The secret symbol of resistance: How Norwegians used paperclips to defy the Nazis in World War II

While a lot of the headline-grabbing stories of World War II understandably involve daring raids on French beaches, blood-curdling close calls with enemy spies and enthralling military tactics, the ones that show the true nature of humanity might well be the most interesting after all.

This is certainly the case in Norway, or rather it was, during World War II. Once Hitler’s Nazi regime marched into Norway, both the King and government promptly fled to London, leaving the people of the country with no other option but to surrender or face execution. But they chose to resist.

It was Vidkun Quisling, a puppet of the Third Reich, who was given the pedestal in the power vacuum and proclaimed himself prime minister, allowing the Nazis free reign to rule.

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum writes that 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.”

However, resistance to the idea from teachers saw the Nazi union become powerless immediately, and as such the government, surprised by the reaction, shuttered schools and withheld 10,000 teachers’ salaries; one in ten educators were arrested and sent to concentration camps as the majority of students moved to homeschooling.

And here comes the paperclip: teachers would wear paperclips on the lapels of their jackets, with student adopting them on the end of necklaces. This was a symbol of resistance and a showing of resilience: the paperclips ‘held’ everyone together like a stack of paper against the Nazi rule.

The solidarity movement was staggering, and schools eventually reopened with teachers still refusing to teach Nazi ideology. Soldiers would see students turn their backs on them and beatings were common for both educators and pupils.

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The resistance in Norway, as mentioned, was striking, but it did not stop at paperclips: in 1943, as Nazi Germany appeared to be ahead in the race to develop a nuclear bomb, Norwegian resistance fighters successfully sank a German ferry transporting essential manufacturing equipment back to Germany. This attack dealt a significant blow to the Nazi nuclear program and was a setback from which Hitler’s army never recovered.

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