Erik-Ørn Gjems-Onstad (22 February 1922 – 18 November 2011) was a Norwegian resistance member, officer, lawyer, sports official, politician, author and anti-immigration activist.
Gjems-Onstad joined the Norwegian resistance movement after Nazi Germany invaded Norway in 1940. He was arrested in Sweden for his involvement with Norwegian resistance activity in the country in 1941, and was sent to the United Kingdom where he joined the Norwegian Independent Company 1 (Kompani Linge) and received British military training. He was deployed to Norway in 1943 as part of Lark, assigned with establishing radio connection with London. He led Lark in Trøndelag between 1943 and 1945, which constituted the leadership of Milorg in the region. His other activities included assisting with weapons smuggling, preparing for the sinking of the German battleship Tirpitz, and plotting to assassinate Nazi collaborator Ivar Grande. He also founded the Durham organisation for conducting psychological warfare towards the end of the war, and he took part in blowing up railway tracks. Gjems-Onstad's efforts during the Second World War led him to become one of Norway's highest decorated war heroes.
He joined the Norwegian Home Guard after the war, where he served as a captain. He completed his education in law, and also worked as a judge and lawyer. He ultimately reached the rank of colonel in the military, as military lawyer of the Royal Norwegian Air Force. For some years he was CEO of a project that planned to develop the Vaterland neighbourhood in Oslo. Gjems-Onstad also had a career in sports, representing the sports club SK Rye in cycling and racewalking. He later worked as a sports official, as a board member, and as chairman of various national sports bodies.
A former member of the Conservative Party and the libertarian organisation Libertas, Gjems-Onstad joined Anders Lange's Party when it was founded in 1973 and became the party's deputy leader. He was elected a Member of Parliament in the 1973 parliamentary election, and became the party's parliamentary leader following Anders Lange's death in 1974. Many of his views and proposals caused controversy, and he was in conflict with the new leadership of the party, which was eventually headed by Carl I. Hagen. Gjems-Onstad was expelled from the party in 1976, and finished his term as an independent. He also became known for criticising the Norwegian government's policy in Africa, and for defending the governments of countries such as Rhodesia and South Africa. In the 1980s he worked as an attorney for several anti-immigration activists, and from the late 1980s he became involved in anti-immigration politics himself. He stood in election for the Stop Immigration party in 1989 and for the Fatherland Party in 1991, and he was later involved in the People's Movement Against Immigration and Stop Islamisation of Norway.
Early life Erik-Ørn Gjems-Onstad was born in Kristiania (modern-day Oslo) to jurist and civil servant Olaf Gjems-Onstad (1882–1945) and architect Ågot Urbye (1886–1959). He worked at sea as a cabin boy in 1937, and went to port in both Africa and Asia. He finished his secondary education in 1940.
Gjems-Onstad had been active in the Boy Scouts, where he learned navigation and map-reading. In late 1939, he was asked to teach these skills in a volunteer military training program. He later replaced the scout leader who was called up to fight in the Winter War. Due to the war in Europe, scouting exercises were treated seriously, and Gjems-Onstad claims the movement played an important role in the early organisation of Norwegian resistance. In the winter of 1939/40, Gjems-Onstad commenced training in nighttime orienteering and signaling. The weekend before the invasion, he and a friend "prepared" for war by sleeping in a tent in the snow in the forest.
Second World War
Early activities
On 9 April 1940, Nazi Germany invaded and occupied Norway as a part of the Second World War. Gjems-Onstad became aware of the German presence when he and his family saw German planes flying right over their home. They received no notification of what was happening, and music was the only thing playing on the radio. Gjems-Onstad took his bike and cycled to his school, the Oslo Cathedral School, only to find it closed and in chaos. He then went to the city centre and Karl Johans gate, where he witnessed the Germans marching through. Either that day or the day following, a German Junkers plane crashed near him and his friend when they were on their way from Lysaker to get a closer view of the captured Fornebu Airport. They attempted to rescue the Germans trapped inside the plane, but the heat was unbearable, and the Germans told them to run to safety just moments before the plane exploded. The proclamation by Norwegian Prime Minister Johan Nygaardsvold on 10 April (that rejected the German claim to appoint Vidkun Quisling as Norwegian Prime Minister), was according to Gjems-Onstad received with great disappointment by him and his friends. He thought it contained nothing but verbiage, with no remarks about mobilisation, defence, fighting or war. He thereafter wanted to join the resistance, but on his way met a man who told him that he would be rejected if he had not been through recruit training, and he thus returned home. After a few days, he and a friend nevertheless set out for Northern Norway. They came as far north as Nord-Trøndelag, where they however gave up and returned home.
