He was the police officer charged with accompanying Leon Trotsky on a freighter from Norway to Mexico.

After suffering an injury to his foot, Lie was captured by the Germans and briefly held prisoner.

[1] Lie became one of the first Norwegian SS volunteers when he served for a brief period of time during the Balkans Campaign of 1940 as a war correspondent in Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler together with Minister of Justice Sverre Riisnæs.

Lie, Lippestand and others went to Kirkenes in mid-October 1944 to order an evacuation of the civil population in order to assist the German plans for a scorched earth policy in the face of the Soviet forces who were about to push German forces back into Norway.

It was widely believed a combination of stress, a large consumption of alcohol and lack of sleep was the cause of his death.