Johan Nygaardsvold
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Campaign poster of Johan Nygaardsvold |
Johan Nygaardsvold (
September 6,
1879 -
March 13,
1952) was a
Norwegian politician from the
Labour Party. He was
Prime Minister of Norway from
1935 to
1945 (from
1940 to
1945 in exile in
London).
[Nygaardsvold, along with his cabinet as well as the entire parliament, resided in exile in London during WWII while Norway was occupied by Nazi Germany. In parts of this period Vidkun Quisling, leader of the nationalist/fascist political party Nasjonal Samling, assumed a degree of formal power, but in reality the country was governed by the occupants, represented by Reichskommissar Josef Terboven.]Nygaardsvold was born in
Hommelvik, the main center of the
municipality of
Malvik in the
county of
Sør-Trøndelag to a tenant farmer and his wife. His father as a founding member of the first labor union in the area, and Johan took his first job as a lumber mill worker when he was 12.
Nygaardsvold emigrated to
Canada in 1902, where he took the name John Westby. He took jobs in
British Columbia,
Kalispell, Montana, and
Spokane, Washington before returning to Norway in
1907. In
1910, he was elected to the board of education for the Labour Party, and rose quickly through the ranks in local politics. In
1916, he was elected to the
Norwegian parliament for the first time, serving continuously until
1949. He worked as a laborer in the Swedish lumber industry during the summers in the first few years. From
1920 to
1922 he served as the mayor for his home town of Malvik.
In
1928, Nygaardsvold is appointed minister of agriculture in the short-lived
Christopher Hornsrud cabinet. In
1935, he is asked to form a government. He served as prime minister until the Nazi Germany attack on Norway
9 April 1940, when the government fled to
London. He continued as prime minister in exile until the government returned to
Norway 31 May 1945 and resigned on
25 June, when
Haakon VII appointed
Einar Gerhardsen to head an interim government composed of all political parties. He retired from politics in
1949 and died of cancer in 1952.
Known as "Gubben" in his time, Nygaardsvold had immense popular appeal and was given credit for the Labour Party's election results in
1933. Nygaardsvold was the prime minister in the second Labour Party cabinet in Norway, after he helped formulate the so-called "crisis accord" with the
Farmers' Party. His government's domestic policy was largely dedicated to recovering from the
Great Depression, but it is most noted for its foreign and military policy in the years leading up to the
occupation of Norway by Nazi Germany and his administration in exile from 1940 to
1945. The investigative commission that issued a report after the war found that he could not be absolved from responsibility for the lack of operational readiness for the German invasion, but gave him credit for his management of a unity government in exile. He was awarded an honorary salary for his service in exile, but refused to accept it.
Nygaardsvold announced in
1942 that he would resign as soon as the war ended, which he did.
