One of Us Book Summary - One of Us Book explained in key points

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One of Us summary

Name: One of Us
Author: Åsne Seierstad

Åsne Seierstad

The Story of Anders Breivik and the Massacre in Norway

(7 ratings)

21 mins

Table of Contents

One of Us
summarized in 10 key ideas

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What’s in it for me? Learn about the life of one of Europe’s worst terrorists.

On July 22, 2011, Anders Behring Breivik shocked the world by carrying out the deadliest attack on Norwegian soil since World War II. His two acts of terrorism were directed at the civilian population, the government and a Workers' Youth League summer camp on the island Utøya; in total, he killed 77 people. Upon arrest, which he didn’t resist, he showed no remorse.

In these blinks, you’ll learn about the life of one of Europe’s worst terrorists – from his unstable childhood to how he became obsessed with right-wing extremism and, finally, ended up receiving the maximum penalty for his atrocities.

You’ll also learn

how Breivik made enemies out of everybody;
how he went from gaming to immersing himself in far-right ideologies; and
how Breivik argued for a terrorist attack in his manifest.

Breivik’s childhood was unstable.

In 2011, Anders Behring Breivik shocked the world. He killed 77 people in a single day – the most horrific terrorist attack in Norwegian history. Why would anyone do this? Many have searched for answers by analyzing Breivik’s childhood.

Breivik’s early years were marked by instability and dysfunction. When Breivik was born, in 1979, his parents, Jens and Wenche Breivik, had only been together for a year, and when Breivik was six months old, his father was appointed as a counselor to the Norwegian Embassy in London, where the young family relocated from Oslo.

While her husband was busy working, Wenche mostly stayed home. It seemed to her that Jens was only interested in a well-groomed wife who could maintain a dust-free home. After six months of feeling unappreciated and lonely, Wenche chose to divorce her husband and move back to Oslo with her one-year-old son.

When Breivik was four, his mother no longer felt able to care for him and his younger sister. She asked for respite care, and the family was evaluated by psychologists. Experts concluded that the entire family was “affected by the mother’s poor psychological functioning,” and recommended that Anders be removed from the family, noting how “the mother is continually provoked by the boy and is locked in ambivalent positions, making it impossible [for him] to develop on his own terms.”

Despite this, the family did not act on this recommendation. An appointed home visitor concluded that the conditions were not adverse enough for Anders to be taken away, and Wenche maintained custody of her son.

Breivik’s provocative behavior made him a social outsider in his school years.

Breivik grew into a shy yet short-tempered boy; as early as preschool, he struggled to find friends. During the later years of his schooling, however, he wasn’t unpopular. He found his niche in the graffiti scene.

In 1992, Breivik entered secondary education and switched to a new school. There he found three friends and a brand new hobby: tagging. He and his friends often went on tours to buy spray paint, and the four acquired a certain level of notoriety. They were caught twice by police, yet never revealed to authorities the identities of others in the graffiti scene and, for this, Breivik’s crew gained respect from their peers.

Breivik was active in the Norwegian conservative party but failed to make it to the front row.

In 1999, at just 20 years old, Breivik became a member of the right-wing Norwegian Progress Party. But it wasn’t until 2002 that he realized he had an opportunity to rise in the ranks.

In that year Breivik was invited to join one of the three new local youth branches that were being established in Oslo. At the inauguration meeting, he was appointed the deputy chairmen of the Progress Party Youth, Oslo West Branch. This appointment motivated Breivik to delve into politics.

Breivik spent five years playing online games and surfing the web, and developed far-right ideas.

For a time, Breivik sold fake diplomas online to earn a living; however, in February, 2006, fear of detection forced Breivik to mend his ways. Fast running out of money, he moved back to his mother’s place, where online games became his new full-time occupation.

The real world, which had failed to appreciate his traits, disappointed Breivik. But in the online world, Breivik finally found the approval he had been craving. With the nickname “Andersnordic,” he began playing World of Warcraft, a massive, multiplayer online role-playing game, at which he was quite good.

Breivik’s manifesto declares that the decline of values in Europe necessitates a terrorist attack.

Influenced by the online right-wing platforms he so admired, Breivik published a compendium for opponents of Islam on document.no, in September, 2009. The document, a 1518-page rant titled “2083: A European Declaration of Independence,” referenced the 1683 Battle of Vienna, in which a Christian coalition had won a decisive victory over an Ottoman army invading Europe.

