Wanda Hjort was the oldest of Johan Bernhard Hjort's six children. J. B. Hjort was a noted lawyer who co-founded the Norwegian fascist party Nasjonal Samling with Vidkun Quisling in 1933. Hjort, however, broke with Nasjonal Samling in 1937 and became part of the Norwegian resistance movement upon the German invasion in 1940 and occupation between 1940 and 1945. She was arrested at the personal order of Josef Terboven and detained in Norway at Møllergata 19 and Grini and then sent to a prison in Berlin. Thanks to intervention by German relatives, Hjort was confined to house arrest at a family estate near Brandenburg called Groß Kreutz on the condition that his entire family join him there.