[15][16] Highlighting the massive mismanagement of the area and the death toll of approximately ten thousand a day, Quisling produced a report that attracted aid and demonstrated his administrative skills, as well as his dogged determination to get what he wanted.

[26] Quisling's stay in Paris did not last as long as planned, and in late 1923 he started work on Nansen's new repatriation project in the Balkans, arriving in Sofia in November.

[46][48][49] After narrowly avoiding criticism by the left wing over his handling of the dispute, and the revelation of his earlier "militia" plans, Quisling turned his attention to the perceived threat posed by communists.

Despite the ready availability of junior officers in the reserve following defence cuts, only seven units were established in 1934, and funding restrictions meant that the enterprise included less than a thousand men before it faded away.

[53][nb 2] The so-called "pepper affair" served to polarise opinion about Quisling, and government fears grew concerning reasonably open Soviet elements in Norway who had been active in promoting industrial unrest.

[58] Following Kolstad's death in March 1932, Quisling retained his post as defence minister in the second Agrarian government under Jens Hundseid for political reasons, though they remained in bitter opposition throughout.

[60] On 8 April that year, Quisling had a chance to defend himself over the pepper affair in Parliament, but instead used the opportunity to attack the Labour and Communist parties, claiming that named members were criminals and "enemies of our fatherland and our people.

With the assistance of Hjort and Prytz, Nordisk folkereisning i Norge quickly became a political party, Nasjonal Samling, or NS, literally "National Unity," ready to contest the forthcoming October parliamentary election.

With its Nazi-inspired belief in the central authority of a strong Führer, as well as its powerful propaganda elements, it gained support from many among the Oslo upper classes, and began to give the impression that "big money" lay behind it.

The threat irreparably damaged the image of his party, and over the following few months several high-ranking members resigned, including Kai Fjell and Quisling's brother Jørgen.

Despite receiving an unexpected boost when the Norwegian government acceded to Soviet demands to arrest Leon Trotsky, the party's election campaign never gained momentum.

Although Quisling sincerely believed he had the support of around 100,000 voters, and declared to his party that they would win an absolute minimum of ten seats, Nasjonal Samling managed to poll just 26,577, fewer than in 1933 when they had fielded candidates in only half the districts.

[73] His disillusionment with Norwegian society was furthered by news of the planned constitutional reform of 1938, which would extend the parliamentary term from three to four years with immediate effect, a move Quisling bitterly opposed.

[74] 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.

[76] 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.

Two of his orders—the first to his friend Colonel Hans Sommerfeldt Hiorth, the commanding officer of the army regiment at Elverum,[92] to arrest the government, and the second to Kristian Welhaven, Oslo's chief of police—were both ignored.

On Hitler's orders, he demanded that King Haakon appoint Quisling head of a new government, thereby securing a peaceful transition of power and giving legal sanction to the occupation.

It was a productive trip, in which all key issues of Norwegian independence were discussed—but Joseph Goebbels in particular remained unconvinced of Quisling's credentials, noting that it was "unlikely" he would "...ever make a great statesman.

Increased factionalism and personal losses, including the accidental death of fellow politician Gulbrand Lunde, were compounded by heavy-handed German tactics, such as the shooting of ten well-known residents of Trøndelag and its environs in October 1942.

In addition, the lex Eilifsen ex-post facto law of August 1943, which led to the first death sentence passed by the regime, was widely seen as a blatant violation of the Constitution and a sign of Norway's increasing role in the Final Solution, and would destroy everything the convention had achieved in terms of boosting party morale.

Although this was an entirely German initiative—Quisling himself was left unaware of it, although government assistance was provided—Quisling led the Norwegian public to believe that the first deportation of Jewish people, to camps in Nazi-German occupied Poland, was his idea.

[129] Quisling became entangled in a similar debacle in early 1944 when he forced compulsory military service on elements of the Hirden, causing a number of members to resign to avoid being drafted.

To the horror of the Quisling regime, the Nazis instead decided on a scorched earth policy in northern Norway, going so far as to shoot Norwegian civilians who refused to evacuate the region.

[130] On recounting the events of the trip to a friend, Quisling broke down in tears, convinced the Nazi refusal to sign a peace agreement would seal his reputation as a traitor.

[135] After ten weeks being constantly watched to prevent suicide attempts in police custody, he was transferred to Akershus Fortress and awaited trial as part of the legal purge.

[136] Initially, Quisling's charges related to the coup, including his revocation of the mobilisation order, to his time as Nasjonal Samling leader and to his actions as minister president, such as assisting the enemy and illegally attempting to alter the constitution.

[155] As quoted by Dahl, psychiatrist Professor Gabriel Langfeldt stated Quisling's ultimate philosophical goals "fitted the classic description of the paranoid megalomaniac more exactly than any other case [he had] ever encountered.

[157] Quisling was independent minded, made several key decisions on the spot and, unlike his German counterpart, he liked to follow procedure to ensure that government remained "a dignified and civilised" affair throughout.

[158] He rejected the basic teachings of orthodox Christianity and established a new theory of life, which he called Universism, a term borrowed from a textbook which Jan Jakob Maria de Groot had written on Chinese philosophy.

During the first week of October, he wrote a fifty-page document titled Universistic Aphorisms, which represented "...an almost ecstatic revelation of truth and the light to come, which bore the mark of nothing less than a prophet.