Because of his background he was fired as chief editor in 1941, when the newspapers in Norway were usurped by the Nazi authorities, installed when Germany invaded Norway in 1940. He was even arrested, in June 1941. He was imprisoned at Møllergata 19 from August 1941 to October 1941, then at Grini concentration camp until May 1942, then at Sachsenhausen concentration camp until the war's end. At Sachsenhausen he worked within the parcels section (). He was the first to get in contact with Wanda Hjort, when she started visiting the camp in 1943. This contact came to be an important communication channel between the camp and the people at "Gross Kreutz", who later became an important source of information to the Swedish Red Cross, and to the International Red Cross in Geneva. After the war he was hired in "A-pressens felles Oslo-redaksjon" in 1946 and "Arbeidernes Pressekontor" in 1947. He was the chief secretary in Arbeidernes Opplysningsforbund from 1950 to 1962, except for the time from 1953 to 1954 when he was an attaché at the Norwegian embassy in London.