Norway under Nazi occupation: sketch of proposed 1 krone with Viking ship

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Sketch of proposed 1 krone coin design, dated 1941, for Nazi-occupied Norway.

I am grateful to our Norwegian forum member Mycoins for his scan of the sketch above. He explains:

According to Norwegian numismatist Bjørn Rønning, it became clear to the Norwegian administration [at the beginning of the Nazi occupation] that the prewar coinage could not be continued, as the metal allowances for civil use were too sparse. When in 1941 the German high command in Norway demanded that the pre-war coins be withdrawn, the production of the replacement coins started. Curiously, the Germans gave detailed instructions in regard to the alloy of the zinc coins, but they did not mention the iron coins at all. Perhaps the Mint at Kongsberg just did what they had been doing in World War I, without needing instructions.

The Germans also gave instructions for the design of the replacement coins. Any royal symbol was banned [because the King had escaped to England], but instead symbols reflecting Norwegian history and commerce where allowed, hence the use of the cross of St. Olav and the image of a viking ship for a proposed 1 krone coin.

For more detail, see this topic:

Norway, World War 2, government-in-exile coinage.

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Ragnvald Støren was the Norwegian mint official who was responsible for the sketch above.

Mycoins also produced the scans above, for which I am grateful to him. It is not always easy to scan images from a book.

The photo of the sketch is taken from the book "Norges mynter og Pengesedler etter 1874" ("Norwegian coins and bank notes after 1874") by Bjørn Ragnolf Rønning. I emailed the author, and he replied: "It's 45 years since I wrote the book, and a lot has happened in that time. I joined the university's coin cabinet in 1983, and went to a position as parliamentary archivist. I remember that I found a reproduction of the original drawing in the archive of the Royal Mint in Kongsberg. I would think that drawing is still located there. The Royal Mint was sold by Norges Bank to a private company. I believe that the archive was transferred to the State Archives in Kongsberg."

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Many propaganda posters at the time showed the Norwegians looking back to their warlike forebears, the Vikings.

So the design of a Viking ship would not have upset the Nazis.

Above, you see this kind of "atavism" regarding Vikings in the propaganda.

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Here is a propaganda poster that features a Viking ship.

The Nazis did have some sympathisers in Norway, but the vast majority of Norwegians were not pro-Nazi.

They despised Vidkun Quisling, the Norwegian collaborator who briefly headed the government.

He was so inept that the Nazis had to replace him with their own man.

Quisling was executed after the war for treason.