page_title: Nybergsund
section_title: World War II
hierarchical_section_title: Nybergsund / History / World War II
caption_attribution_description: Minnesmerke Nybergsund
context_page_description: Nybergsund is a village in the municipality of Trysil in Innlandet county, Norway with a population of 363. The village is best known for serving as a hiding place for the Norwegian royal family and Cabinet and sustaining German bombing during the German conquest of Norway. The town is also the birthplace of award-winning Norwegian writer and translator Tormod Haugen.
context_section_description: Two nights after the invasion of Norway, on 11 April 1940, King Haakon VII, Crown Prince Olav, and the fleeing Norwegian government sought refuge in Nybergsund. Previously, they had been staying in the nearby town of Elverum to the southeast, where the Elverum Authorization was made that gave absolute power to the executive branch after the Parliament of Norway could no longer safely convene in Oslo. It was in Nybergsund that King Haakon met with his Cabinet, telling them of the ultimatum he received when he had met with German Minister to Norway, Curt Bräuer. The minister had urged him to follow the example of his brother Christian X of Denmark and capitulate, appointing the fascist leader Vidkun Quisling as the new Norwegian Prime Minister. King Haakon had already refused the minister's demands, despite threats of harsh conditions for Norway if he did not comply, but he also said that he could not give a decision until he consulted with the government ministers, who had the final word. In an emotional meeting with the Cabinet, King Haakon said that he felt it was against his duty as king and the will of the Norwegian people to give in to the demands, but he would abdicate so as not to stand in the way if the Government decided otherwise.
  Within hours, the Cabinet had made their decision to not capitulate. They reached Minister Bräuer by telephone that night to inform him of their decision. They also broadcast a message to the Norwegian people on NRK, reiterating their decision and promising that Norway would resist the invasion for as long as possible.
  Nybergsund was bombed by Luftwaffe aircraft at about 17:00 the next day, on 11 April 1940. No-one was killed in the attack, but a number of buildings were destroyed, among them a local co-op, school, and telephone exchange office. When the bombing began, the royal family and cabinet ministers fled from their hotel out into the snow-covered forest nearby. The government then continued farther north towards Molde, where they were picked up by ship to Tromsø, which would later become the provisional capital until the country was completely under Germany's control in June 1940.
  After the war, the area of forest that the royal family and cabinet sought refuge in became a park known as Kongeparken (The King Park). In 1946, King Haakon presented the park with a stone monument commemorating the bombing, and the event drew over 8,000 people. In 1990, on the 50th anniversary of the bombing, King Olav V unveiled a bust of his father, Haakon, to sit alongside the monument. Prime Minister Jan P. Syse and President of Parliament Jo Benkow were also in attendance. And in 1996, almost exactly fifty years after the first monument was erected, King Harald V and Queen Sonja gave the park a bust of his father, Olav, thus commemorating all the royal family members who had sought shelter in the forest during the attack.
  In a 2005 interview from Aftenposten with King Harald V, he said of the Nybergsund meeting: "Of all the decisions made by the Cabinet, it is the one in Nybergsund on 10 April 1940 that is most important and significant for the Norwegian people in all 100 years of the monarchy."
caption: The monument commemorating the bombing in Kongeparken, erected 1946
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