Why Did Norwegian Teachers Wear Paper Clips During World War II?
Educators Endured Torture to Keep Nazism Out of Classrooms
In 1940, the Nazi regime’s terrible march across Europe reached Norway, where Germany sought to secure the country’s naval bases. The Norwegian King and government fled to London; Vidkun Quisling, a puppet of the Third Reich, proclaimed himself prime minister. Remarkably, Norway’s quiet resistance of teachers and families beat back the rise of fascism as individuals loyal to truth, education, and justice took courageous collective action.
Teachers there would wear paper clips in their lapels, while students wore them as necklaces or bracelets, a small symbol of resistance signaling how the country’s educators and learners remained united — bound together like a stack of papers — against Nazi rule.
By 1942, Quisling demanded that teachers join the Nazi-led national teachers union, pledge fealty to German occupiers, and indoctrinate Norwegian children with totalitarian propaganda. Thousands of teachers and parents wrote letters of protest against the new requirement. Within two months, 90 percent of Norway’s 14,000 teachers abandoned the union, rendering it powerless.
The government, surprised by the teachers’ massive show of solidarity, shuttered schools and withheld 10,000 teachers’ salaries. As school employees battled poverty, many continued to give lessons from private homes. Their resistance was met with brutal retaliation. One in 10 educators was arrested and pressured to retract their resignation from the union. These teachers were rounded up into freezing cattle cars and sent to concentration camps, where they were denied food and forced to crawl through snow, march miles in darkness while being beaten, and perform hard labor. People rallied behind the teachers, despite the danger of public shows of support. As the train cars carried teachers toward torture, local residents gathered along the railroad tracks to lift their spirits with songs and gifts of food.
Brave citizens defied the ban on demonstrations and protested the teachers’ abysmal treatment. Months of abuse and deprivation did not break the teachers’ resolve. Ultimately, schools reopened, the union mandate was repealed, and prisoners were released. But even with schools back in session, teachers were expected to teach students Nazi ideology — and most refused.
Students Take a Stand
Students, following the example of adults in their communities, also took a stand against the Nazis and Norwegian Nazi sympathizers. They used symbols and gestures to show loyalty to the King of Norway, and turned their backs on German soldiers marching by. When Nazi school inspectors entered a classroom, students showed their contempt by singing patriotic songs. Oslo high school students refused to join the Nazi Youth Movement; to punish their defiance, Nazis broke into schools and beat teachers and teenagers. Despite threats, arrests, and bribes, the Nazis failed to attract young people into the Nazi movement and gave up trying to enforce membership.
Many university students rejected Nazism, gathering intelligence for the Allies or organizing underground resistance movements. In 1943, after a fire — believed to be intentionally sparked by Nazis — ignited in the auditorium on an Oslo university campus, the Gestapo descended upon students. More than 1,100 students were arrested on the streets, in their homes, and on campus. Eventually, about half were released, but 700 were sent to a “retraining camp” in Germany.
Norway’s teachers, students, and parents stood together in the face of grave danger. Innumerable acts of courage, some as small as a paper clip, when multiplied were strong enough to keep authoritarianism at bay. Historians describe the uprising as “an unconditional ideological defeat upon Nazism in Norway.” Some 900 Norwegian Jews living in Norway at the time of the German invasion escaped to Sweden with help from brave fellow citizens. Nearly half of Norway’s roughly 1,700 Jews were ultimately deported to the Auschwitz-Birkenau killing center, where most were murdered. Just 25 returned to Norway after the war.
Learn more about Norway under Nazi rule.
Sources:
Richard S. Fuegner, Beneath the Tyrant’s Yoke: Norwegian Resistance to the German Occupation of Norway 1940–1945 (Edina, Minnesota: Beaver’s Pond Press, 2003), 81–82.
Gene Sharp, “Tyranny Could Not Quell Them: How Norway’s Teachers Defeated Quisling and What it Means for Unarmed Defence Today,” Peace News (1958).
“The Teachers’ Strike,” Heroes of the Resistance, accessed August 8, 2021, https://heroesoftheresistance.org/profile/teachers-strike
