While Iceland was closing its harbors and restricting certain professions to Icelandic citizens, many Icelanders also viewed Hitler and [Fascism] as a possibl[e] key to gaining their independence.

In 1939, three pro‐Nazi Icelanders visited a [Fascist] prince, Friedrich Christian zu Schaumburg‐Lippe, and asked him to become the King of Iceland in case their hoped‐for [Fascist] takeover of Iceland materialized. The prince, a member of the [NSDAP] since 1929 and an official of the Third Reich, took this request seriously and brought it to Joseph Goebbels.

According to the prince’s autobiography published in 1952, Goebbels liked the idea but Foreign Minister von Ribbentrop dismissed it.

[…]

A few Icelandic members of the Waffen‐SS fought for [the Third Reich], and a few Icelanders served in concentration camps in 1943–1944, including one who served as a guard at the notorious Dora‐Mittelbau camp in Germany, also known as Dora‐Nordhausen.

The son of Sveinn Bjornsson, the first president of the Republic of Iceland, was a member of the S.S. He was rescued from prosecution in Denmark by the Icelandic authorities and later lived in Argentina.

There were also non‐Jewish Icelanders living abroad who were killed in concentration camps because their [Fascist] countrymen in, for instance, Norway and Germany had informed on them regarding their political views.

Most Icelanders who served in the Third Reich were treated with contempt after the war. However, there was a lapse of memory when it came to the former members of Iceland’s own Nazi Party. After the war, some of them quickly attained high positions in society, including a couple of chiefs of police, a bank director, and some doctors.