Gudmund Harlem

Gudmund "gubbe" Harlem (* 24 July 1917 in Kristiansand , † 22. March 1988 in Oslo ) was a Norwegian physician , social medicine , university teachers and politicians of Arbeiderpartiet , among others 1955-1961 Minister of Social Affairs and from 1961 to 1963 Defense in of the Gerhardsen III government . As Minister of Social Affairs, he was the driving force behind the Labor Party's numerous socio-political reforms in the 1950s. From 1963 to 1965 he also held the office of Defense Minister in the Gerhardsen IV government . Most recently, between 1980 and 1985, he was Managing Director of the Norwegian Technical and Scientific Research Council NTNF (Norges Teknisk-Naturvitenskapelige Forskningsråd) .

Life

Resistance fighter, youth functionary and social medicine specialist

Harlem, son of wholesaler Gudmund Harlem and Olga Haug, grew up in Oslo and became a half-orphan after the death of his father in 1918. In 1934 he became a member of the Communist - Marxist Association Mot Dag , to which he belonged until it was dissolved in 1936. In 1934 he was named Knight of the Golden Spider by the Fagerborg videregående skole . After attending school, he began studying medicine at the University of Oslo in 1935 and joined the Arbeiderpartiet as a member in 1936, in which he belonged to the circle around Einar Gerhardsen and his wife Werna Gerhardsen . During the Second World War , he had been involved in the resistance against the German occupation forces since 1940 and temporarily hid in Tromsø , before he fled to his wife and daughter in Sweden in the summer of 1943 and lived in Stockholm until 1945 .

After his return after the end of the war, Harlem resumed his studies and graduated in 1946 as Candidatus medicinæ (Cand. Med.). During this time he was between 1945 and 1946 chairman of the student union DNS ( Det norske Studentersamfund ) . In addition, he continued his political activity and was on the one hand a member of the central board of the youth union of the workers' party AUF ( Arbeidernes Ungdomsfylking ) , on the other hand, between 1946 and 1951 also a member of the board of the Socialist Youth International IUSY ( International Union of Socialist Youth ) . He was also a member of Oslo City Council between 1946 and 1947.

In 1946 he began his professional activity as an assistant doctor at the Hygiene Institute at the University of Oslo and was also a part-time doctor at the State Rehabilitation Institute (Statens attføringsinstitutt) in Oslo. In the following years he specialized increasingly in the field of rehabilitation and in 1948 took a full-time position at the State Rehabilitation Institute, where he became senior physician in 1953 . During this time, between 1948 and 1955, he was a member of the Oslo School Council and chairman of its committee on special treatment for children. During this time he dealt in his research projects with the connection of the degree of disability, social services and employment opportunities and dealt in his first study with the social benefit recipients from Oslo and their medico-social background. Most recently, between 1954 and 1955, he headed a large quantitative study of patients from the State Rehabilitation Institute from two rural districts, in which he examined basic data on health status and work ability.

Minister of Social Affairs and Defense

In addition to his professional activity, Harlem was vice-chairman of the Workers' Party in Oslo between 1952 and 1957 and a deputy member of the central board of the Arbeiderpartiet from 1953 to 1957.

On August 1, 1955, Harlem was appointed by Prime Minister Einar Gerhardsen to succeed Rakel Seweriin as Minister of Social Affairs in his third government and held this ministerial office until a cabinet reshuffle on February 18, 1961. In addition, between 1955 and 1957 he was the first chairman of the Central Council for the Professionally and Employed Disabled. Based on the experience of his medical research, he took on a pioneering role in social policy work in Norway in the 1950s and advocated the establishment of a universal social security system to summarize the numerous existing special regulations on health and social benefit care. He was faced with medical director Karl Evang , who, as the head of the health service (Helsedirektoratet), influenced political legislative initiatives by various social ministers in the past.

As part of a government reshuffle, Harlem took over from Nils Handal as Minister of Defense (Forsvarsminister) on February 18, 1961 , while Olav Bruvik took over as Minister of Social Affairs. He held the office of defense minister until the end of Gerhardsen's tenure on August 28, 1963. After the end of the bourgeois minority government of Prime Minister John Lyng , he took over in the fourth Gerhardsen government from September 25, 1963 to the end of this time Gerhardsen's term on October 12, 1965 as defense minister again.

Doctor, professor and director of the NTNF

Harlem was a professor at the Norwegian Technical University NTH between 1977 and 1980

After the defeat of the Arbeiderpartiet in the election of September 13, 1965 , Harlem resumed his medical practice after refreshing his medical knowledge at the Reichskrankenhaus (Rikshospitalet) . Initially in 1966 he became senior physician and technical director at the State Rehabilitation Institute, of which he was director between 1970 and 1977. In addition, between 1966 and 1970 he was again chairman of the Central Council for Workers with Disabilities and between 1970 and 1976 chairman of the committee on environmental pollution of the Norwegian Technical and Scientific Research Council NTNF. At the same time he served as President of the International Society for the Rehabilitation of the Disabled from 1966 to 1972 . In 1976 he completed his PhD for Doctor of Medicine with a thesis entitled Studies on the relationship between impairment, disability and dependency from.

After the general interest in social medical health matters grew in the 1970s, Harlem took over the newly established professorship for social medical sciences at the Norwegian Technical University NTH (Norges Tekniske Høgskole) in Trondheim and remained in this chair until 1980. Between 1977 and 1980 he served as chairman of the NTNF Committee for Occupational Safety and Health, as chairman of the State Labor Inspectorate and from 1978 to 1984 as chairman of the Insurance Council. From 1980 to 1985, he was Managing Director of the Norwegian Technical and Scientific Research Council NTNF (Norges Teknisk-Naturvitenskapelige Forskningsråd) . Most recently, he worked as a general practitioner in Oslo from 1986 to 1988, while at the same time serving as vice chairman of the credit regulator.

marriage and family

Harlem had been married to Inga Margareta Elisabet Brynolf since 1938, a daughter of the lawyers Ivar Brynolf and Margareta Sandberg.

From this marriage two daughters were born. The eldest daughter, Gro Harlem Brundtland, was Environment Minister from 1974 to 1979, a member of the Storting from 1977 to 1997 , Prime Minister 1981, 1986 to 1989 and 1990 to 1996 and Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO) from 1998 to 1993 . The younger daughter Hanne Harlem was Minister for Justice and Police in the first government of Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg between 2000 and 2001 .

Publications

• Hva enhver bør vite om kjønnslivet , AUF Studieskrifter 2, 1947
• Verdenssambandet og vi , AUF Studieskrifter 3, 1949
• Studies on the Relation between Impairment, Disability and Dependency , Dissertation, 1976
• Forsikring i Norge. Utredning fra et utvalg oppnevnt ved kongelig resolusjon December 22, 1978 , 1983

Web links

• Entry on the homepage of the Storting
• Short biography in the store norske leksikon
• Biography in the Norsk biografisk leksikon