Lars Borgersrud (born 11 March 1949) is a Norwegian military historian and government scholar. His work has largely centered on World War II in Norway.
Borgersrud formed close relations with leading figures of the Norwegian Maoist movement beginning in the late 1960s. [1]
Borgersrud's master's thesis from 1975 disclosed sensitive information regarding military personnel and organization prior to World War II and their possible effects on military preparedness prior to the invasion of Norway by Nazi Germany. As a student he was threatened with being prosecuted if he published his thesis. [2] Nevertheless, Borgersrud eventually published three books with material from his work under the pseudonym "Ottar Strømme": Stille mobilisering, Unngå å irritere fienden and Den hemmelige hæren. In 1978, he also published the first volume of the secret report from Den militære undersøkelseskommisjonen av 1946, under the same pseudonym. [2]
He was a contributor to the 1995 World War II encyclopedia Norsk krigsleksikon 1940-1945 . [3]
His 1995 doctoral dissertation examined the Wollweber organization in Norway. [4]
In the 2000s, he also participated in research on the fate of war children—children born during the German occupation of Norway who had German fathers and Norwegian mothers. [5] [6]
While preparing the book Konspirasjon og kapitulasjon (2000), Borgersrud tried to survey Norwegian military officers with Nazi sympathies but met resistance and was denied access to historical documents from the National Archival Services of Norway. [2] [7]
He was until 1982 married to professor and feminism activist Leikny Øgrim, daughter of XU member and physicist Otto Øgrim and sister of SUF(m-l) and AKP(m-l) ideologist Tron Øgrim. He is the father of rappers Elling and Aslak from Gatas Parlament. [1]
Arne Dagfin Dahl was a Norwegian military officer most renowned as the commander of the Alta Battalion during the fighting at Narvik in Northern Norway in 1940.
Birger Ljungberg was a Norwegian military officer and politician from the Conservative Party who served as Minister of Defence from 1939–1942.
Øystein Sørensen is a Norwegian historian. A professor at the University of Oslo since 1996, he has published several books on the history of ideas, including Norwegian nationalism and national socialism, as well as general Norwegian World War II history.
Tore Pryser is a Norwegian historian who has served as professor at the Lillehammer University College since 1993.
Asbjørn Edvin Sunde was a Norwegian politician for the Communist Party of Norway, communist partisan during the Spanish Civil War, saboteur against the Nazi occupation of Norway during the Second World War, and a convicted Soviet spy. During the Second World War, from 1941 to 1944, Sunde's group, the Osvald Group, carried out approximately 39 acts of sabotage and assassination against the German occupation forces and Norwegian collaborators. In 1954 he was convicted by Eidsivating Court of Appeal of treason and espionage in favour of the Soviet Union, and sentenced to eight years in prison. He was released from prison in 1959 after serving two thirds of his sentence. He was expelled from the Communist Party of Norway in 1970.
The Osvald Group was a Norwegian organisation that was the most active World War II resistance group in Norway from 1941 to the summer of 1944. Numbering more than 200 members, it committed at least 110 acts of sabotage against Nazi occupying forces and the collaborationist government of Vidkun Quisling. The organisation is perhaps best known for conducting the first act of resistance against the German occupation of Norway, when on 2 February 1942, it detonated a bomb at Oslo East Station in protest against Quisling's inauguration as Minister-President.
Ferdinand Schjelderup was a Norwegian mountaineer, Supreme Court Justice and resistance member during the German occupation of Norway.
Guri Hjeltnes is a Norwegian journalist and historian. Having mainly researched Norwegian World War II history during her career, she is a professor of journalism at the BI Norwegian Business School since 2004. She has also spent considerable time as a journalist and commentator, currently in Verdens Gang. She became director of the Center for Studies of the Holocaust and Religious Minorities in 2012.
Berit Nøkleby was a Norwegian historian.
Knut Einar Eriksen is a Norwegian historian.
Trond Bergh is a Norwegian economic historian, and researcher at the Department of Innovation and Economic Organisation of the BI Norwegian Business School.
Helge Krog was a Norwegian journalist, essayist, theatre and literary critic, translator and playwright.
Svein Lavik Blindheim was a Norwegian military officer, known for his resistance work during World War II.
Odd Lindbäck-Larsen was a Norwegian military officer and war historian. He participated in the Norwegian Campaign in Northern Norway during the Second World War as the chief-of-staff, under general Fleischer. He spent most of the war in Norwegian and German concentration camps. He continued his military career after the war, eventually with the rank of major general and military attaché in Stockholm. He wrote several books on Norwegian military history.
The Pelle group was a Norwegian resistance group that conducted acts of sabotage against the German occupation of Norway in Østlandet during the autumn of 1944.
Kristian Rikardsen Løken was a highly decorated Norwegian military officer who served in the Belgian Force Publique from 1907 to 1917, fighting German colonial forces in East Africa from 1914 to 1917, and went on to command a Norwegian Army infantry brigade during the 1940 Norwegian campaign of the Second World War.
Martin Rasmussen Hjelmen was a Norwegian sailor and communist activist.
Halvor Hansson was a Norwegian military officer.
Per Askim was a Norwegian naval officer who was in command of the two coastal defence ships defending Narvik during the German invasion of Norway on 9 April 1940.
Norge i rødt, hvitt og blått is one of Norway's most famous national songs. It is widely used on 17 May, Norway's Constitution Day. The song originates from the time of the German occupation of Norway (1941), with lyrics by Finn Bø, Bias Bernhoft and Arild Feldborg. The melody was composed by Lars-Erik Larsson, originally under the name "Obligationsmarschen", with lyrics by Alf Henrikson, as a work commissioned by the Swedish state.