He openly supported Hitler, but even though Nasjonal Samling eventually formed a government controlled by the German Reichskommissar after the war broke out, it is clear to historians he was never actually a self-enrolled party member (in a civil lawsuit, he was found to have been a member under dissent from the professional judge, during the legal purge in Norway after World War II).
Parts of the rather short obituary soon became infamous: Hamsun referred to Hitler as "a warrior for humankind and a preacher of the gospel of justice for all nations" and "a reformer of the highest order".
[1][4][5] The obituary is often cited as a pivotal point in Hamsun's expression of his own political views, severely affecting the reception of his complete body of works.
[2][4] Biographer Ingar Sletten Kolloen has referred to the obituary as one of "four mortal sins" committed by Hamsun which came to erode his position in Norwegian post-war society.
However, the charges against him were softened as professor Gabriel Langfeldt and chief physician Ørnulv Ødegård found him to have "permanently impaired mental abilities".