Quisling is a word you didn’t hear very often, but has come back into the modern political lexicon. Strangely, its resurgance is due to George Galloway and the anti-war movement, who apply it to left-wing trade unionists and other progressives in Iraq trying to build a civil society.
The word quisling means a person who is a traitor to their country or collaborates with their country’s enemies. It comes from the behaviour of a Norwegian fascist politician Vidkun Quisling, who collaborated with the Nazis. It seems a little unfair, not to mention historically inaccurate, to be equating leftwing trade unionists with Vidkun Quisling, although I suppose if you think Bush=Hitler then it is no great leap of the imagination.
Vidkun Quisling in court at Oslo.The other infamous traitor of World War II was William Joyce, also known as Lord Haw Haw, who spent most of the war broadcasting Nazi Propaganda (some of it when intoxicated) from Berlin. He was captured on May 29th 1945 by the Second army on the Danish-German border near Flensburg. When questioned he made a movement with his right hand, as though going for a gun, and was promptly shot in the leg. He was treated at Luneberg for two weeks, then flown to England for trial.
Lord Haw Haw photographed shortly after his capture.Both were executed.