Jøssingfjord
Jøssingfjord is a fjord located within the municipality of Sokndal in south-western Norway.
The fjord is known as the location of the Altmark Incident, where, during World War II, on February 16, 1940, the British destroyer Cossack managed to free prisoners taken by the Admiral Graf Spee from the German tanker Altmark.
During the war, the term Jøssing came to mean a Norwegian patriot, the opposite of a Quisling (or traitor). The origin of this term is ironic: the Norwegian collaborator government tried to neutralize their nickname Quislings by using the Jøssingfjord event to coin a derogatory term Jøssing, referring to anti-nazis. This attempt backfired, as it was quickly appropriated as a positive term by the Norwegian populace, and in 1943 the word was banned from official use.
As a consequence, the best known illegal Norwegian newspaper got its name from the same incident: Jøssingposten (The Jøssingpost).
External links
- 3D satellite view of the Jøssingfjord at Live Virtual Earth 3D
- Satellite view of the Jøssingfjord at Google maps
Coordinates: 58°19′3.27″N 6°20′11.17″E / 58.3175750°N 6.3364361°E