Gjems-Onstad started studying at the University of Oslo in late 1940, and he got in touch with students who wanted to organise a resistance movement. One time, he and other youth who sympathised with the resistance disrupted a public meeting held by the fascist party Nasjonal Samling (NS). They deliberately clapped their hands so relentlessly (they considered that they could not get punished for "cheering") that the speakers could not speak, and thereafter started leaving the room. Many were however blocked from leaving, and Gjems-Onstad and a few others were arrested and fined due to their role in the event. In September he participated in a clash between students and a group of Hirden members (the NS's paramilitary organisation) outside the university. A young boy came by during the initial stand-off, asking Gjems-Onstad what was happening. Gjems-Onstad responded that the others were traitors, and Hirden members thus captured him and beat him up. Later, due to an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in December, Gjems-Onstad took part in digging mass graves for slaughtered cows in Dikemark and in Nesøya.
In late 1940, Gjems-Onstad's group wanted to bring some newly created military devices to Allied forces. It was decided that one of them was to travel to the UK, while Gjems-Onstad was to travel to Stockholm. Gjems-Onstad was joined by three others, and they decided to let themselves be arrested in Östmark in Sweden. They were transported to Stockholm, but the Norwegian legation was not interested in the inventions. Gjems-Onstad was then directed to contact the British military attaché. He reached Major Malcolm Munthe, who was interested in the devices. Gjems-Onstad was arrested by Swedish police in Stockholm on 25 March 1941, as parts of Munthe's organisation had been compromised. Gjems-Onstad was imprisoned at the Stockholm police station for 13 days, and then for 59 days in the Stockholm Remand Prison. On 23 May 1941, the government decided that he was to be expelled and banned from entering Sweden (the ban was repealed after the war). He was originally scheduled to be deported to Canada via Moscow and China, but the plans were halted due to the German invasion of the Soviet Union. He was instead sent to the Norwegian refugee camp in Öreryd. He was ordered by the British to escape from Öreryd in October 1941 and travel to Norway. He was captured by the Swedish Home Guard close to the Norwegian border, but was sent by plane to the UK by Swedish authorities in December.
In the resistance After arriving in the UK, Gjems-Onstad joined the Norwegian Independent Company 1 (Kompani Linge) and took British military education. The British decided in 1943 to deploy him to Trøndelag in Norway together with Odd Sørli, Johnny Pevik and Nils Uhlin Hansen. The deployment was necessary as Evald Hansen and Herluf Nygaard had been captured and tortured in December 1942 (Nygaard later escaped, Hansen died at Falstad). Sørli and Gjems-Onstad were set to maintain Lark, establish radio connection with London and get intelligence about the German battleship Tirpitz, at the time located in the Trondheimsfjord. When he was training at Glen More Lodge near Aviemore, Gjems-Onstad was ordered to go to London, where he was supplied with a 20 kg radio transmitter and other equipment. Together with Sørli he travelled to Inverness by train, and to Shetland by plane, under stormy weather conditions. They initially set out with the fishing boat Harald II from Scalloway in late February, but due to unusually stormy weather they were driven back to Shetland three times after three unsuccessful attempts to reach Ålesund; the last attempt destroyed their equipment as the boat was bursted open. They had their equipment replaced, and set out for Kristiansund in March instead on a bigger boat. With easier, yet still poor weather, the voyage took two days. When they reached land they noticed that they had reached Kya Lighthouse, much farther to the north of their original destination, but they decided to make landfall anyway. From there they travelled with fake identification via Namsos to Trondheim, where they reunited with fellow Lark members Johnny Pevik and Nils Uhlin Hansen, the other group sent from London. Gjems-Onstad thereafter assisted Pevik and Hansen with transporting five tons of weapons from an uninhabited island near Lyngvær to Trondheim.
Lark received missions from London (sometimes via Stockholm), and constituted the leadership of Milorg in Trøndelag where they in practice were the same entity. Gjems-Onstad started his operations in Trondheim by establishing radio connection with London and operating the radio transmitter, and he soon became one of the most important persons in the leadership of Milorg. His saboteur activity included to prepare the sinking of Tirpitz, but the plans were never realised as the ship had left the Trondheimsfjord in early 1943. Sørli commanded Gjems-Omstad to a spontaneous assassination of Nazi collaborator Ivar Grande after spotting him incidentally, but Gjems-Onstad aborted after noticing a division of Russian POWs, fearing for what in turn might happen to them if he went through with the assassination. Some days later he again plotted to assassinate Grande together with Sørli and Ingebrigt Gausland. They delivered a box booby trapped with an egg hand grenade to his home, but Grande foiled the attempt with advice Norwegian Gestapo agent Henry Rinnan (who was present at the time) had received on not to open such boxes. Following the attempted assassination, he was ordered to not get himself involved in any further such attempts, as it was considered too risky for him. Gjems-Onstad took over as leader of the group from Sørli in October 1943, and it was decided to pull him out of Norway and close the radio station following news that Pevik had been arrested. He left Trondheim for Stockholm later that month, and received training in psychological warfare.