Dankert Thuland

Dankert Orlando Emanuel Thuland (born 3 February 1911.Bergens Tidende, page(s) 13, published 27 September 1976, died 12 September 1976)Bergens Tidende, page(s) 9, type reference obituary, published 13 September 1976 was a Norwegian police officer and resistance fighter from Bergen, Norway during the Second World War. He took a realartium at Bergen Cathedral School in 1930 with preparatory tests in philosophy and began his legal studies. In 1931 he was employed by the Bergen Police Chamber, became an aspirant on 1 July 1934 and permanently employed as a police constable in 1935. Before the war, he actively monitored foreign spies in Bergen and tried to hide the POT archive when the Germans captured the city on 9 April 1940 . After the war, Dankert Thuland was a key figure during the treason settlement in the city.
==Espionage activities==
Dankert Thuland played a double game during the war, when he, as a link between the Norwegian and German police, used the opportunity to obtain information useful for the resistance movement.
As the son of a translator and language teacher, he had good German skills, so that the police leadership used him as a liaison in 1940, and he was present at key meetings with the German authorities in Bergen. Thuland also went to German companies and obtained important information, which was sent on to London.
==The arrest==
The Alværs case, a large resistance group based in Bergen, rolled up by German intelligence during the Second World War, had ramifications for the Bergen police in April 1941. Three police officers, Lorentz Strandenes, Georg Christensen and Dankert Thuland, were arrested on 10 April. When Sipo chief Gerhard Flesch discovered that Thuland was in reality a spy and had tricked the Gestapo, he wanted to shoot him on the spot. But Hauptsturmführer Johann Behrens was able to prevent it, because he knew that Thuland was sitting on valuable information. He tortured Thuland to pressure him for information.
Dankert Thuland spent seven months in isolation at Ulven detention camp without revealing anything before he was transferred to Grini detention camp on 25 November 1941.
==The escape==
On 19 February 1942, Thuland managed to escape from Grini prison camp to Sweden and on to England. The escape from Grini is retold in Arnfinn Haga's book "When the stars froze"
In England, Dankert Thuland worked in the intelligence service as an investigator for the Norwegian authorities in London until the end of the war, first under Kristian Gleditsch, then under Asbjørn Bryhn at the National Police Chief's investigation office. He interrogated several of the spies the Germans sent from Norway to Great Britain. 
==After the war==
On his return home in the summer of 1945, he was employed by the National Treason Department at the Bergen Police Chamber and was central to the mapping of national traitors. From 1947 he was a police officer. In 1948, he was employed by the surveillance, where from 1951 he was police chief officer, and later police department head. From 1 July 1970 until he retired on 30 June 1971, he was chief officer at the criminal department at Bergen Police Chamber. From 1971 he was the main convention witness in Bergen. His archive remains a source of knowledge.
==Weblinks==
* Bergen police chamber / police district, AV/SAB-A-60401/Y/Ye/L0001: Copy of war diary December 1940 by Dankert Thuland, 1940-1941, p. 127 
* Bergen police chamber / police district, AV/SAB-A-60401/Y/Ye/L0001: Copy of war diary April 1940 by Dankert Thuland, 1940-1941, p. 1
* Bergens Tidende, May 25th 2020 "The unknown police agents"
* Bergens Tidende, by Per Helge Martinsen, September 13th, 2020 "The spies who tricked the British"
* Bergens Tidende, April 15th 2024 "Must have known it was right"
* Fanger.no Online database of Norwegians who were political prisoners during WW2 Dankert Thuland
Category:1911 births
Category:1976 deaths
Category:Norwegian people
Category:Police officers