norway in a way that I hadn't considered. It portrays how hard the war was for average citizens and also describes how the lack of Jewish assimilation led to a lack of protection and empathy from Norwegians. 

I have a tendency to feel uncomfortable with overt nationalism but when you read this book and see the way the patriotism empowered Norwegians and that it was the nationalist vibe that kept them together, it made me second guess myself. I've been growing used to seeing nationalism as inherently negative but the nationalism in this book was so connected with the desire to live a peaceful life.  

I had never considered how Norway had received its independence in 1905, only to get occupied by Germany in 1940. The fact that there were so many people that lived through both of those big events is wild. This book talks a bit about the way Norwegian foreign policy was hesitant to act and wanted to keep hold of its neutrality and the way the UK was unable to truly help Norway against the Nazis in 1940. Together, it really brought to life the politics of that era. 

There's a chapter about Norwegian humor about the battles in North Africa. It was so so interesting because most of what I know about WW2 doesn't put much of an emphasis so it was neat to see that Norwegians were paying a lot of attention to that.
  
I was horrified by the stories about women who had been involved with Germans. I had no idea both that the Germans had been encouraged to pursue those relationships or the absolute horrors those children faced. Norway apologized for that in 2017 which is perhaps a little too late but I guess better than never. The way humor tackles this painful topic was fascinating.   

My only real complaint here is that Stokker briefly compares Norwegian humor with Soviet humor, in order to highlight the way in Norway the jokes highlighted a snarky and bold forms of resistance while in the Soviet countries, jokes tended to highlight the fear of being told on. I felt like there was a lot of room to use more comparisons. Why did the humor develop so differently? How did that influence outcomes? 

As a whole, this left me with so many questions. How did the German-Norwegian relationship heal? Does the long history of being occupied influence the Norwegian view of the EU? How did Norway reconcile with those who did support the Nazis?  

To conclude, this book is absolutely fascinating. If WW2 history interests you, I think this book manages to show a new perspective. It's well written, engaging, and very often, witty and funny. In the list of ways I've procrastinated writing papers for uni, reading this was probably one of the more enjoyable ones.

What I'm Taking With Me
- Guys, look at the cover! It's the King of Norway sweeping away Nazism.
- Speaking of which, it's interesting to see how the king symbolized the freedom of the country while nowadays monarchy is often correlated to a lack of freedom.
- I've gone from not knowing Narvik exists to somehow very much caring about it. 
- This book made me want to research humor in Israeli/Palestine because wow, there's so much to do in that realm.  
- Like, imagine researching the memes of various political groups and how that relates to policies. 
- Stokker got a letter from a leader of one of the resistance groups telling her that this book does a good job describing the role of humor and wow, that's such a cute thing. 

[Julie · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favourite anecdotes from this book, and to give you an idea of what it’s like:

One of the most effective anti-Nazi demonstrations was the wearing of red woolen stocking caps during the winter of 1940-41. Myrtle Wright, an Englishwoman detained in Norway during the war, noted in her diary:

The unanimity with which youth suddenly wore the nisselue (the Norwegian name for caps worn by gnomes) did not pass unnoticed by the authorities and was recognized by the NS as a demonstration against them.

With Hitler’s June 1941 invasion of Russia, all red clothing became suspect and simply wearing that color could lead to arrest, since the Nazis regarded it an expression of support for the Soviet Red Army. The police department had trouble finding room for all the confiscated red clothing, and their rapidly growing supply of toggery led to jokes about women coming to the police department asking directions to the dress department.

First off, the cover for this book is so great.

Secondly, this might be my personal favourite non-fiction book so far?? How do I even rate non-fiction? And I apologise in advance for this tl;dr review. Because I grew up in Norway, and my father grew up during the occupation & thus drops the occasional bizarre childhood tidbit at me, I'm immensely subjective about this material & it strikes a personal chord. (My Japanese-American-via-Hawaii heritage means researching WWII internment and anti-Asian racism by the Americans, and my Norwegian background means researching WWII homeland occupation by the Germans. My pet topics are real light-hearted, y'all.) The particular focus of this book -- home-grown rebellion against Nazi occupation via subversive humour -- meant I went from laughing on the train to tears welling up in my eyes a few minutes later. It's especially up my alley since it's essentially a discussion of war, hardship, underground resistance, and tragicomedy.

