Esperanto become an elective course at a business school (handelsskole) in Bergen. Esperanto activities broke off during World War I but were revived again in the mid-1920s. By the 1930s the Norwegian Esperanto League had grown to a membership of several thousand, with activities throughout Norway and with many participants in Esperanto courses. World War II In 1936 Esperanto had been prohibited in Nazi Germany. After the Nazi occupation of Norway beginning on April 9, 1940, the Norwegian parliament met in emergency session at Elverum and unanimously voted to delegate all legislative authority to King Haakon VII and the elected cabinet. With this legitimized government in exile in England, the occupying Nazis vested de facto power in Reichskommissar Josef Terboven and in the puppet government of Vidkun Quisling. Persecuted Esperantists was forced underground but nevertheless continued with private meetings and study circles. In Vestlandet, in fact, the Norwegian Esperanto League successfully arranged a clandestine meeting in 1942 for 70 NEL delegates. Certain German soldiers who knew Esperanto sometimes tried to make contact with the underground group but were politely turned away because of the war situation and the danger that Esperantists faced if exposed. In 1942, however, a deserting German Kriegsmarine sailor who spoke Esperanto knocked on the door of the Bergen Esperanto club seeking assistance in fleeing to Sweden. The Bergen club helped him, and he later became a member of the Swedish Esperanto Federation. Postwar developments in Norway After the war Esperanto flowered again in Norway, and the NEL emerged a relatively strong organization. Esperanto was accepted as a subject for college study. In 1952 the 37th World Esperanto Congress, held in Oslo's newly completed city hall, attracted 1,600 delegates. King Haakon VII met the non-Norwegian delegates as they arrived at the Østbane railway station. The king jokingly remarked that the Esperantists were easy to get along with, but it was impossible to understand what they were saying. The 76th Congress, held in Bergen in 1991, drew 2,400 delegates. In November 2006, Norwegian Esperantists arranged a conference call by telephone among delegates in Oslo, Bergen, Stavanger, Trondheim and Korgen (Hemnes); the teleconference attendees heard a talk on Esperanto history in Norway delivered by Elna Matland. Today the NEL has active branches in Bergen, Bryne, Hamar, Kristiansand, Oslo, Sarpsborg, Stavanger, Tromsø and Trondheim. The current president of the NEL is Jardar Eggesbø Abrahamsen. At the same time as the