Norwegian TV series Atlantic crossing is accused of falsifying history

"She changed the course of the war" is written on posters for the Norwegian TV series Atlantic crossing, with a Swedish premiere in less than a week.

It is about the Norwegian Crown Princess Märtha of Norway (born Märtha of Sweden), played by Swedish Sofia Helin, who during the Second World War fled to the United States with her children.

There, she befriends President Roosevelt, played by Kyle MacLachlan, and gains a decisive influence over his actions during World War II.

Upset historians

"The series is based on real events", it says on SVT Play, where it premieres February 1.

But not according to everyone.

Since the premiere on NRK at the end of October 2020, a debate about the series' depiction of history has taken place in the Norwegian media.

"It was not our royalty that made the United States side with the Allies," write two researchers in Aftenposten, calling the series "a false story about the war."

"The authors behind Atlantic crossing have placed a completely new, Norwegian lead role in the focus of a world historical event," writes a columnist on NRK, in an article entitled Fake history, made in Norway.

Critics have many objections to the storytelling that the series conveys, including that Crown Princess Märtha would have made Roosevelt implement the Lend-Lease Act, in which the United States provided military support to the Allies in 1941.

Unclear communication

Atlantic crossing, which is produced by Cinenord for NRK, with SVT and DR as co-producers, is the most lavish Norwegian TV series to date.

In a debate post in Aftenposten, Ivar Køhn, drama director at NRK, writes that in the research that the comic book authors have done, it has seemed probable that Crown Princess Märtha had political conversations with Roosevelt and that the comic book makers have created fiction with that as a starting point.

At the same time, he admits that the communication about the series' content has been too vague.

Sofia Helin, the Bron actress who recently appeared in another controversial historical drama - the TV4 series The Queens - calls the criticism leveled at Atlanic crossing historical correctness misogynistic.

In an email to Kulturnyheterna, she writes that the debate "shames a story about a woman's political deed".