Olav V. (Norway)

Olav V. (1957)

Olav V. , as Prince Alexander Edvard Christian Frederik of Denmark from the House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg (born  July 2,  1903 in Sandringham House , Norfolk ; † January 17, 1991 in Oslo ) was king from 1957 until his death from Norway .

Early life as the Crown Prince

He was the son of King Haakon VII , born Prince Carl of Denmark, and his wife Maud , born Princess of Great Britain and Ireland.

Arrival of Olav in Norway in 1905 in the arms of his father Haakon;
left Prime Minister Christian Michelsen

After the personal union between Norway and Sweden was ended by Norway's declaration of independence in 1905, Prince Carl of Denmark was elected king by Storting , the Norwegian parliament. After a confirmatory referendum held at the Prince's request, Carl accepted the election and changed his name to Haakon. At the same time, his son, Prince Alexander, became the only child of the royal couple, Crown Prince Olav.

When the new royal family arrived in Norway, the little crown prince became a favorite of the Norwegians. His parents insisted that he should be given a Norwegian identity and upbringing as much as possible. In Norway, which is very egalitarian, it was necessary to redefine the role of the royal family and thus that of the crown prince. In the first years of the new dynasty, the main aim was to find a balance between unconventional Norwegian manners and the monarchy's need for representation.

Olav between his parents Queen Maud and King Haakon

After the first few years of private lessons in the castle, he was allowed to attend a middle-class, but not elitist, private school as a teenager, where Olav blossomed personally. During his military service, the Crown Prince was not granted any special privileges at his own request.

The Crown Prince spent his student days at Balliol College at the University of Oxford , where he studied political science . He took a keen interest in mathematics, history, and literature, and into old age King Olav enjoyed himself by solving equations of the third degree . Because he assumed, he said, that no one would dare tell him if he was mentally failing. But he believed that he would know himself when he was no longer able to solve the equations.

The Crown Prince Olav Coast in Antarctica and the Olav V Land on the island of Svalbard are named after him.

Legal Age and Marriage

When he was allowed to take part in the meetings of the State Council ( statsråd ), the weekly meeting of the Norwegian government, alongside his father, the king, when he reached the age of majority , it soon became clear to the Crown Prince that Norway, above all through the social demands of the labor movement, great and inevitable political changes were imminent. When King Haakon confirmed the first socialist government of Norway in 1929 with the famous words: “I am also the king of the communists”, the aging king may have been under the influence of his socially well-informed son. This constitutional recognition of the head of state may have helped the Norwegian Workers' Party to maintain the constitutional and democratic rather than the revolutionary path to power.

The Crown Prince couple with their three children, 1937.

Crown Prince Olav married his cousin Princess Märtha of Sweden on March 21, 1929 . The marriage was received extremely benevolently, both in Norway and Sweden, and initiated an improvement in mutual relations between the two countries after the separation in 1905. Marriage is said to have been based on a common love and affection, despite the appropriate dynastic connections that followed. The Crown Prince family soon moved into the Skaugum estate . The Crown Prince couple had three children:

• Princess Ragnhild of Norway (1930-2012)
• Princess Astrid of Norway (* 1932)
• Prince Harald of Norway (* 1937)

Among the official trips of the Crown Prince couple, the trip through the United States (1939) was arguably the most important. In addition to the dutiful appearances at countless descendants of Norwegian emigrants all over the USA, the Crown Prince couple had the opportunity to get to know the American presidential couple, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Eleanor Roosevelt .

Sports activities and hobbies

Crown Prince Olav learned to ski early, as well as ski jumping, and took part in competitions on Holmenkollbakken as a ski jumper . In addition, the Crown Prince was a passionate sailor and member of the Kongelig Norsk rope forum . With his sailing yacht Norna he won the gold medal in the 6mR class at the Olympic Games in Amsterdam in 1928 . He sailed into old age. Olav was also interested in art, culture and literature.

The crown prince at war

On April 9, 1940, Norway was attacked by German troops without warning . The king and the crown prince family, the government and the Storting fled northwards from the German armed forces. With the consent of the King and the Crown Prince, Crown Princess Märtha and the three children went into exile in Sweden, where they were taken in by the Crown Princess' family.

However, the king and crown prince remained in Norway, always retreating north, under attack by the German air force several times . However, the king stubbornly refused to appoint a National Socialist puppet cabinet under Vidkun Quisling . For the first time since 1905 he expressed his own opinion in the cabinet before hearing that of his government: he said he had had only one master since 1905, and that was the Norwegian constitution. If the legal government decided to surrender to the Germans because of the difficult situation and to accede to their demands, he would understand this, but would see no choice but to abdicate. This consistent and unpragmatic attitude, which among other things formed the basis for the later Norwegian resistance struggle, had previously been discussed by the king with his son Olav. One of his ministers from those days later said of the relationship between the two at the time: "The king and the crown prince became one person."

