Editing Vidkun Quisling (section)

===Coming of war===
In 1939, Quisling turned his attention towards Norway's preparations for the anticipated European war, which he believed involved a drastic increase in the country's defence spending to guarantee its neutrality. Meanwhile, Quisling presented lectures entitled "The Jewish problem in Norway"<ref>{{cite book|author=Maynard M. Cohen|title=A Stand Against Tyranny: Norway's Physicians and the Nazis|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7cmx6u2GF80C&pg=PA53|year= 2000|publisher=Wayne State University Press|isbn=0-8143-2934-9|pages=53–}}</ref> and supported [[Adolf Hitler]] in what appeared to be growing future conflict. Despite condemning ''[[Kristallnacht]],'' he sent the German leader a fiftieth-birthday greeting thanking him for "saving Europe from Bolshevism and Jewish domination".<ref name="dahl134">{{harvnb|Dahl|1999|pp=134–137}}.</ref> Quisling also contended that should an Anglo-Russian alliance make neutrality impossible, Norway would have "to go with Germany."<ref name="dahl137">{{harvnb|Dahl|1999|pp=137–142}}.</ref> Invited to the country in the summer of 1939, he began a tour of a number of German and Danish cities. He was received particularly well in Germany, which promised funds to boost ''Nasjonal Samling's'' standing in Norway, and hence spread pro-Nazi sentiment. When war broke out on 1 September 1939, Quisling felt vindicated by both the event and the immediate superiority displayed by the German army. He remained outwardly confident that, despite its size, his party would soon become the centre of political attention.<ref name="dahl137"/>

For the next nine months, Quisling continued to lead a party that was at best peripheral to Norwegian politics.<ref name="dahl137"/> He was nonetheless active, and in October 1939 he worked with Prytz on an ultimately unsuccessful plan for peace between Britain, France and Germany and their eventual participation in a new economic union. Quisling also mused on how Germany ought to go on the offensive against its ally the Soviet Union, and on 9 December travelled to Germany to present his multi-faceted plans.<ref>{{harvnb|Dahl|1999|pp=142–149}}.</ref> After impressing German officials, he won an audience with Hitler himself, scheduled for 14 December, whereupon he received firm advice from his contacts that the most useful thing he could do would be to ask for Hitler's help with a pro-German coup in Norway,{{refn|Quisling considered the fourth and constitutionally dubious session of the Parliament of Norway, due to open on 10 January 1940, as the mostly likely time for ''Nasjonal Samling'' to face an exploitable crisis. During 1939 he had firmed up a list of candidates for an incoming government.<ref>{{harvnb|Dahl|1999|p=153}}.</ref>|group="nb"}} that would let the Germans use Norway as a naval base. Thereafter, Norway would maintain official neutrality as long as possible, and finally the country would fall under German rather than British control.<ref>{{cite book|title=The German Northern Theater of Operations 1940–1945|year = 1959|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Nw0VAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA8|publisher=Brill Archive|pages=8–|id=GGKEY:BQN0CQURHS1}}</ref> It is not clear how much Quisling himself understood about the strategic implications of such a move, and he instead relied on his future Minister of Domestic Affairs [[Albert Viljam Hagelin|Albert Hagelin]], who was fluent in German, to put the relevant arguments to German officials in Berlin during pre-meeting talks, even though Hagelin was prone to damaging exaggeration at times.<ref>{{harvnb|Dahl|1999|pp=149–152}}.</ref> Quisling and his German contacts almost certainly went away with different views as to whether they had agreed upon the necessity of a German invasion.<ref name="dahl153">{{harvnb|Dahl|1999|pp=153–156}}.</ref>

On 14 December 1939, Quisling met Hitler. The German leader promised to respond to any British invasion of Norway ([[Plan R 4]]), perhaps pre-emptively, with a German counter-invasion, but found Quisling's plans for both a Norwegian coup and an Anglo-German peace unduly optimistic. Nonetheless, Quisling would still receive funds to bolster ''Nasjonal Samling''.{{refn|Immediately after the meeting on 14 December, Hitler ordered his staff to draw up preparations for an invasion of Norway.<ref>{{harvnb|Dahl|1999|p=157}}.</ref>|group="nb"}} The two men met again four days later, and afterwards Quisling wrote a memorandum that explicitly told Hitler that he did not consider himself a National Socialist.<ref name="dahl153"/> As German machinations continued, Quisling was intentionally kept in the dark. He was also incapacitated by a severe bout of illness, probably [[nephritis]] in both kidneys, for which he refused hospitalisation. Though he returned to work on 13 March 1940, he remained ill for several weeks.<ref>{{harvnb|Dahl|1999|pp=160–162}}.</ref> In the meantime, the [[Altmark incident|''Altmark'' incident]] complicated Norway's efforts to maintain its neutrality. Hitler himself remained in two minds over whether an occupation of Norway should require an invitation from the Norwegian government. Finally, Quisling received his summons on 31 March, and reluctantly travelled to [[Copenhagen]] to meet with Nazi intelligence officers who asked him for information on Norwegian defences and defence protocols. He returned to Norway on 6 April and, on 8 April, the British [[Operation Wilfred]] commenced, bringing Norway into the war. With [[Allied campaign in Norway|Allied forces in Norway]], Quisling expected a characteristically swift German response.<ref>{{harvnb|Dahl|1999|pp=162–170}}.</ref>