7hrs 16 mins TV documentary on Norwegian train trip

[steinjr]

Fortunately, after a rather tense summer and autumn, a peaceful divorce was arranged, and Norway became independent, electing (after a pleibicite) a Danish prince as the new king of Norway.

Why a Danish prince and not a Norwegian? :?

Norwegian royal family died out in the late 1300s. If they wanted to pick a prince from a royal family, they had to import someone.

Norway had been part of Denmark for 400 years before the 93 years in union with Sweden, and Norwegians had been reasonably happy with being part of Denmark. It was the forced union with Sweden they protested in 1814, not being part of Denmark. They chose a Danish prince as king of Norway in 1814, when they declared independence. When the Swedes took over in 1814, the Danish prince had to abdicate as part of the forced union agreement.

In 1905, they wanted someone associated with Denmark and England, in the hope that this would provide a little protected if the Swedes decided to get ambitious again. So they chose prince Carl of Denmark, who was married to Maud, one of the daughters of Queen Victoria of England. He, probably wisely, insisted on a pleibicite on whether Norwegians wanted wanted a monarchy with him as king, or whether they wanted a republic. The result was overwhelmingly in favor of a monarchy with Carl as king.

He arrived in Norway in 1905, with his wife Maud, and his young son Alexander (then aged 3). In a very popular move, he changed his name from Carl to Haakon and added "VII" (the seventh), since Norway as an independent kingdom up to 1380 had previously had six kings by the name of Haakon. His son Alexander was renamed Olav, and later became king Olav the fifth, who ruled from 1957 until 2001. The current king is Harald the fifth

King Haakon was a good king, who understood his role perfectly - to be a uniting symbol for people of all political persuations. And he proved to be an inspired choice when the Germans launched their surprise invasion of Norway without a previous declaration of war on April 9th 1940.

He helped put some spine into those members of the government who was wondering whether to surrender, and he (along with the government, parliament and the army high command) made his escape from Oslo to continue the fight before the Germans made their way into Oslo, while the Germans made several attempts at killing them by bombing the towns they moved to.

One of the best know photos from the war in Norway in 1940 shows the king, calmly standing under a birch tree with his son, crown prince Olav, looking defiantly up at German bomber plans as they flattened the small coastal town of Aalesund around him.



Our wartime poet Nordahl Grieg wrote a poem about the king as the symbol of resistance. He called his poem "The King", and it starts like this:

"Thus the king will remain in our memory:
by a pale birch tree
against the dark background of bare spring forest,
he stands alone with his son.
German bombers are overhead"

Eventually the government, the king and as much of our navy, air force and army as we could get out were evacuated to England to continue the fight from exile, while in Norway, the labor unions, the teachers, the priests and many other brave men and woman joined the resistance movement that grew up under the noses of the German occupants.

Nordahl Grieg escaped to England, where he joined the Free Norwegian Forces. He died on December 2nd 1943, in a Lancaster bomber that was shot down over Berlin.

The Germans finally was beated by the combined effort of all the allied countries, with the heaviest burdens of course having been carried by the United States, the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union, and surrendered on May 8th 1945,

A day known in Norway as "liberation day". Crown prince Olav returned to Norway a few days afterwards, and the king returned to the county to meet a a gigantic celebration on June 7th 1945, 40 years after Norway declared it's independence from Sweden.

Two generations later, there is no signs of most Norwegians being ready to ditch monarchy and turn the country into a republic. We made a good choice of our royal family in 1905, and the next crown prince also looks like he some day will make a good king.