Recent research has drawn attention to the roles of translators and translation during wartime in countries such as Belgium (Gouanvic 2001), Germany (Rundle & Sturge 2010) and France (Lombez 2013; 2016; 2017). This paper presents the first research on translation during the Nazi occupation of Norway (1940–1945). Findings from research in newly opened archives shows how the publication of translated literature came to be controlled during the occupation by regulations implemented by German officials in Norway. In 1941 the “department for culture and enlightenment”, a propaganda department established by the Nazi officials, demanded that Norwegian publishing houses ask permission for each translated book they wanted to publish, a both time-consuming and costly process. The archives reveal obvious instances of censorship of literature in translation, but they also show several instances of the authorities pushing books, as some of the publishing houses highlight in their applications that they have been asked by the Reichskommissariat to publish certain translations. By asking how the policies, processes and regulations of translation of literature were in this period, and how translators, publishers and Nazi officials interacted with each other in order to publish translated works, this paper gives insight into the politics of translation during Nazi occupation, as well as the ethical challenges of navigating regulations set by antidemocratic authorities– or, for some, profiting from them. The flow (or lack of such) of foreign literature in a country occupied by aforeign power does not only indicate the attitudes towards, and conditions for, translation under a givenregime. It also yields insight into how this power could use censorship and withholding of translated literatureon one hand and to push certain kinds of translated literature on the other, as means in the fight to win theideological war, as Lombez (2016) has argued was the case in occupied France.