Johannes Sigfred Andersen

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Johannes Sigfred Andersen (born July 9, 1898 in Oslo ; † July 29, 1970 there ) was a Norwegian smuggler, criminal and convict, resistance fighter during the Second World War and furniture manufacturer. He fought, among other things, with the Linge Company and in naval operations. His nickname was Gulosten (Norwegian for "yellow cheese"). During the war he also used the nickname Ostein .

His criminal career, his controversial role in the resistance and his access to the Norwegian King Haakon VII have made him a figure well-known in Norway and viewed in various media to this day.

Origin and family

Andersen was the son of the bricklayer Ole Andersen and his wife Josefine Hansen. He grew up in simple circumstances and was placed under guardianship at the age of ten. Andersen was housed in the orphanage Toftes gave on Helgøya in Lake Mjøsa and then in the reformatory Bastøy in Vestfold . His nickname came from the fact that his parents sent him packages with cheap and long-life yellow cheese .

In 1916 he married the waitress Lovise Kristine Klausen. The marriage failed.

Criminal career

After the First World War, Andersen was unemployed for a long time and tried his luck with casual theft and smuggling. Together with Arthur Omre he smuggled alcohol during Prohibition in Norway 1919–1926. Between 1919 and 1937 he was sentenced several times to a total of around seven years in prison.

In the meantime, Andersen was employed by a schnapps distiller in Germany who was illegally exporting to Norway. In 1925 Norway requested his deportation and he was arrested in Hamburg. Andersen faked syphilis by injuring his member with a glowing cigarette. He was deported to Norway and came to the Oslofjord on the SS Kong Dag ; at Spro he managed to jump overboard and escape. He became known as a talented safe cracker and was described by the media as "gentleman-forbryter i Grünerløkka-utgave", in German about "Gentlemangauner, Edition Grünerløkka " (a suburb of Oslo). Another attempt to escape from a crowded courtroom in Drammen in 1929 also made headlines.

In the mid-1930s, Andersen tried to build a bourgeois existence; he got engaged and started fixing furniture. On March 18, 1939, he married Ruth Johanne Nilsen. They had a son together. In 1935 Andersen tried to find a publisher for a children's book, which was rejected because of some scenes that were more of an adult topic. However, Andersen's descriptions of nature were praised. After another stay in prison, Andersen was released on April 9, 1940, the beginning of the German invasion of Norway .

Second World War

In 1940 Johannes Sigfred Andersen joined the resistance movement in Germany-occupied Norway and plundered German weapons depots in Norway. His furniture store was kept for camouflage. He was arrested for the first time when a letter from him was printed in the paper of the Nasjonal Samling , the Fritt Folk . This newspaper had previously announced that Andersen would hang on to the new rulers.

«Vel har jeg gjort mye was i min tid, men nazist he jeg ikke. Ærbødigst Johs. S. Andersen »

“I've done a lot of bad things in my life, but I'm not a Nazi. Sincerely, Johs. S. Andersen "

- Egil Ulateig : Med rett til å drepe

He was in German captivity until 1942.

In 1942 Andersen committed an assassination attempt on the collaborator Raymond Colberg and then escaped to Sweden. According to the interrogation protocols of his wife involved in the attack, Colberg was literally crucified, beaten to death with iron bars and dumped in a skinner's container in the Akerselva . The historian and director of the Hjemmefrontmuseum , Arnfinn Moland , believes these claims are fabricated. The hearing took place probably under torture and contained no evidence of gunshot wounds, Colbergs corpse, however, was in June 1942 with two caliber 7.62 mm head shots found. The alleged atrocities and possible personal motives gave rise to a number of controversies about Andersen. Ulateig attributed personal motives to him, Moland considered them possible, the historian Tore Pryser denied them. Max Manus criticized Andersen's acceptance into the Norwegian armed forces even after the war.

Leif Tronstad

In 1943 Andersen came to Great Britain, where Leif Tronstad recruited him for the British and Norwegian special forces. Andersen received parachute training and took part in a number of special missions, including in Norway. Andersen once jumped from a Halifax over Kjerkeberget near Sandungen in Nordmarka near Oslo and was received by Gunnar Sønsteby and Sverre Ellingsen from the 13th section of the Milorg .

The circumstances surrounding the planned assassination of the prominent collaborator Jonas Lie led to a conflict between the Norwegian resistance movement and the government in exile. Andersen should have carried out the assassination. After reports of excessive alcohol in Oslo, he returned to Great Britain via Sweden.

In the UK , he had a personal audience with King Haakon VII. Andersen and the King met for lunch at the Norwegian Club in London. Andersen entertained the exiled monarch with stories from his life, who promised him to protect Andersen once the war was over. Andersen joined the Royal Norwegian Navy and served on a motor torpedo boat .

Return to Norway in 1945

Andersen's wife Ruth was arrested in 1944, interrogated and tortured at Oslo Police Headquarters at Møllergata 19 and shot in July in the Grini police detention center . The body was exhumed after the war and buried regularly. Ruth's sister and Hertha Bergstrøm, a friend, hosted the funeral service. Andersen later married Hertha Bergstrøm.

A few weeks later Andersen, heavily drunk, shot two German prisoners of war with his submachine gun in a prisoner of war camp in Høyanger . The Norwegian courts began to investigate. Ivar Follestad was prosecutor and Reidar Skau Andersen's defense attorney; both later held important positions in the Norwegian judiciary. Follestad wanted to file charges and then pardon Andersen. The matter was taken over by the military justice system. Thore Horve spoke out against an indictment, as did Minister Jens Christian Hauge . Andersen was acquitted on April 25, 1947 by royal order. This met with protests from Johan Scharffenberg , a well-known psychiatrist and opponent of alcohol consumption, among others .

