EXTREMISTS from Norway

Top 2

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the most legendary Norwegian Extremists of all time. This list of famous Norwegian Extremists is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity.

1. Anders Behring Breivik (b. 1979)

With an HPI of 58.60, Anders Behring Breivik is the most famous Norwegian Extremist.  His biography has been translated into 76 different languages on wikipedia.

Fjotolf Hansen (born 13 February 1979), better known by his birth name Anders Behring Breivik (Norwegian pronunciation: [ˈɑ̂nːəʂ ˈbêːrɪŋ ˈbræ̂ɪviːk] ), is a Norwegian neo-Nazi terrorist. He carried out the 22 July 2011 Norway attacks in which he killed eight people by detonating a van bomb at Regjeringskvartalet in Oslo, and then killed 69 participants of a Workers' Youth League (AUF) summer camp, in a mass shooting on the island of Utøya. After Breivik was found psychologically competent to stand trial, his criminal trial was held in 2012. That year, Breivik was found guilty of mass murder, causing a fatal explosion, and terrorism. Breivik was sentenced to the maximum civilian criminal penalty in Norway, which is 21 years' imprisonment through preventive detention, allowing the possibility of one or more extensions for as long as he is deemed a danger to society. At the age of 16 in 1995, Breivik was arrested for spraying graffiti on walls. He was not chosen for conscription into the Norwegian Armed Forces. At the age of 20, he joined the anti-immigration Progress Party, and chaired the local Vest Oslo branch of the party's youth organization in 2002. He joined a gun club in 2005. He left the Progress Party in 2006. A company he founded was later declared bankrupt. He had no declared income in 2009 and his assets were 390,000 kroner (equivalent to $72,063), according to Norwegian tax authority figures. He financed the terror attacks with a total of €130,000; nine credit cards gave him access to credit. On the day of the attacks, Breivik emailed a compendium of texts entitled "2083: A European Declaration of Independence", describing his militant ideology. In them, he stated his opposition to Islam and blamed feminism for a European "cultural suicide." The text called for the deportation of all Muslims from Europe, and Breivik wrote that his main motive for the attacks was to publicize his manifesto. Two teams of court-appointed forensic psychiatrists examined Breivik before his trial. The first team diagnosed Breivik with paranoid schizophrenia, but after this initial finding was criticized, a second evaluation concluded that he was not psychotic during the attacks but did have narcissistic personality disorder and antisocial personality disorder. In 2016, Breivik won a partial victory in a lower court; however, the case was lost on appeal in a higher court. Other than that, Breivik has repeatedly but unsuccessfully sued the Norwegian Correctional Service and appealed to the European Convention on Human Rights over solitary confinement and refusal of parole, which Breivik claims violated his human rights. As of December 2024, a five-day trial is going on in a court of appeals; Breivik is suing the Government of Norway for violating his human rights by keeping him in prison isolation.

2. Belle Gunness (1859 - 1908)

With an HPI of 54.34, Belle Gunness is the 2nd most famous Norwegian Extremist.  Her biography has been translated into 19 different languages.

Belle Gunness, born Brynhild Paulsdatter Størseth (November 11, 1859 – possibly April 28, 1908), nicknamed Hell's Belle, was a Norwegian-American serial killer who was active in Illinois and Indiana between 1884 and 1908. Gunness is thought to have killed at least fourteen people (most of whom were men she enticed to visit her rural Indiana property through personal advertisements), while some sources speculate her involvement in as many as forty murders, making her one of the most prolific female serial killers in history. Gunness seemingly died in a fire in 1908, although her actual fate is unconfirmed.