The occupation of Norway is a fascinating story. I wanted to know more because my high school history lessons never actually got far enough to cover it. And being interested in knowing what life might've been like for my father, I sought out something to tell me more about what daily life in occupied Norway was like -- I came across this book, and immediately bought it because I was intrigued by this particular analytical angle.

World War II was absolutely nuts, you guys. There's no wonder it holds such international fixation in both fiction and nonfiction, and even then, my country's story is one that's not told often. Some exposition for people who might not know the tale: The Danish and Norwegian kings were brothers! When both faced with invasion, one brother chose to negotiate with the Nazis while the other (King Haakon of Norway) fled to lead a government in exile from London. The notorious Quisling literally stormed into the national radio broadcasting office and proclaimed himself prime minister -- when he tried to get the government to legitimise him, they unanimously stood by the king instead, and the king broadcast his refusal to abdicate over the radio. Yet Quisling was quietly shunted to the side by the Nazis after only 6 days and turned into a puppet figurehead instead, because they saw how tremendously unpopular he was with the people -- but the image of his treachery and disgrace to the Norwegian people still lives on, to the extent of his name becoming an English word for 'traitor'.

The American WWII narrative is one of fighting abroad, but tales of occupation are something else and involve a completely different kind of fighting, as this book showcases. 500 people in Oslo were arrested and sent to a prison camp for wearing flowers in their lapels on the king's birthday! The Nazi government struggled with enacting increasingly insane rules to suppress the ~spirit of resistance~, railing against things like wearing a paper clip in your lapel, or wearing a red gnome hat, or drawing gnomes, or wearing red at all! When people started avoiding sitting next to Nazis on the tram, the government made it against the rules to switch seats; then when people opted to crowd in the back and stand instead, the Nazis tried to make it mandatory to sit down. When people started boycotting Nazi-made films, the government started barricading people in theatres for different showings, then subjecting them to political lectures instead! Newspapers and journalists stood up with secret encoded messages, subversive illustrations, and children's cartoons! The censors were harried trying to catch all of the subtle allusions, and utterly failed sometimes, accidentally praising the very material which mocked them! The clergy enacted an official separation between church & state for the duration of the occupation, and the Germans had to import their own ministers to cover church services, many of whom did not have theological degrees!

It's nuts.

It's not one-sided, unanimous resistance however -- this book does a good job of staying objective about it, pointing out that a lot of people did collaborate, did join the Nazi party; Britain did fail to help Norway at first and thus her people were bitter; Norwegians did not experience as much hardship as other occupied countries; we deeply failed our Jewish population by not standing up for them in the same way that the resistance protected other vulnerable parties that were targeted. Compared to the horrors of the Holocaust, Norway got off comparatively easy, of course.

But these tales of everyday resistance are just so fascinating. I bookmarked so much because I loved so many anecdotes and jokes, this stubborn defiance in the face of certain reprisals (I found myself cheering a newspaper's editor-in-chief who snuck in sly headlines, only to find out a paragraph later that he was executed for it). The author Stokker also examines how this humour ties into old sagas and folkloric tradition; how Norway's focus on a more egalitarian class model helped unify its resistance; she touches on the unfair treatment of women who had romantic/sexual relationships with the Germans, and the Norwegians' cruelty towards the children that ensued. It's not all black-and-white.

Stokker draws on newspaper, media, and personal accounts by several different women and girls who kept diaries -- much at their own peril, needing to bury the diary in the garden for risk of it being found during Nazi raids. The voices of these women continue throughout the book, detailing their daily lives & hardships & anger towards their occupiers, but also some of them expressing... not sympathy, perhaps, but empathy for their occupiers, pointing out that some of the soldiers were not pro-Hitler and stuck between a rock and a hard place.

I also straight-up cried in public while reading the penultimate chapter covering Norway's eventual liberation, because the relief and happiness and joy in those firsthand accounts were just--overwhelming, in a good way.