After 1945

After the war, Andersen received financial support from the king to set up his own furniture factory. His third wife was wealthy. He ran the Apenes Trevarefabrikk in Horten for over 15 years. Andersen also received orders from the royal family, for example in Bygdøy .

He was charged with various crimes several times and mostly acquitted, for example in 1954 for theft of building materials and after he was drunk and gave his car to two burglars in Tønsberg . In 1955, however, he had to spend another 36 days in detention because he did not use unpaid alcohol in his factory, but sold it on the black market.

Andersen later became known for lecturing on children's rights and educational institutions. He once explained his view of dealing with prisoners with the words

«You should be taut for å ha vært taut»

"You will be punished for having been punished"

- Johannes Sigfred Andersen

In 1968 Bjørn Bjørnsen wrote a book about Johannes S. Andersen, entitled En mann Kalt Gulosten ( A man named yellow cheese ), which was published by Bjørnsen & Schram, Oslo.

The film rights had already been secured by the Norwegian team film . According to the Norwegian director and screenwriter and co-founder of this film company Knut Bohwim , the book offers enough material for several films.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Bjørn Bjørnsen: Johannes Andersen ( no ) In: Norsk biografisk leksikon . nbl.snl.no. February 28, 2013. Retrieved June 7, 2013.
  2. ↑ Johannes Sigfred Andersen aka Ostein - Born July 9, 1898 ( en ) discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk. July 28, 2010. Retrieved June 6, 2013.
  3. ^ A b Johannes Sigfred Andersen in the Norwegian National Archives . In: The Catalog . The National Archives . Retrieved June 5, 2013.
  4. ↑ Gulost in the SNL
  5. ↑ a b Fjørtoft 1997: p. 34.
  6. ↑ a b c Ulateig, 1996, p. 17.
  7. ↑ a b c Arne Ording, Gudrun Johnson Høibo, Johan Garder: Andersen, Ruth Johanne ( no ) (=  Våre falne 1939–1945 ), Volume 1. Grøndahl, Oslo January 23, 2010, p. 125 (accessed June 6 2013).
  8. ↑ Bjørnsen 1968: pp. 88-91.
  9. ↑ Bjørnsen 1968: pp. 92-94.
  10. ↑ search in the archive at aftenposten.no: archive entries on Gulosten / Andersen at Aftenposten from the 1920s to the post-war period; Retrieved June 7, 2013 (Norwegian).
  11. ↑ Ulateig, 1996, p. 26.
  12. ^ Søbye 1995: p. 169.
  13. ↑ Ulateig 1996: p. 18.
  14. ↑ Over grensen ?: Hjemmefrontens likvidasjoner under den tyske okkupasjonen av Norge 1940–1945, p. 102, books.google.de
  15. ↑ a b Nils Johan Ringdal: Hans Fredrik Dahl (ed.): Andersen, Johannes ( no ) (=  Norsk krigsleksikon 1940–1945 ). Cappelen, Oslo November 28, 2008, ISBN 82-02-14138-9 , p. 22. Archived from the original on March 1, 2012 Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (Accessed June 6, 2013). @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / mediabase1.uib.no
  16. ^ Fjørtoft 1997: p. 38.
  17. ↑ a b Tore Pryser: Ulateigs likvidasjonar (no) . In: Dag og Tid , December 12, 1996. Retrieved January 16, 2009. 
  18. ^ Arnfinn Moland: Sannheten på bordet? (no) . In: Dagsavisen , October 29, 2009. Archived from the original on January 6, 2010. Retrieved January 16, 2010. 
  19. ↑ Moland, 1999, pp. 102-104.
  20. ↑ Fjørtoft, 1997, p. 33.
  21. ↑ a b Ulateig 1996: p. 21.
  22. ↑ a b Ulateig, 1996, p. 19.
  23. ↑ Moland, 1999, p. 342.
  24. ↑ Ulateig 1996: p. 23.
  25. ↑ Moland, 1999, p. 64.
  26. ↑ Øyen 2007: p. 235.
  27. ↑ Ulateig 1996: p. 27.
  28. ↑ Børre R. Giertsen (Ed.): 11616. Andersen, Ruth ( no ) (= Norsk fangeleksikon. Grinifangene). Cappelen, Oslo 1946, p. 412.
  29. ↑ Kraglund, 1987, p. 113.
  30. ↑ a b Ulateig, 1996, p. 29.
  31. ↑ a b Ulateig 1996: pp. 28-29.
  32. ↑ Bjørnsen, 1968, p. 189.
  33. ↑ Gulosten på skråplanet igjen: The helbredede storforbryter tatt på fersk gjerning av Oslo-politiet (no) . In: Verdens Gang , August 6, 1954. Retrieved June 7, 2013. 
  34. ↑ Gulosten blankt frifunnet: Dommen blir neppe anket (no) . In: Verdens Gang , December 2, 1954. 
  35. ↑ Bjørnsen 1968: p. 192.
  36. ↑ Ulateig, 1996, p. 30.
  37. ↑ Med rett til å drepe . Ulateig 1996: p. 15.
  38. ↑ Literature by and about Johannes Sigfred Andersen in the bibliographic database WorldCat , accessed on June 5, 2013 (English).
  39. ↑ Boken om "Gulosten" can bli tre filmer (no) . In: Verdens Gang , September 26, 1968. 
personal data
SURNAME Andersen, Johannes Sigfred
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Gulosten (nickname)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Norwegian criminal and resistance fighter
DATE OF BIRTH July 9, 1898
PLACE OF BIRTH Oslo
DATE OF DEATH July 29, 1970
Place of death Oslo