page_title: Erik Gjems-Onstad
section_title: Early activities
hierarchical_section_title: Erik Gjems-Onstad / Second World War / Early activities
caption_attribution_description: English: Portrait of Erik Gjems-Onstad in the early 1940s. Norsk bokmål: Portrett av Erik Gjems-Onstad på begynnelsen av 1940-tallet.
context_page_description: Erik-Ørn Gjems-Onstad, MBE 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 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 to assist with weapons smuggling, prepare 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.
context_section_description: 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 did not get any notification of what was happening, and only music was played on the radio. Gjems-Onstad took his bike and cycled to his school, the Oslo Cathedral School, only to find it closed and in a chaotic state. He thereafter went to the city centre and Karl Johans gate, where he witnessed the Germans marching through. The next (or possibly the same) day, 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. He briefly found himself in the situation of attempting to rescue the Germans trapped inside the plane, but the heat was unbearable and the two were told by the Germans to run away and get in 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 Hird 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 Hird 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, an engineer had created some military inventions which Gjems-Onstad's group wanted to bring to the 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 later tipped to contact the British military attaché. He got in contact with Major Malcolm Munthe, who in turn was interested in the inventions. Gjems-Onstad was arrested by Swedish police in Stockholm on 25 March 1941, as parts of Munthe's organisation had been exposed. 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
caption: Erik Gjems-Onstad in the early 1940s.
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