Jens Christian Hauge

Jens Christian Hauge (15 May 1915 – 30 October 2006) was a Norwegian lawyear and leader within the World War II resistance—and one of the two incumbent Milorg Council members in May 1945.

[3] He replied to the summons with a medical certificate regarding his varicose veins,[3] adding that he was willing to be checked by military doctors, even though [his schedule] as a magistrate (konstituert sorenskriver) would make it difficult to leave work.

While imprisoned, the "Milk Strike" occurred in Oslo, including the 10 September execution of two: the leader of a trade union and a lawyer in LO.

(His wife and two children were relocated to Vestre Slidre in the middle of March—to a [vacant] cotter home which belonged to Husaker (a mountain farm).

The meeting resulted in a half-pascifistic[22] message to the High Command, which in turn replied with a reprimand: To abstain from shooting in self-defense "is in opposition to human nature".

[16] From October 1944, the contact with Frithjof Hammersen (officer in Wehrmacht), was handled by Ingrid Furuseth, Hauge, and Ole Arntzen.

A 5 December 1944 directive (direktiv) from SOE, stating "that it must be a prioritized task, for Milorg and NORIC to obstruct German forces from leaving" Norway.

[28] (It was Hauge's understanding that, there was a wish for severing the lines of transportation on land, so that the Germans were forced out to sea—were the British were feeling increasingly stronger.

[40] As "Gerhardsen's secretary with responsibility for judicial cases", he became linked[41] to the legal purge of war-time collaborators and the trials against Vidkun Quisling and Knut Hamsun.

[45] (In 1945 he suggested measures for preventing Norwegian military scientists from remaining in British service, and in December the cabinet decided to establish FFI.

[48] 400 000 signatures of protest were collected, and Hauge asked advice from Trygve Bratteli about the possibility of having Labour Party employees do partial checks of the lists, and "Should it be done?".

"[50] In the middle of January 1948 he received a secret memo from Vilhelm Evang that stated that the Western military superpowers sensed an increased possibility for war with the Soviet Union.

[57] On 13 March 1948 a meeting was held in the prime minister's residence, regarding "what could be done to raise the level of preparedness against sabotage and coups within corporations and Norway's administration".

"[60] (Hauge had conversations with Churchill the next day (at Det runde bords klubb—"the round table club"), and at the farewell dinner held by Britain's ambassador—on 14 May.

[67] General Eisenhower's visit to Oslo in February 1951, according to Hauge, resulted in something that doubtfully otherwise could have occurred: minister Brofoss accepted the doubling of expenses for the Armed Forces.

On 12–13 November 1951, then prime minister forced [70] the party leadership to accept his own upcoming resignation, and he named his replacement, who thereafter was approved: Oscar Torp.

[77] Hauge helped facilitate the sale of heavy water—for use in plutonium production[78]—to the Israeli nuclear programme, while he was a board member at Noratom and judicial advisor[79] at Institutt for atomenergi.

On 10 May 1958 Odd Dahl (the acting director of Noratom) wrote to the Foreign Ministry that the company had authored "a draft for a contract regarding the construction and building of a 40 megawatt heavy water reactor for the production of plutonium".

[78] Njølstad says, "Then came the difficult point, that Dahl in no way tried to underplay: Israel wished to follow an independent national direction, regarding the field of atomic energy, and was therefore not set on accepting the strict stipulations of control (kontrollbestemmelsene) that the US" had on their export of heavy water.

[78] Furthermore, Dahl said that of course one could not rule out that the Israelis one day would want to go in that direction, but the help that Norway eventually might have given Israel to get started "with legitimate civilian applications today, presumably can hardly be viewed in [a] relation to such remote possibilities".

[80] On 21 August 1958 Hauge suggested to chargé d'affaires Miron that Israel might want to buy heavy water from Great Britain.

[79] Njølstad says that "State Secretary Engen became more and more convinced that the heavy water was to be used for producing nuclear weapons",[82] and in several memos he advised then foreign minister to not go through with the [proposed] agreement.

[84] Noratom took possession of [20 tons of] heavy water in the first quarter of 1959—from Britain's Atomic Authority[81]—and it was loaded onto a ship, that departed a British port.

[99] (In 1946, as minister of defence, he had participated in "picking [national airline] Det Norske Luftselskap (DNL) up from the ground and placing on its feet, after the war".

[101] The September 1987 death of Einar Gerhardsen, according to Njølstad, "marked the beginning of the end of Hauge's political influence within the Labour Party".

[104] In 2008 Olav Njølstad said that Tore Pryser and Espen Haavardsholm during the launch of the books, the two went "very far in accusing Hauge of sitting on important information about Holst's death".

[105] Hauge has been in question in relation to the strange circumstances regarding the death of the Milorg member Kai Holst in Stockholm just after the war.

[citation needed] In January 1997 he refused[2] to testify in an open hearing of the Parliamentary Oversight Committee, regarding the conclusions of the Lund Commission.

[110] Attendees included then king of Norway, prime minister, leader of LO, mayor of Oslo and other politicians; Haakon Lie, Gunnar Sønsteby, Knut Haugland.

Media commented his death: The Times said Hauge's willpower and resolve—including to implement unorthodox ideas, with authoritarian means—was doomed to make him [into] a controversial figure in a society "that normally adorns itself with being egalitarian and unanimous".