Anders Brivik, the mass murder, writes in the online manifesto about his relationship with his stepfather who was a major in the Norwegian army but has since retired before adding: ‘I still have contact with him although now he spends most of his time (retirement) with prostitutes in Thailand.
Everyone have been shocked by the deadly rampage of the Norwegian mass murderer, Anders Breivik, who killed 77 people. The question is, “Are we shocked by the fact that Anders grew up as a fatherless child?” Anders was abandoned by his father, Jens Breivik, when he was only one year old. If we know our history and the social science statistics, this information should not surprise us.
Some of the most famous killers in human history grew up in fatherless homes: Adolf Hitler, Saddam Hussein, Billy the Kid, Mark Lepine and Charles Manson to name a few. Crime authorities are well aware of fatherlessness in criminal profiling. An American FBI agent who specialises in serial killers has said that most of them come from a dysfunctional family with an absent father and yet, the truth is always more complicated than reality. As Tolstoy once said, ‘Happy families are all alike but every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.’
This was the case with Breivik’s family. The article in the Daily Mail in the UK tells the story, from the killer’s manifesto:
His father Jens Breivik, a diplomat, already had three children from a former marriage when he met Breivik’s mother Wenche Behring, a nurse – who also had a daughter from a past relationship, Elisabeth. The family lived in London as Mr Breivik was a diplomat for the Norwegian Embassy at the time.
After his parents’ divorced when he was one year old, Anders was then brought back to Oslo with his half-sister and mother after she married a captain in the Norwegian Army. Jens Breivik also married again, this time to a colleague who also worked in the Norwegian Embassy…Both his mother and stepmother are described as feminists. There are indications of an unsettled childhood where his father and stepmother entered a custody battle for Anders with his mother and stepfather which they lost. . .
Anders also writes in the online manifesto about his relationship with his stepfather who was a major in the Norwegian army but has since retired before adding: ‘I still have contact with him although now he spends most of his time (retirement) with prostitutes in Thailand.
