Henry Wilhelm Kristiansen

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Henry Wilhelm Kristiansen (born February 12, 1902 in Nordstrand near Drammen , † January 16, 1942 in Neuengamme concentration camp ) was a personality of the Norwegian workers' and resistance movement . He was chairman of the Norwegian Communist Party .

Life

Youth official and editor of various newspapers

In 1916 Kristiansen became a member of the Norwegian Workers' Party ( Norwegian Det norske Arbeiderparti , DnA) and the Social Democratic Youth Association ( Norwegian Norges Socialdemokratiske Ungdomsforbund , NSU). From 1919 to 1921 he was NSU chairman in Bratsberg , from 1922 to 1923 chairman of the Communist Youth Association ( Norwegian Norges Kommunistiske Ungdomsforbund , NKU) in Vestfold . In November 1923 he became a member of the Communist Party of Norway ( Norwegian Norges Kommunistiske Parti , NKP).

From 1924 to 1926 he was editor of the NKU newspaper Klassekampen , and from 1926 to 1929 editorial secretary of the NKP newspaper Norges Komunistblad and from 1927 to 1929 at the same time editor for the theoretical party magazine Proletaren . Kristiansen stayed in the Soviet Union from 1929 to 1931 .

At the head of the NCP

Kristiansen returned to Norway in 1931 and was chairman of the NKP from 1931 to 1934. In 1934 he was elected secretary of the NKP Central Committee and was editor of the NKP central organ Arbeideren from 1934 to 1940 .

In resistance

After the invasion of Norway by German troops in April 1940, Kristiansen was one of the organizers of the resistance movement. He was arrested for the first time in August 1940, but released a month later. On the morning of the German attack on the Soviet Union (June 22, 1941), he was arrested by the Gestapo together with his wife Miriam, who was of Russian descent. In November 1941, the Kristiansen couple were transferred to Hamburg . After staying in various German prisons, Kristiansen died on January 16, 1942 in Neuengamme concentration camp.

Miriam Kristiansen

Miriam ("Mira") Kristiansen (born Mirijam Ilyinischna Rathaus ; born February 26, 1899 in Orscha ; † May 16, 1942 in Auschwitz concentration camp ) came from a Jewish family. After the outbreak of World War I , she broke off studying medicine and went to the front as a nurse. During the October Revolution , she worked for the Red Army as a nurse in Moscow . Later she studied philology, completed a library training course in Leningrad and worked for a time as a teacher in an orphanage in southern Russia. In 1921 she married the Norwegian editor and communist Arvid G. Hansen (1894–1966) in Moscow and went to Norway with him. In 1928 the marriage was dissolved and she married Henry Wilhelm Kristiansen. In Norway, Miriam Kristiansen was involved in Nansenhilfe and worked as a secretary at the Soviet embassy in Oslo until her arrest on June 22, 1941. She was imprisoned in the Ravensbrück women's concentration camp and was murdered on May 16, 1942 in the gas chamber of the Auschwitz concentration camp.

literature

Web links

  • Biography on the website of NKP Midt Norge (Norwegian).
personal data
SURNAME Kristiansen, Henry Wilhelm
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Norwegian resistance fighter, personality of the Norwegian workers' and resistance movement
DATE OF BIRTH February 12, 1902
PLACE OF BIRTH North beach at Drammen
DATE OF DEATH January 16, 1942
Place of death Neuengamme concentration camp