Norway

Der Brockhaus-Atlas. Die Welt in Bild und Karte, Leipzig: F. A. Brockhaus 1937

Norway 1938

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Population ca. 2,900,000

Area (km²) ca. 320,000

Inhabitants per km² 9

Jewish population before 1938 Jewish pop. before 1938 2,000 (0.06 %)

Profession

Agriculture and forestry 36 %

Mining and industry 27 %

Trade and transport 21 %

Other professions 17 %

Policy on Immigration and Refugees

As a country on the periphery of Europe, Norway plays a minor role in the immigration issue. Because of its high unemployment rate after the global economic crisis and a social discourse marked by a skeptical, hostile attitude towards strangers, both the right-of-center and social-democratic governments are extremely reluctant to hand out residence permits. The passage of a supplementary law to the Norwegian “Foreigners’ Law” of 1927, which takes effect in June 1932, is justified by the need to protect Norwegian society from “foreign garbage” and the “dregs of the emigration flow.”

Beginning in 1933, the kingdom strives to keep the number of Jewish refugees in the country as low as possible. Work restrictions and limits on state support are used to minimize the length of refugees’ stay in the country and to encourage them to move on. Hence, for many refugees, Norway is only a transit station. Even an easing of labor restrictions by the workers party, which takes over the government in 1935, leads to an insignificant increase in immigration.

In reaction to the occupation of Norway by the German Wehrmacht in April 1940, 300 German Jewish refugees cross the border into Sweden. On March 12, 1942, only a month after being appointed prime minister of the collaborationist government, Vidkun Quisling has the “Jew paragraphs” of 1814, which prohibit Jews from entering Norwegian territory, reincorporated into the constitution. The intensified persecution of Jews living in Norway and the beginning of their mass arrests and deportations, which are largely organized by the Oslo police chief Knut Rød, lead to the flight of approximately 900 more people to neighboring Sweden at the end of 1942.

Altogether, an estimated 500 Jewish refugees from Germany and Austria use Norway primarily as a transit station between 1933 and 1945.

Delegation

Michael Hansson

* 19 November 1875 Oslo † 5 December 1944 Lillehammer

After studying law at the University of Oslo, Michael Hansson is a political correspondent for a variety of newspapers. He later works as a lawyer, judge and, beginning in 1905, senior prosecutor. The following year he goes to Egypt and serves for 25 years as a judge on mixed British-French-Egyptian courts in El-Mansoura and Alexandria. After his return to Norway in the summer of 1931, he works mainly for the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague.

In 1936 Hansson takes over the presidency of the board of directors of the Nansen Office, established in 1930 by the League of Nations. There he continues the work of the first high commissioner for refugees, Fridtjof Nansen.

In Évian he represents both the Nansen Office and Norway. He is also concerned with the situation of refugees from the Spanish Civil War. After Germany occupies Norway in April 1940, he withdraws from all public duties. He settles in Lillehammer and writes two memoirs, which are published posthumously.

Michael Hansson, ca. 1938

United Nations Archives, Genf

Michael Hansson receives the Nobel Peace Prize for the Nansen Office from Fredrik Stang, the chairman of the Nobel Committee, Oslo, December 10, 1938

In September 1938 the League of Nations decides to close the Nansen Office and the office of the “High Commissioner for Refugees from Germany (Jewish and other),” whose work is now to be continued by a high commissioner for refugees stationed in London. Shortly before its dissolution, the Nansen Office receives the Nobel Peace Prize in November 1938.

picture alliance / TT NEWS AGENCY

„Refugee Work – Norway‘s Position,“ Michael Hansson, Oslo 1936

Nasjonalbiblioteket, Oslo

Carl Nicolai Stoud Platou

* 25 July 1885 Bergen † 1 February 1956 Oslo

After studying law, Carl Platou enters the service of the Norwegian Ministry of Justice and Police in 1911 and is appointed undersecretary of state in 1926. He also serves on the city council of Aker as an independent, and in 1930/31 holds the office of deputy mayor.

After the Germans occupy Norway, Reich Commissioner Josef Terboven demands Platou’s removal from the ministry, but without success. Instead, the justice minister of the Norwegian collaborationist government appoints a proven National Socialist as an additional undersecretary. When, however, in October 1941 the minister discovers Platou listening to a London-based Norwegian exile radio station, he reports him to the German authorities. Subsequently, Platou is detained in various camps for more than a year.

In May 1945 he serves for six days as justice minister of a provisional cabinet set up in exile. Later he takes over the post of district governor of Akershus and Oslo, which he holds until his retirement in 1955.

Carl Nicolai Stoud Platou, ca. 1935

Oslo-Museum, Oslo

Finn Moe

* 12 October 1902 Bergen † 6 August 1971 Oslo

After completing his studies in France, Finn Moe begins working as a journalist in 1927 for the Arbeiderbladet, the newspaper of the social-democratic Arbeiderpartiet. At first he reports from Berlin as a foreign correspondent; starting in 1929, he works at the foreign desk in Oslo. In addition, he writes books on pragmatism as a democratic philosophy, on the Norwegian workers’ movement and on the Italian war in Abyssinia. In 1938 he is elected to the board of the Socialist Workers’ International and participates as an expert in the refugee conference in Évian.

During World War II, Moe works initially on Norwegian radio broadcasts from the US and then as a press officer for the Norwegian exile Ministry of Foreign Affairs in London. In 1950 he is elected to the Norwegian parliament, where he serves between 1958 and 1965 as chairman of the Arbeiderpartiet parliamentary fraction. As a parliamentarian he represents Norway at the General Assembly of the United Nations, as well as at the Nordic Council, the Council of Europe and NATO. He serves in parliament until 1969.

Finn Moe, ca. 1935

Oslo-Museum, Oslo

Postcard of Évian taken by Finn Moe as souvenir from the refugee conference

Arbeiderbevegelsens arkiv og bibliotek, Oslo

Postcard of Évian taken by Finn Moe as souvenir from the refugee conference

Arbeiderbevegelsens arkiv og bibliotek, Oslo

Postcard of Évian taken by Finn Moe as souvenir from the refugee conference

Arbeiderbevegelsens arkiv og bibliotek, Oslo

Postcard of Évian taken by Finn Moe as souvenir from the refugee conference

Arbeiderbevegelsens arkiv og bibliotek, Oslo

Leif Ragnvald Konstad

* 19 October 1889 Oslo † 12 September 1977 Oslo

In 1915 Leif Konstad takes the state exams to complete his law studies. In 1928 he assumes management of the passport authority at the Norwegian ministry of justice, which makes decisions about the admission of refugees. He pursues a very restrictive policy especially with socialist asylum seekers, so the Soviet dissident Leon Trotsky and the Austrian psychologist Wilhelm Reich are forced to leave Norway after a temporary exile. In 1936, Trotsky writes that it is only out of politeness that the press describes Konstad as a “semi-fascist.”

Still, in the spring of 1940, Konstad helps hide his office’s central refugee card index before it falls into the hands of the Gestapo. In 1942 Vidkun Quisling, minister president of the collaborationist government, appoints Konstad judge at the Supreme Court. In May 1946, after the liberation of Norway, Konstad is therefore sentenced to eight years of forced labor for treason. However, he is pardoned by the Supreme Court in April 1949 and released from custody.

Leif Ragnvald Konstad at his desk, undated

Nasjonalbiblioteket, Oslo