September 8 - Defying Nazi Occupation

On this day in Labor History the year was 1941.   The ravages of World War II had swept across Europe.   German troops had invaded Norway in April of 1940.   The conditions of the Nazi occupation grew increasingly harsher.   The Nazis began rationing milk, and important part of the diet of Norwegian children and workers.   The rationing however did not apply to the German occupiers.   Angered shipyard workers in Oslo walked off the docks in protest.   Workers from other industries joined them.   20,000 workers from 50 factories and work sites participated in the strike.   The Nazi response to the uprising was predictably swift and brutal.   200 labor leaders were arrested and new Nazi chosen leaders put in their places.   Twenty-seven of the arrested labor leaders and strikers were brought before a court-martial trial.   Rolf Wickstrom, a welder and union steward and Harald Viggo Hansteeen a labor lawyer were sentenced to death for their involvement in the strike and executed.  The remaining twenty-five were convicted and sentenced to long prison sentences.  Ludvik Buland, a union railway worker died while serving his sentence in prison.  So did Harry Vestli, a factory worker.   Journalists were fired or arrested.   Even groups like the Boy Scouts were banned.   Listening to foreign broadcasts on the radio was expressly forbidden.   Then radios were confiscated.  In Sweden, Trade Unionists issued a statement in support of their fellow Scandinavian workers.   “Norwegian trade unionists have fallen in the battle for Norway’s Freedoms and for the right of the Norwegian working class to decide for itself its own action with the limits of Norwegian law.  We honor their memory.”  In 1948 a memorial was placed to honor the deaths of Wickstrom and Hansteen and the workers who stood up for their country.