When World War II ended and German occupation forces in Norway surrendered, Gunnar Sonsteby still had his three grenades.
Through five years of occupation, the German secret police had hunted the student-turned-resistance leader. Three of his friends, captured and facing torture by the Gestapo, took their own lives in prison so they
wouldn't implicate friends and family members, he said.
To keep his guard up, "I didn't say, 'I won't be caught.' Instead, I said, 'I will be caught,' " Sonsteby told an audience that overflowed UND's Memorial Union Lecture Bowl on Sunday night.
"I knew so many names, and the Gestapo knew I knew. At the end of the war, I had three hand grenades. One was for myself. Two were for the Germans."
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Through five years of sabotage and other resistance work, Sonsteby was never captured.
"I was lucky," he said, a grin spreading across his face. "And two Germans were lucky."
Sonsteby, 90, was a 22-year-old student when Hitler's Germany invaded Norway in April 1940. As a member of the resistance, he made his own identity cards, permits and other official papers, and some of those were flashed onto an overhead projection screen as he talked.
The man whose wartime cover names included Kjakkan -- the Chin -- charmed an audience that included Norwegian-Americans whose gray hair matched his as well as teenagers and college students who were about the age Sonsteby was when the German invasion forced him to put down his books.
He drew laughter when he twice interrupted the UND official who introduced him. "It's enough now," Sonsteby said, waving a hand. When the introduction continued, he interjected, "I can take the rest now."
Praising Swedes
Sonsteby, Norway's most highly decorated citizen ever, was invited to UND by the university's Nordic Initiative and law professor Gregory Gordon, head of the new UND Center for Human Rights and Genocide Studies. The center plans to work with Chester Fritz Library to digitize records of the postwar Nuremberg Trials relating to Norway.
In lilting, accented English and firm voice -- groping just occasionally for the right English word (once the word was "explosives") -- he told of life without newspapers or radios and of the despair that comes of hearing only rumor and propaganda. He praised Sweden and the Swedes, neutral in World War II, for providing aid and comfort to many thousands of Norwegians who fled over the border.
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He praised his own people, too, the people of Oslo, who helped active members of the resistance when they most needed it. "We never had 'no' from any families," he said. And of his king and government, who escaped to London, he said, "All was dark, but they kept on."
That included the government's decision to take over Norway's entire merchant fleet of 1,100 ships, most of which were outside Norwegian waters or able to escape.
"And they said to the Allies, 'They are yours,' " Sonsteby said.
The most important sabotage that Sonsteby was involved with happened when the collaborationist Vidkun Quisling government told Hitler that Norway could provide him with 40 divisions of Norwegian fighters. Sonsteby and his mates blew up the office where the forced conscription was being organized.
Sonsteby, who has spoken in the past against hostage-taking and suicide bombers, noted that he shouted a warning to Norwegian civilians working in the targeted building, "because we wanted not to take any innocent life. It was important for us."
Reach Haga at (701) 780-1102; (800) 477-6572, ext. 102; or send e-mail to chaga@gfherald.com .
