1/ Donald Trump isn't the first person to be given someone else's Nobel Prize medal. The last recipient of an unearned Nobel medal was none other than Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels, at the instigation of Norwegian author Knut Hamsun. ⬇️
2/ Hamsun had won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1920. After Nazi Germany invaded Norway in April 1940, he became a strong supporter of the Nazi occupation, writing numerous highly Anglophobic articles blaming the British for fighting over Norwegian territory.
3/ He was also an enthusiastic admirer of Hitler, travelling to the Eagle's Nest to meet him. Hamsun wrote in 1940 that "the Germans are fighting for us", and later eulogised Hitler as "a warrior for mankind" and "a preacher of the gospel of justice for all nations".
4/ The Nazi Minister of Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, held a private meeting with Hamsun in May 1943, in which he recorded in a diary entry that the writer's "faith in German victory is unshakable". The warm relationship was reciprocal and led to Hamsun's medal donation.
5/ After Hamsun returned to Norway, he sent Goebbels his Nobel Prize medal, writing in a letter of 17 June 1943: "I know of no one who has so tirelessly written and spoken year after year on the cause of Europe and humanity as idealistically as you, Herr Reichsminister."
6/ "I beg your pardon for sending you my medal. It is a completely useless thing for you, but I have nothing else to give."
7/ Goebbels was evidently touched and wrote back on 23 June: "I see it as an expression of your connection with our struggle for a useful Europe and a happy society." The medal disappeared after his death in May 1945 and is still lost.
8/ After the war, Hamsun's collaboration with the Nazis plunged him into disgrace. He was arrested but was assessed as having "permanently impaired mental faculties”. He was nonetheless fined 325,000 kroner for his membership of the pro-Nazi Nasjonal Samling party. /end
Sources:
🔹 hamsunsenteret.no/no/knut-hamsun…
🔹 hamsunsenteret.no/no/knut-hamsun…
🔹 nrk.no/nordland/jakta…
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