Breivik devoted the first part of the manifesto to blaming various social currents for a decline of values in Europe. In his view, the values of the 1950s should be revived, including patriarchy, the condemnation of homosexuality and the sacrosanctity of marriage.

To prepare the assault, Breivik joined a gun club and spent months on a farm abroad, building a bomb according to online instructions.

In his manifesto, Breivik explained how he would conduct his attack. The next step for him was to prepare, by acquiring a firearms license and weapons. In the winter of 2010 - 2011, he attended shooting classes at Oslo Pistol Club without a hitch; building a bomb without getting noticed, however, was a bit trickier.

To build the bomb, Breivik rented a farm in the Norwegian outback. Online, Breivik found various instructions for building the bomb he had in mind, shared by laboratories, amateur chemists and militant organizations such as al-Qaida.

Breivik reached the island Utøya undetected due to communication failure within the Norwegian police force.

The writing of the manifesto and the bomb-building constituted the first phase of Breivik’s cruel plan. After sending his manifesto to a thousand like-minded people via e-mail, and completing the bomb’s preparation, Breivik started the second phase on July 22, 2011.

Not all went smoothly, however. While placing the bomb, Breivik was spotted. To transport and place the bomb, Breivik had rented a delivery van. Dressed in a police uniform, he parked the van right outside of the building that housed the Ministry of Justice and the Prime Minister’s office. Breivik primed the bomb and then entered another van, which he had parked nearby. One man noticed Breivik and wrote down the van’s registration number to report his strange behavior to the police.

A series of major mistakes by the police gave Breivik 75 minutes alone on Utøya, where he killed 69 people.

The Norwegian police were unprepared for an attack of this magnitude, making it possible for Breivik to reach his final destination, an island called Utøya. Sadly, the series of mishaps didn’t stop when he started shooting down innocent people on the island.

When Breivik reached the ferry that connected the island with the mainland, the officials in charge had already been informed of the explosion and had cancelled all scheduled transports to the island. But Breivik, still dressed in the police uniform, told them that police were doing a routine check in various locations to make sure nothing more would happen, and persuaded them to conduct a ferry crossing with him.

Breivik showed no remorse during his trial, instead using it as a stage to present his radical ideas.

The writing and distribution of his manifesto was the first phase of Breivik’s operation; the attack itself was phase two. Phase three was his trail, where he used the public lawsuit as a stage to remorselessly promote his worldview.

Hundreds of media outlets were accredited to cover Breivik’s trial, which started in mid-April and ended in mid-June of 2012. For Breivik, the court was a stage, and the very first thing he did upon entering it was to raise his arm in a right-wing extremist salute.

Though Breivik’s sanity was debated, he was ultimately found legally responsible for his actions.

Looking at Breivik’s actions and his manifesto, the question of whether he was sane or not was a crucial one for the judge, and would determine whether Breivik ended up in prison or not.

The first report deemed Breivik not responsible for his actions. Prior to the trial, a pair of psychiatrists met Breivik to judge whether he should be deemed insane. They observed that Breivik believed he knew what other people were thinking, a phenomenon often tied to psychosis. He also viewed himself as the focal point of all events and assumed that psychiatrists envied his expertise, signs indicative of dangerous delusions of grandeur.

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What is One of Us about?

One of Us (2015) tells the story of Anders Behring Breivik, the Norwegian terrorist who killed 77 people on July 22, 2011. Beginning with Breivik’s personal life and detailing the development of his extremist political views and his planning of the massacre, these blinks give you an unflinching look into the mind of the man who carried out this devastating and senseless attack.

Who should read One of Us?

Those curious about the most tragic day in recent Norwegian history
People hoping to gain insight into the mind of a terrorist
Anyone interested in how dangerous poor police work can be

About the Author

Åsne Seierstad is a Norwegian journalist and writer best known for her work as a war correspondent. In addition to receiving the Peer Gynt and Den Store Journalistprisen, the highest honor that can be bestowed on a reporter in Norway, she is the author of The Bookseller of Kabul, A Hundred and One Days: A Baghdad Journal, and The Angel of Grozny: Orphans of a Forgotten War.

Categories with One of Us

Politics Biography & Memoir

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