Norwegian women who slept with German soldiers during the Second World War and have been denied a special pension ever since as punishment are finally to be forgiven.

Known as "tysketöser", German whores, they have until now been excluded from the war pension paid to all who remained true to "good national principles" during the occupation.

Now, however, Norway's government has quietly reversed its policy of discrimination against the women and will start paying the money to the few dozen still left.

"Very few are still alive and most went to their graves as shamed Norwegians," said Eva Simonsen of the University of Oslo. "But the important thing here is the principle.

"These women are no longer to be punished for the love stories of their youth that took place 60 years or more ago."

In fact, the Nazis who occupied Norway actively encouraged affairs between local women and German soldiers, part of an SS plan to enrich the Aryan gene pool. But when the occupiers fled and the puppet regime of Vidkun Quisling fell, the "tysketöser" were denounced as traitors.

Around 14,000 women who had relationships with the enemy were arrested at the end of the war and 5,000 were sent to labour camps.

Even today the estimated 12,000 children they gave birth to are seen by many older Norwegians as a danger to society.