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How quickly a liberal and politically neutral country such as Norway can be deprived of its freedom (e.g. of expression) is illustrated by the censorship imposed by the Nazi regime.

Shortly after the occupation of Norway in World War II, the press department of the Reich Commissariat controlled the entire public media. The sale, purchase or lending of hundreds of books was prohibited with immediate effect. The first book to be hit by National Socialist censorship in April 1940 was “Hitler har sagt det” (in German: “Hitler hat es gesagt“) by Hermann Rauschning.

This censorship during the Norwegian occupation is documented in a book published by the National Library of Norway in Oslo in 1995: “Beslaglagte bøker: liste over de bøker, forfattere og forlag som var forbudtunder krigen“ („Seized books – list of the books, authors and publishers who were forbidden during the war“). It is based on four censorship lists published during WW2, largely based on the Nazi blacklists.

The lists include Norwegian, Danish, and Swedish works, as well as those of American, British, French, and exiled German writers. Due to the ideology of the Nazi regime, the censorship lists also included Jewish authors from various nations, such as Felix Salten, the Austrian author of the novel “Bambi“ (1923) made famous by the Disney film.

These are mainly political books, works critical of Germany, books with socialist or communist content, but also some works considered immoral. Many of them were published by socialist or communist publishers, such as Tiden, which was closed on September 26, 1940.

We, a group of students from Kassel, have evaluated the “Beslagte bøker”. In total, we have included 695 censored authors and 425 banned works in the Kasseler Liste – with the kind support of Lars Tingelstad, National Library of Norway.