Folklore fights the Nazis

Folklore Fights the Nazis details how Norwegians kept their sense of humor and their spirits high by poking fun at the Germans who occupied their land during World War II. The book centers on four "joke notebooks" kept by women ranging in age from eleven to thirty, who found sufficient meaning in this humor to risk recording and preserving it, notwithstanding an October 1942 ordinance threatening the death penalty for possessing any form of anti-Nazi propaganda. In addition to narrative jokes, quips, and anecdotes, author Kathleen Stokker explores the Norwegians' use of symbolic clothing, Christmas cards, children's literature, and mock postage stamps to express anti-Nazi sentiment. Supplemented by the wartime diaries of three additional women from East, West, and North Norway, respectively, and informed by Stokker's interviews of numerous other occupation survivors, the book contains a wealth of historical detail and personal perspective that belies the traditional historical accounts of Norway's occupation that assume the entire population's immediate and unanimous resistance to Nazism. Instead we find in these unassuming wartime documents far more complex attitudes toward the occupiers and the Norwegian Nazis, attitudes that both in frailty and humanity appear more psychologically valid. Intended to serve both scholars and the general public, the book, based on eight years of research, includes thorough source annotations and footnotes, as well as a bibliography and index, but is written in a popular style and includes the historical and cultural background necessary to the nonspecialist.