The last surviving leader of Norway’s anti-Nazi resistance
Oslo
Even in the glare of a crisp spring day the execution ground at Akershus Fortress is a chilling place. Snow still fringes the old gun battery and the Oslofjord clinks with ice. Sitting above this small patch of ground, in Norway’s Resistance Museum, I’m reminded of the risks taken by the man sitting next to me. Seventy years ago, Gunnar Sønsteby, the most decorated man in the country and the last remaining leader of the resistance movement, spent five years fighting the Nazi occupation. Avoiding the firing squad in that courtyard was his highest priority.
Sønsteby is a fine reed of a man; thin, poised and dignified, like a Nordic Giacometti. His long face led to him being nicknamed ‘Kjakan’ (‘The Chin’). At 93 he retains a keen intellect, and a charismatic and considered delivery. As we settle into the library, he gives the plate of digestives on the table a withering look and produces a box of pastries he and his elegant wife, Anne-Karin, have brought for the occasion. ‘They are the best,’ she says, busying herself with cups of coffee. Sønsteby smiles: ‘It’s like a breakfast.’ The couple have been a fixture at the museum since retirement, educating the Norwegian youth on the occupation.
At the time of the German invasion in April 1940, Sønsteby was a student working in a motorbike shop. ‘So there I was in German-occupied Oslo. Oh, the humiliation of seeing those green-uniformed creatures tramping our streets,’ he states in his memoirs, Report from Number 24. The Norwegian Nazis were even more galling. ‘It was hatred, you know,’ he tells me. ‘People who had got together with the Germans. So there were lots of discussions after the war, I can tell you that.’
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