German girls were treated shamefully, says Solberg 
 
 Neutral Norway was occupied from April 1940 by more than 300,000 German soldiers. Solberg said the estimated 50,000 women labelled "German girls," who had or were suspected of having intimate wartime relations with Nazi troops, ended up marked "for the rest of their lives." The Germans were also encouraged to have children with them by SS leader Heinrich Himmler. 'Undignified treatment' 
 
 "Young Norwegian girls and women who had relations with German soldiers or were suspected of having them, were victims of undignified treatment," Ms Solberg said at an event to mark the 70th anniversary of the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights on Wednesday. "For many, this was just teenage love, for some, the love of their lives," said Solberg Wednesday, adding that their treatment breached the principle that no citizen should be punished outside the court system. More than seven decades on from the war, not many of the women directly affected are likely to still be alive to hear it. An apology can mean that groups receive answers to their treatment," Guri Hjeltnes the head of the centre said. Late but important 
 
 Reidar Gabler, the son of a Norwegian woman who was expelled in 1945 along with her German husband, told the Aftenposten newspaper that apology delivered by Solberg had come late but said it was" important for history." "The people directly affected are no longer with us... but this also touches their families and the children," said Mr Gabler. Some of the children were also targeted for acts of revenge, given up to foster families or placed in institutions.
– When Germany invaded Norway in 1940, Nazi leader Heinrich Himmler endorsed the concept of German soldiers hooking up with Norwegian women, as that would help bring the Nazis closer to the Aryan master race they wished for. Per the BBC, about 50,000 Norwegian women ended up in relationships with the Germans, and they became known as the "German Girls"—a label that led to harsh punishments after WWII ended when their country turned on them for what was viewed as a betrayal. Now, Norway's prime minister is officially offering an apology to those women, calling them "victims of undignified treatment" and noting that Norwegian authorities back then acted outside of usual conventions in punishing these women and the children they bore. "For many, this was just a teenage love," Norwegian PM Erna Solberg said Wednesday at a UN human rights event. "For some, the love of their lives with an enemy soldier or an innocent flirt ... left its mark for the rest of their lives. Today, in the name of the government, I want to offer my apologies." Punishments included getting fired from their jobs, detentions, being stripped of their nationality, and even expulsions to Germany. Meanwhile, many of the more than 10,000 children who came out of these relationships were sent to foster homes or "special institutions," Deutsche Welle notes. A historian says that Norwegian men who married German women during the same period weren't similarly punished. "[The women's] only crime was breaking the unwritten rules," he says. (As one woman headed to the Auschwitz gas chamber, she wrote this.)