1943: Gunnar Eilifsen, good cop
August 16th, 2017 Headsman
Policeman Gunnar Eilifsen on this date in 1943 achieved the undesirable distinction of becoming the first person executed under the auspices of Norway’s World War II collaborationist Quisling government.
As an officer in Oslo, Eilifsen got himself in hot water with the Reichskommissar Josef Terboven when he supported several constables’ refusal to arrest girls who shirked the national labor conscription.
Terboven’s orders-must-be-followed jag was excessive even by the standards of a fascist puppet state, and a court told him to get lost. So, Terboven “appealed” by keeping Eilifsen in custody until later that day, when he arranged a do-over proceeding with handpicked judges and no defense.
The disobedient cop was shot the next sunrise. Three days later the dubious execution was retroactively legalized by a law subjecting the police to the military code, a measure sometimes sarcastically dubbed the “”Lex Eilifsen”.
On this day..
- 1820: Rebecca Worlock, arsenic poisoner - 2020
- 1794: Charles-Louis Richard - 2019
- 1704: Roland Laporte, posthumously, and five aides, humously - 2018
- 1944: Fusilles de la Cascade du Bois de Boulogne - 2016
- 1817: Not Hall or Read, prosecuted for blood-money - 2015
- 1883: Ah Yung - 2014
- 2001: Jeffrey Doughtie, "It started with a needle and it is ending with a needle" - 2013
- 1527: Leonhard Kaiser, Lutheran - 2012
- 1851: Col. William Logan Crittenden, nephew of the Attorney General - 2011
- 1878: Max Hödel - 2010
- 1972: Mohamed Oufkir - 2009
- 1894: Sante Geronimo Caserio, anarchist assassin - 2008
Entry Filed under: 20th Century,Capital Punishment,Death Penalty,Execution,History,Milestones,Military Crimes,Norway,Power,Shot,Wartime Executions,Wrongful Executions
Tags: 1940s, 1943, august 16, fascism, gunnar eilifsen, police, world war ii
