The chancellor of Germany and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Willy Brandt was a member of AUF after he fled from the Nazis in 1933 and found exile in Norway.

[citation needed] A conflict arose after the United States had been offering its NATO allies American nuclear weapons as a defence against the Eastern Bloc.

Sosialistisk Studenlag opposed this and as an attempt to prevent West Germany from getting access to nuclear weapons it contacted MPs during the Easter break to sign a petition.

In 1998, the Workers' Youth League membership scandal resulted in two former treasurers and two former leaders of the Oslo chapter being found guilty of fraud, and given prison sentences for having unlawfully received NOK 648,000 in grants from the City of Oslo between 1992 and 1994—Ragnar Bøe Elgsaas, Anders Hornslien, Bjørn Jarle Rødberg Larsen and Anders Greif Mathisen.

[11][12] On 22 July 2011, AUF's traditional summer camp on the island of Utøya was the scene of a massacre carried out by the right-wing extremist terrorist Anders Behring Breivik dressed as a police officer.

Breivik, dressed in a homemade police uniform and showing false identification, took a ferry to the island and opened fire at the participants, killing 69 and injuring 32.

Its central office is situated at the historical seat[citation needed] of the Norwegian labour movement, Youngstorget in Oslo, in the Peoples' Theatre building.