Halvdan Koht

Halvdan Koht (1937)

Halvdan Koht (born July 7, 1873 in Tromsø , † December 12, 1965 in Bærum ) was a Norwegian historian and politician.

Family and education

His parents were the senior teacher and member of the Storting Paul Steenstrup Koht (1844-1892) and his wife Betty Giæver (1845-1936). On September 29, 1898, he married the teacher Karen Elisabeth Grude (1871-1960) from Jæren in Kristiania .

Koht grew up in Tromsø as the second oldest of four children. His father was a senior teacher at the Latin School in Tromsø and Skien and head of the city council in Tromsø and Skien. The family moved to Skien in 1885 and stayed there until 1893. After their father's death they moved to Bekkelaget near Oslo .

In Skien his northern Norwegian way of speaking stood out, and his encounter with the farming culture in Telemark in 1891 led him to choose Nynorsk as his language. In 1890 he passed the Artium exam. After studying philology at the University of Kristiania, he passed the state examination in language history in 1896. He was closely associated with the local professor Gustav Storm .

Early political activity

In 1890 he began to be politically active. He was an active participant in the nationalist Norwegianization movement and was responsible for foreign policy issues in the newspaper “Den 17de mai”.

From 1897 to 1899 he studied Medieval History in Copenhagen, Leipzig and Paris. In the spring of 1900 Koht took over the work on Norsk forfatterleksikon , and by 1908 he published the fifth and sixth volumes. In 1905 he turned to international peace work after the republic for which he had campaigned had not been realized. He moved from the Venstre to the worker's party . In addition, he worked from 1901 to 1907 as an adjunct scholar at the University of Kristiania. In 1908 he received his doctorate from the Philosophical Faculty.

Scientific activity

In the same year he became a lecturer in history and went to the USA until 1909, where he got to know the materialistic conception of history. In doing so, he developed the theory that the class struggle and national unity are parts of a common historical process. He published this theory in the years 1905 to 1926 in several writings, with Norsk bondereising. Fyrebuing til bondeppolitken (1926) was the central work. His starting point was the peasant movement and the conflict of interests between peasants and the ruling classes, civil servants and townspeople. According to his theory of the peasant movement in the 19th century, it changed its aims and function from pursuing its class interests to more universal demands, as happened with Johan Sverdrup and the establishment of the Venstre. The struggle of the labor movement must be seen in this context. He saw his theory as a universal explanatory model and applied it to American history in his work Den amerikanske nasjon i upphav og reising (1920). The fundamental driving force behind the development of society is the “struggle for food” (“kampen for føda”). But he also dealt with psychology and individual fates, as his contribution to the Norwegian Biographical Lexicon with 400 articles and his great biography on Johan Sverdrup show.

He also dealt with the history of the Norwegian saga and introduced a new perspective on medieval history with his lecture Sagaernes opfatning av vor gamle historie (1914) (The sagas' view of our ancient history). He claimed that Snorri Sturluson had not described the past he described in his Heimskringla, but his present with the conflicts of the 13th century. In contrast to the previous view of history, which had seen a contradiction between king and nobility, he attached importance to the fact that king and nobility had common interests in organizing the empire more firmly.

Another area of ​​his research concerned the events around 1814 . Here he followed Ernst Sars , who saw the events of 1814 as the result of the growth of the national and the realization of the democratic ideals of the Enlightenment in Norway. Koht added that it was also a class struggle between the lower class and the upper class.

Professional career

In 1910 he was appointed full professor of history at the Royal Frederick University in Oslo. He held this position until 1935. 1915–1917 he was also dean of the historical and philosophical faculty. 1932–1936 he was chairman of Den norske historiske forening and 1928–1940 chairman of Norsk Slektshistorisk Forening . In 1926 he was co-founder of the World Association of Historians Comité International des Sciences Historiques (CISH) and was its president until 1933. From 1931 he was a corresponding member of the British Academy .

The Foreign Minister

In 1935 Koht was appointed Foreign Minister in the government of Johan Nygaardsvold . He held this office until 1941. His foreign policy in World War II and during the German occupation was sharply criticized after 1945. He was blamed for the fact that Norway was surprised by the Germans on April 9, 1940. Recent research has put this picture into perspective. For Koht, who had advocated the peace movement all his life, the main goal of his policy was to keep Norway out of this war. That is why he put his greatest energy into the neutrality policy of Norway. Believing that Hitler was better served by keeping Scandinavia out of the war, he misinterpreted the signals pointing to an attack by Germany on Norway. Therefore, he did not submit these findings to the government or the Ministry of Defense, which the investigative commission charged him in 1945. However, recent research came to the conclusion that the traditional strategic ideas prevented the correct interpretation. It was generally considered utterly unlikely that Germany would attack Norway. It was also pointed out that the reports were unclear and that the British were not correctly interpreting the signals either. When the attack was imminent, the German ambassador Curt Bräuer asked Koht to surrender Norway and the king to resign. This rejected the request. In the spring of 1940 he fled through Norway and wrote the king's radio speeches. On June 9, 1940, he went into exile on the Fridtjof Nansen in London. At the end of the year he resigned as foreign minister of the government in exile. In February 1941 Koht traveled to Canada and from there to the USA, where he settled in Washington DC with his daughter until Norway was liberated in 1945.

