Harald Viggo Hansteen

Harald Viggo Hansteen (born September 13, 1900 in Oslo ; † September 10, 1941 ibid) was a Norwegian lawyer, trade unionist and politician of the Norwegian Communist Party ( Norges Kommunistiske Parti ).

Life

As a student, Hansteen helped found the Mot Dag group. When Mot Dag and the Norwegian Communist Party (NKP) ceased to work together in 1929, he remained in the NKP. In 1933 he became a lawyer with admission to the highest Norwegian court and in 1936 legal advisor to the Norwegian trade union federation AFL (today: Landsorganisasjonen i Norge (LO)). After the German occupation of Norway, the legally elected chairman of the trade union federation Konrad Nordahl was deposed and Jens Tangen was appointed as the new chairman. Hansteen worked at this time to fend off the attempts of the fascist Nasjonal Samling , who wanted to get control of the union federation.

Hansteen was sentenced to death by a brief trial by the German occupying forces on September 10, 1941 , and was executed with Rolf Wickstrøm together with Rolf Wickstrøm during the state of emergency imposed by the milk strike , and both bodies were hidden. Their graves were only found after the end of the war and the bodies of the two men were later transferred to Vår Frelsers Gravlund . At the execution site, the Østre skytterlags bane (a shooting range) near Årvoll in Oslo, a granite memorial stone (artistically executed by Nic. Schiøll) with a bronze relief was erected in 1948. The memorial stone has the inscription “Viggo Hansteen, Rolf Wickstrøm. The first offer i Norges frihetskamp 1940–45. Skutt av tyskerne September 10, 1941. "(German:" Viggo Hansteen, Rolf Wickstrøm. The first victims in Norway's struggle for freedom 1940-45. Shot by the Germans on September 10, 1941. ")

Viggo Hansteen is also remembered in Oslo by a section of Ring 3 , the large road ring around Oslo, which was named "Viggo Hansteens vei" in memory between Smestadkrysset and Slemdalsveien.

After the war, Hansteen's widow Kirsten Hansteen became Norway's first female minister in the new coalition government under Einar Gerhardsen in 1945 .

Web links

• "Viggo Hansteen" by Nordahl Grieg (Norwegian)
• Text of the commemorative speech by State Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland on Vår Frelsers Gravlund in Oslo, May 17, 1995 (Norwegian)
• Short biography (Norwegian)