National Legion (Norway)

The National Legion (Norwegian: Den nasjonale legion, archaic Norwegian: Den Nationale Legion) was a short-lived fascist^[1] political party in Norway led by Karl Meyer, in existence from 1927–28, notable for being the first fascist party in the country.

National Legion Den Nationale Legion
Leader	Karl Meyer
Founded	1927
Dissolved	1928
Newspaper	Nationalfascisten
Ideology	Fascism
Political position	Far-right
Politics of Norway Political parties Elections

History

Demonstrators during the 1927 election. The second to right individual on the is a member of the National Legion.

The party was founded at a public meeting at a circus, Cirkus Verdensteatret, in Oslo in May 1927. The event was hosted by the party's leader, Karl Meyer, "Norway's strongest man", a businessman and stock trader with a history of fraud cases.^[1] Author and social commentator Erling Winsnes was another leading figure.^[2]

Influenced by Italian Fascism,^[3][4] Meyer sought a "March on Oslo", with a parade of "100.000 farmers" that would make "the walls of Jericho crumble".^[5] The party however failed to mobilise much beyond Oslo's bourgeois West End.^[1] It ran a list in Oslo for the 1927 parliamentary election,^[6] but did not win any representation with 1,210 votes, about 1% of the vote in Oslo and 0.1% nationwide.^[7] Besides meetings at the circus, the party had little impact, and was dissolved in early 1928 amid internal conflicts and public brawls.^[1]