Knut Hamsun was a Nobel Prize winning Norwegian Novelist whose major books were written from about 1888 thru the thirties and forties. He had a tempestuous relationship with his wife that included lengthy separations and infidelities, but at the end they returned to each other. He lived until 1952; but before and during the war years, strangely, he and his wife favored what they incorrectly believed was Hitler’s plan for a pan-Europe that would include Norway as an independent country. Hamsun, was old and deaf, and read nothing but the Nazi approved papers in Norway.
After the war when he was shown film of what the Nazis had done he renounced the Nazis, but not Hitler, declared that anti-Semitism was morally wrong. He insisted that he should be tried for his wartime activities. During the war he did try to save resistance fighters who had been captured from torture and death but was always rebuffed. These failures did not dissuade his support for Hitler. He was asked by Hitler to meet at the Wolf’s Lair in Austria. At that meeting, at which he was old, exhausted and befuddled, he repeatedly brought up the question of torture and execution and was thrown out by Hitler. He returned to Norway but remained silent. He wrote the only obituary of Hitler written in Norway.
Knut Hamsun's eulogy by Marie Hamsun, his wife.
The wanderer has reached
The end of his journey.
It wasn't always easy
To keep up with you, my love.
Sometimes you had to wait for me.
And sometimes
I had to wait for you.
At times we even lost track
Of each other on the way.
But somehow,
We always found each other again.
Good bye, my Knut.
And thank you
For keeping me company.
Marie Hamsun 1952
