Josef Terboven
Josef Antonius Heinrich Terboven (
May 23,
1898 -
May 8,
1945) was a Nazi leader most known for his brutal leadership during the
Nazi occupation of Norway.
Terboven was born in
Essen, the son of minor landed gentry. He served for the German
field artillery and nascent
air force in
World War I and was awarded the
Iron Cross. He was dishonorably discharged as a lieutenant. He studied law and political science for a few years at the universities of
Munich and
Freiburg, where he first got involved in politics.
Dropping out of college in 1923, Terboven joined the NSDAP and participated in the abortive
Beer Hall Putsch in Munich. When the NSDAP was subsequently outlawed, he found work as an apprentice at a bank for a few years before being laid off in
1925.
This set the stage for an active career in the
Nazi party. Terboven helped establish the party in Essen and became
Gauleiter there in 1928. He was part of the
Sturmabteilung from 1925. On June 29, 1934, Terboven married Ilse Stahl,
Joseph Goebbels' former secretary and mistress.
Adolf Hitler was the guest of honor at the wedding. Terboven was made Oberpräsident der Rheinprovinz in
1935 and earned a reputation as a petty and ruthless ruler of the area.
He was made
Reichskommissar (Commissar) of
Norway on
April 24,
1940, even before the military invasion was completed on
7 June 1940. He moved into the Norwegian crown prince's residence at
Skaugum in September 1940 and made the
Stortinget (Norwegian parliament)'s buildings his headquarters.
Although the Nazi authorities instituted a puppet Norwegian regime through the
Quisling cabinet, Terboven ruled Norway as if he were dictator. Terboven did not have authority over the 400,000 regular German Army forces stationed in Norway, but did command a force of 6,000, of which 800 were part of the secret police. His aspiration was to set up Fortress Norway that would be the last stand for the Nazi regime. He also planned to set up a
concentration camp in Norway, all plans that came to nothing.
Terboven was hated by the Norwegian populace and earned little respect among his fellow German countrymen. Joseph Goebbels' himself had even remarked anger in his diary towards what he called Terboven's "bullying tactics" against the Norwegians. When the war was lost Terboven committed suicide on
May 8,
1945 by detonating 50 kilograms of dynamite in his bunker hideout on the
Skaugum compound. Terboven blew himself up in the company of the body of the commander of the
SS in Norway, General
Wilhelm Rediess, who had shot himself earlier the same day.
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