When he returned to Norway, he had to answer to a commission of inquiry, which acquitted him of many allegations, but which criticized the measures he had taken before the attack. Thereupon he wrote some defense papers and an autobiography. He then wrote a few more historical works, in particular six volumes about the crisis years in Norway, which appeared 1950–1960.

Honorary positions

Koht was 1900-1902 chairman of Norges Fredsforening (Norway's Peace Association). From 1919 to 1936 he was a member of the Norwegian Nobel Committee in Storting. From 1908 he was a member of the Videnskabsselskab (today the Norwegian Academy of Sciences ) in Kristiania and from 1923 to 1939 alternately its president and vice-president. In 1952 he received the Gunnerus Medal from this society. He was an honorary doctor of the Universities of Oxford, Chicago and Warsaw and a Knight of the French Legion of Honor .

Works

• Unions and arguments. En historisk udredning av svensk krigsppolitik siden 1814 . 1894
• Norske flagsange . 1896
• Det norske målstrævs historie . 1898
• Histoire du mouvement de la paix en Norvège . 1900
• Norsk Forfatter Lexicon 1814–1880 . Vol. 5, 1901, Vol. 6, 1908.
• (together with J. Elias Ed. :) Breve fra Henrik Ibsen . 2 vols., Copenhagen 1904 (German edition Berlin 1905)
• Fredstanken i Noregs-sogo. Noreg i den samfolkelege rettsvoksteren . 1906
• The position of Norway and Sweden in the German-Danish conflict, especially during the years 1863 and 1864 on the basis of new documents . Dissertation. Det Kongelige Norske Videnskabers Selskabs Skrifter II 1907 No. 7. 1908
• Henrik Wergeland. Egg folkeskrift . 1908
• (together with J. Elias Hrsg. :) H. Ibsen: Efterladte Skrifter . 3 vols. 1909
• Pengemagt and work in America . 1910
• Bismarck. Statsmanden . 1911
• (Ed.) B. Bjørnson: Brev . 6 vols., 1912-1932
• “Bonde mot borgar i nynorsk historie”. In: Historisk Tidskrift , Vol. 22. 1912, pp. 29-85.
• “Prisar and politikk i norsk historie”. In: Samtiden 1913, pp. 234–52
• 1814. Norsk dagbok hundre aar efterpaa . 1914
• "Sagaernes opfatning av vor gamle historie". In: Historisk Tidskrift . Vol. 23, 1914, pp. 379-396
• (Ed.) Vore høvdinger. Portraits of famous northern men . Trondheim 1914 (2nd edition. 1929, 3rd edition: Norske høvdinger . New York 1943)
• Social democracy. Historisk yversyn . 1915 (2nd edition 1932)
• Johan Sverdrup . 3 vols. 1918–1925
• The amerikanske nasjonen i upphav og reising . 1920
• Work trip and training . 1921
• Innhogg and utsyn i norsk historie . 1921
• Norsk bondereising. Fyrebuing til bond policies . 1926 (French edition 1929)
• Henrik Ibsen. Eit dictally . 2 vols. 1928–1929 (second edition 1954)
• Norsk vilje . 1933

' Norway neutral and invaded . London 1941 (Swedish edition: Norge neutralt och överfallet . Stockholm 1941)

• (Together with S. Skard) The voice of Norway London 1944. (Swedish edition: Norges röst i historia och litteratur . Stockholm 1944. Norwegian edition: Fridom og lov i norsk historie og litteratur . 1948)
• For fred and fridom i krigstid 1939-1940 . 1947
• Frå skanse to skanse. Minne frå krigsmånadene i Noreg 1940 . 1947
• Norsk utanriksppolitikk fram til 9 april 1940. Synpunkt frå hendingstida . 1947
• The American spirit in Europe. A survey of transatlantic influences . Philadelphia / Oslo 1949
• Crisisar i norsk historie . 6 vol., 1950–1960 (vol. 1: Vincens Lunge contra Henrik Krummedige 1523–1525 . 1950. vol. 2: Olav Engelbriktsson og sjølvstendetapet 1537. 1951. vol. 3: Kong Sverre . 1952. vol. 4: Harald Hårfagre og rikssamlinga . 1955. Vol. 5: Dronning Margareta og Kalmar-unionen . 1956. Vol. 6: Inn i einvetzt 1657–1661 . 1960)
• Historikar i lære . 1951
• På leit etter liner i historia. Utvalde avhandlingar . 1953
• For fred and fridom i krigstid 1939-1940 . 1957
• Drivmakter i historia . 1959 (American edition: Driving forces in history . Cambridge (USA) 1964)
• Verda and Noreg. History from skilde tider . 1962
• Menn i historia . 1963
• Nye innhogg og utsyn . 1964
• Minnearv and history. Gamle og nye artiklar . 1965
• Minne frå unge år (posthumous) 1968

literature

• Åsmund Svendsen: Halvdan Koht. In: Norsk biografisk leksikon . Retrieved September 22, 2011
• Newspaper article about Halvdan Koht in the 20th century press kit of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .

Remarks

1. ↑ The "Examen artium" was the regular entrance examination for university, which required knowledge of Latin and Greek. So it corresponded to the Abitur, but was accepted by the university until 1883.
2. ↑ Adjunct scholarship holder was an assistant professor with a scholarship.
3. ^ Deceased Fellows. British Academy, accessed June 20, 2020 .