When Germany invaded Norway on 9 April 1940, the long lasting bilateral relations changed fundamentally. The diversity of Norway during the occupation is presented in this book, confronting research on collaboration, persecution, and resistance for the first time as an international endeavour. The different essays illustrate not only exemples of exile and persecution and ask for the consequences of Nazi politics on prominent and forgotten fates, but depict how Norwegian artists positioned themselves towards collaboration or resistance during and after the war, as well as contrasting it with the impressions of German musicians, both military and civilian, playing in Norway during the occupation.

Notions of the "Nordic" have always been an issue in Norway's national identity building, both before and after it bacame a sovereign state in 1905. Accordingly, Norwegian music has expressed a sense af ambivalence towards being conceived as "Nordic" from the outside: A strong sense of "Norwegianness" was challenged by the advent of new, nationalistic currents in the 1930s, which used notions of the Nordic as a political weapon. This book shows how music expresses affirmation and ambivalence towards the "Nordci" across musical genres. Further, it explores the contingencies of national music and the dramatic changes in 20th-century European political history.