Vidkun Abraham Lauritz Jonssøn Quisling was a Norwegian military officer, politician and Nazi collaborator who headed the government of Norway during the country's occupation by Nazi Germany during World War II.
He first came to international prominence as a close collaborator of the explorer Fridtjof Nansen and through organising humanitarian relief during the Russian famine of 1921 in Povolzhye. He was posted as a Norwegian diplomat to the Soviet Union and for some time also managed British diplomatic affairs there. He returned to Norway in 1929 and served as minister of defence in the agrarian governments of Peder Kolstad (1931–1932) and Jens Hundseid (1932–1933).
In 1933, Quisling founded the fascist Nasjonal Samling (National Gathering). Although he gained some popularity after his attacks on the political left, his party failed to win any seats in the Storting, and by 1940, it was still little more than peripheral.