Max Bruch’s Kol Nidrei would seem a strange choice to introduce a coup - especially one that ushered the Nazis in. But that’s exactly what happened when Vidkun Quisling rushed to the NRK - the official Norwegian radio broadcasting network - to announce that during the turmoil following the German invasion of April 9, 1940 it was he who was in charge. What’s unclear is whether Quisling himself selected the introductory music or whether the station director did. Perhaps it was simply the next record on the phonograph. We may never know.
But a fiction writer can speculate. The Kol Nidrei opens services for the Day of Atonement and essentially allows the repudiation of oaths taken in the past year and into the coming year. Was Quisling - who was a Christian with a good understanding of the Judaism - presume to exempt himself from the oath to German power he would make momentarily? Was this the equivalent of going on the air with his fingers crossed behind his back?
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