Albert Viljam Hagelin
Albert Viljam Hagelin (24 April 1881 – 25 May 1946) was a Norwegian businessman, opera singer and a leading member of Nasjonal Samling.
Life
Germany and NS membership
As a young man (around 1901) he traveled to Germany to become an architect and opera singer. Hagelin lived abroad for over 30 years until the end of the 1930s, mostly in Dresden, Germany. After his wife's death in January 1935, Hagelin went on a longer round trip in Norway. While visiting Oslo, he met Vidkun Quisling. Hagelin joined Nasjonal Samling shortly after.
In the spring of 1939, Hagelin tried to reach high-ranking officials in Germany to raise German money for the NS newspaper Fritt Folk. The financing attempts failed, as the newspaper budget he presented was unrealistic. Hagelin, however, managed to forge ties with some leaders, and he came in contact with powerful men such as Grand Admiral Erich Raeder and the NSDAP's Alfred Rosenberg. Quisling visited Hagelin in Germany in the summer of 1939. When Quisling returned to Germany in the winter, Hagelin's network ensured that the NS leader had an audience with Adolf Hitler.
Back to Norway and NS minister
Hagelin returned to Norway for good at the end of December 1939. With Quisling's coup on April 9, 1940, Hagelin was appointed Minister of Trade and Supply. Later that year, he became county leader for Oslo and Akershus, and the party's deputy leader. In the autumn of 1940, Hagelin was appointed head of the newly established Ministry of the Interior, as part of Josef Terboven's commissarial ministers. He was also Minister of the Interior in the NS government (1942) until 1944.
There had gradually been strong rumors within the NS that Hagelin was corrupt. The rumors became so strong that Quisling had to start an investigation of the case, and while the investigation was going on, his position as county leader in Oslo was taken away from him. The investigation acquitted Hagelin. Nevertheless, he was later forced to resign in the autumn of 1944, when he did not want to travel to Finnmark to lead the forced evacuation. The rest of the occupation he lived secluded on Bygdøy.
Death
Hagelin was sentenced to death during the Norwegian post-war trials. In 1946 he was executed by firing squad at Oslo's Akershus Fortress.
Other
It is claimed that his mother Gerd Anna Hedvig Eleonore Meyer (1857–1926) was partly Jewish.