On June 7, 1940, the King, the Crown Prince and the Government were picked up by the British cruiser HMS Devonshire and brought into exile in London from Tromsø in Northern Norway . The Crown Princess eventually traveled to the United States with her children . Crown Prince Olav visited his family in the United States at least once a year during the war, but stayed with his father in London for most of the time. He gained great importance within the Norwegian government in exile and in 1944 was appointed " Forsvarssjef " ( Chief of Defense) of the army in exile . This office was not of a ceremonial nature, but included a political mandate. To date, no other member of the royal family has held this office. Like his father, Crown Prince Olav addressed the Norwegian people several times during the war through the BBC .

The Crown Prince couple in June 1950

As the first representative of the Norwegian government in exile, Crown Prince Olav returned to Norway on May 12, 1945. His return was triumphant and only surpassed by the celebrations for the return of the king on June 7, 1945. Haakon and the royal family returned to Norway on the same cruiser that had left Norway on the exact day five years earlier. After the king and the government were back in Oslo, Crown Prince Olav resigned as head of defense.

After the elections in autumn 1945, the King and Crown Prince withdrew into the representative life of the constitutional monarchy. The bond between the royal family and the Norwegian people was strengthened by the achievements of the king and the crown prince during the war. After the war, the monarch was seen as the guarantor and defender of democracy and the will of the people, and none of the following social democratic governments questioned the monarchy as a form of government.

A quiet political epoch now ensued, during which the changing governments of the Norwegian Workers' Party ( Arbeiderpartiet ) pushed ahead with the reconstruction of the country.

In 1954, Crown Princess Märtha died after a long illness.

King of Norway

When King Haakon died on September 21, 1957, Crown Prince Olav succeeded his father as Olav V on the Norwegian throne . He also adopted his motto "Alt for Norge" ("Everything for Norway"). After the constitutional formalities of the first change of the throne since independence and the new dynasty in Norway had been dealt with (taking oaths in the “Statsråd” and in the Storting ), the new king introduced a new ceremony. The traditional coronation ceremony in Trondheim Cathedral ( Nidaros Cathedral ) had already been removed from the constitution in 1912 - but the new king, who was a devout Christian, wanted to receive the blessing of the church, as he was also head of the Norwegian state church . Since the social democratic government was critical of traditional coronation celebrations, they suggested a simple, church “blessing service”. Nevertheless, the king prevailed in his request and a state act took place in which all representatives of public life took part. Under his son and successor, King Harald V , there was no longer any political resistance to the same ceremony in 1991. The Norwegian succession ceremony thus goes back to King Olav V.

King Olav V (left) and Gerhard Stoltenberg (1973)

During his entire term of office, Olav V performed his duties as head of state with the utmost conscientiousness. His reception by Richard von Weizsäcker , the then Federal President of the Federal Republic of Germany in September 1986, over 45 years after the beginning of the German occupation in World War II , marked the political turning point in relations between the two states after the war and a return to normality.

During his reign from 1957 to 1991 Norwegian society and politics changed considerably, with politicians always treating the king with deepest respect. Still, the king was aware that his constitutional opportunities to interfere in politics were now purely formal. As a “Folkekonge” (“People's King”), he reinterpreted his design options, and his informal and direct manner benefited him. In contrast to his father, he also gave (rare) interviews. In 1962 he was the only foreigner to be elected to the thistle order . During the 1973 oil crisis, the king took the underground to ski on the weekend near Holmenkollen to show solidarity with the people, who were banned from driving at the weekend.

Olav V. died of heart failure on January 17, 1991 in Kongsseteren, a log villa built in 1910 just outside Oslo. His death aroused great national sympathy.

King Olav was buried in the crypt of Akershus Fortress at the side of his wife.

ancestors

Christian IX King of Denmark (1818–1906)

Frederick VIII, King of Denmark (1843–1912)

Louise of Hesse (1817–1898)

Haakon VII, King of Norway (1872–1957)

Charles XV, King of Sweden (1826–1872)

Louise of Sweden-Norway (1851–1926X)

Luise of Oranien-Nassau (1828–1871)

Olav V. King of Norway

Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha , (1819–1861)

Edward VII, King of Great Britain (1841–1910)

Victoria, Queen of Great Britain (1819–1901)

Maud of Great Britain and Ireland (1869-1938)

Christian IX King of Denmark (1818–1906)

Alexandra of Denmark (1844-1925)

Louise of Hesse (1817–1898)

Note: Through family marriages, the Danish royal couple Christian IX. and his wife Louise two-time great-grandparents of Olav V.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ The Framnæs Collection of Classic Yachts: Portrait Yacht Norna , (English), accessed on September 17, 2019

Web links

Commons : Olav V. (Norway)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Olaf V. in the catalog of the German National Library
• Newspaper article about Olav V. in the press kit of the 20th century of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .
• Homepage of the Norwegian royal family
• Crown Prince Olav in the database of Sports-Reference (English; archived from the original )

predecessor	Office	successor
Haakon VII.	King of Norway 1957–1991	Harald V.