Posted by Bjarne Birkrem (bjarbirk) on 8/5/2008, 10:24:06, in reply to "The War, the King fled from German bombs...Video"
138.62.101.134
Actually, the famous picture of King Haakon running for cover in the forest was not taken in Elverum, but in Nybergsund (in the municipality of Trysil), about 60 km from Elverum, closer to the Swedish border. The brief glimpses of the bombed-out ruins at the beginning of this video are also from Nybergsund (if you look closely at the road sign at the beginning, it indicates, among other things, the direction and distance to Elverum...).
The rest of the video, however, is indeed from my native town, Elverum, where the King gave his famous "No" to the German request to appoint Quisling as Prime Minister, and where the Parliament, at their last session for more than five years, issued the famous "Elverum Proxy" whereby the Government was given the authority to rule without consulting Parliament until such time as the Parliament could be reconvened.
The King, the Crown Prince and the Government left Elverum on 10 April, and the bombing took place on the following day, 11 April. Elverum was bombed along with Nybergsund, even though the King was no longer in Elverum (but the Germans may not have been sure where he was). Most of the town centre was destroyed, but luckily the 18th-century church (in the southern outskirts of the centre) and the school where the famous meetings had taken place two days earlier (in the northern outskirts) were untouched. The bombing on 11 April 1940 transformed Elverum from an idyllic little town with wooden buildings reminiscent of those found along the famous main street (Storgata) in Lillehammer (for those who remember the 1994 Olympics...), into a very ordinary and rather ugly town with hastily rebuilt, simple concrete buildings from the early 1950s. 
Fortunately, it has been getting better over the past few decades...
Best regards, Bjarne (born and bred in Elverum... 
)
--Previous Message--
: King Harald visited the small city Elverum
: some weeks ago, where his father King Olav
: and grand father King Haakon the day after
: the invasion of Norway 9. April 1940 fleed
: from the Germans as they knew the King was
: in the city and therefore bombed the city to
: kill him.
:
: This newsclips, video shows pictures of the
: tall King Haakon running away from the bombs
: into the forrest where the forrest was
: bombed in at least half an hour. Also shows
: the red house where the king received the
: German Nazy representiv in Norway that
: wanted him and the Norwegian Government to
: stop their resistance. The King said no.
:
: Video:
: http://www1.nrk.no/nett-tv/klipp/356689
:
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