Knut Hamsun’s Eulogy for Adolf Hitler

Although he may not have been a National Socialist in a doctrinaire sense, Norwegian Nobel laureate Knut Hamsun counted himself as one of Adolf Hitler’s personal followers.

On May 7, 1945, one short week after the Führer’s freewill death, the following eulogy for Hitler was published on the front page of the Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten.

Adolf Hitler

I’m not worthy to speak for Adolf Hitler, and his life and deeds do not invite any sentimental reflection.

Hitler was a warrior, a warrior for humankind and a preacher of the gospel of justice for all nations. He was a reforming character of the highest order, and his historical fate was that he functioned in a time of unparalleled brutality, which in the end felled him.

Thus may the ordinary Western European look at Adolf Hitler.

And we, his close followers, bow our heads at his death.

Knut Hamsun

Found at https://web.archive.org/web/20211028120537/https://dailyarchives.org/index.php/archives/4412-knut-hamsun-s-eulogy-for-adolf-hitler