The book is great for its serious academic discussion & analysis of humour, and has a wonderful conclusion chapter that sums up all the reasons humour is important: it shows us what a population cares about. Gallows humour exists to cope with difficult situations, but it also advocates resistance, fosters solidarity, and punctures the intimidating myths built up around our oppressors. If you can laugh at them, then they're only human, and not invincible.

Unlike most nonfiction, I even loved reading every single endnote, and only wish they'd been placed as footnotes instead because they're so compelling. Folklore Fights the Nazis is a very interesting, nuanced read for anyone interested in WWII, occupation, humour as folklore and reflection of society, and the power of tragicomedy. Bravery is important, even if it's 'only' the bravery to laugh at your oppressors; it's the first step of resistance, and in many (historical and present-day) contexts, it can be just as deadly as active resistance.

As a companion read, I'm eventually going to follow this up with a book written by Werner Herzog's son, called Dead Funny: Telling Jokes in Hitler's Germany.

Might link to detailed quotes in a google doc at some point! Because seriously, a lot of these jokes were just so good: cutting and incisive and defiant.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of the most interesting history books I've read in a while about World War II or even about Norway in general. Often when we think of the World War II era of history many associations come to mind, but one aspect that is very seldom considered is Norway, who was occupied by the Nazis during the war. But unlike other occupied lands, Norway was not characterized by a spirit of fear but by one of rebellion. There were collaborators, of course, and there was uncertainty, but this uncertainty was more in terms of who to trust and what could possibly done than of whether to submit to the invaders. Stokker argues that these problems were in a large part addressed through the vehicle of humor, which created a sense of camaraderie, allowed the Norwegians an outlet for their frustration, and provided a sense of much needed unity. She follows humor in Norway through the initial invasion, the betrayal of Vidkun Quisling and his regime, and all the war developments through the final surrender of Germany.

Stokker is known for her high-quality treatments of aspects of Norwegian history and culture that often fly under the radar. For example, before her work wartime humor was regarded neither as a subject for historical or folkloric study. Stokker makes a case that it is worthy of both, and gives many insightful (not to mention entertaining) examples from a number of sources. I'd definitely recommend this to anyone interested in history, especially Norwegian or World War II history in particular, and also to those who are interested in the more fringe areas of folklore studies.

[Melissa Helton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating. It shows how humor and folk wit comforted, bolstered, and unified Norwegians during the occupation. It shows the values of the joke-tellers, as can be seen in the interesting comparison to occupied Denmark... a country whose humor included compassion for and identification with Jewish Danes, and whose country did a better job protecting and hiding their Jewish citizens (compared to Norway). Since so much in humor relies on the subtleties of language, I'm so thankful the jokes were in Norwegian and then in English, with an explanation of what word play was happening. Very interesting and extensively researched with primary documents.

[Rebecca · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book brings to light how an average person can stand up to corruption and tyranny in everyday life. Looking into the almost forgotten story of Norway's occupation in World War II, Stokker shows how stubborn and resilient the people were in defying their country's captures and living their lives despite the hardships they faced. The research was well done and presented in a very entertaining way. Anyone who is interested in WWII and the resistance movements should read this fantastic book!

[dejah_thoris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another example of a great find from browsing the stacks. I hadn't read anything about humor in World War II and even less about Norway's plight, so I figured why not try Stokker's analysis of occupied humor and I was very glad I did. Stokker creates several categories of jokes mostly captured in four joke diaries and then analyzes how they transmitted the unique values of Norway's resistance compared to other forms of communication. Many of the jokes she shares in English translation still work today if you replace some names because some themes are universal but others are highly contextual or puns that make more sense in Norwegian than in translation. I especially enjoyed the third chapter on the "tyskertos" or women who fraternized with the Germans because I haven't read much about their experiences from any country. I can certainly see why patriots would consider them highly treasonous but Stokker doesn't explain whether their barbaric post-war treatment in Norway was the exception or the rule for the rest of the Continent. However, my only critique of this book, which would be ameliorated in an epub edition, are the extensive end notes because they are so useful that I wish they had been footnotes instead.

[Jeremy Murphy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic coverage of Norway's pointed, witty use of humor against the Nazis (and Italy) in WW2. Very detailed and enlightening! Must-read book for anyone with Norse heritage! Lots of Norse language but all translated to English. Great political cartoons and illustrations. Magnificent book!