1947: Henry Rinnan, Norwegian collaborator
February 1st, 2014 Headsman
On this date in 1947, a firing squad shot Henry Rinnan for treason at Trondheim’s Kristiansten Fortress.
Standing just 5′ 3″ on tippytoe, Rinnan (English Wikipedia entry | Norwegian) stands tall as Norway’s most notorious World War II collaborator this side of Vidkun Quisling.
That physique got him turned away when he tried to volunteer to fight the Soviets in the Winter War, but it didn’t put the Gestapo off him after Germany occupied Norway in 1940. He formed an informants’ network known as the Rinnanbanden which infiltrated the resistance movement and entrapped anti-occupation Norwegians — a “game in the negative sector,” as Rinnan described it.
The “game” got more than a thousand people arrested and something like 100 killed, including one of the more notorious episodes of the occupation, the Majavatn affair. (Norwegian link) It also eventually got Rinnan a German rank and the opportunity to kill some people personally.
Twelve people in all from the Rinnanbanden were sentenced to death after the war, counting Rinnan. Ten of those did indeed pay the penalty.
There’s a Norwegian page about the Rinnanbanden here.
On this day..
- 1927: Ada Bonner LeBoeuf and Dr. Thomas E. Dreher - 2020
- 1944: Franz Kutschera, by underground justice - 2019
- 1782: Jose Antonio Galan, for the Revolt of the Comuneros - 2018
- 1832: Three Nottingham rioters, for better governance - 2017
- 1871: John Hanlon, guilty but framed - 2016
- 1612: Bishop Conor O'Devany and Father Patrick O'Loughran - 2015
- 1816: Four sodomite sailors of the Africaine - 2013
- 2002: Daniel Pearl - 2012
- 1931: Severino Di Giovanni, anarchist - 2011
- 1924: Alikomiak and Tatimagana, Inuit - 2010
- 1968: Nguyen Van Lem - 2009
- 1932: Farabundo Marti - 2008
Entry Filed under: 20th Century,Capital Punishment,Death Penalty,Execution,History,Norway,Occupation and Colonialism,Shot,Soldiers,Spies,Treason
Tags: 1940s, 1947, fascism, february 1, henry rinnan, trondheim, world war ii
