Olav Larssen (10 July 1894 – 5 July 1981) was a Norwegian newspaper editor and politician for the Labour and Communist parties.
Olav Larssen was born in Furnes as a son of baker Kristian Larssen and Lovise Wahlum (1873–1923). He attended primary school in rural Furnes, but then moved to the nearby city Hamar to take apprenticeship as a typographer.[1] By 1910 he dwelled as a tenant in Østregate 55 in the neighborhood Østbyen, nearby Hamar Station.[2] He recalled having to adapt to the city culture, and shed some of his childhood dialect/sociolect.
In 1917 he married taylor's daughter Aslaug Rustad (1892–1987).[1] She hailed from Hamar and was the oldest girl of ten siblings. After her mother's death when she was fourteen, she had to abandon plans to become a hairdresser to help her father with tending to their family.[3]
Their daughter Randi (1924–2002) was a well-known journalist and writer. From April 1946 she was married to Prime Minister of Norway (1971–72 and 1973–76) Trygve Bratteli.[4] Their son Erik (1921–) became a state secretary and also a permanent under-secretary of state (Norwegian: departementsråd) in the Ministry of Transport. He changed his last name to Ribu, and was married to a daughter of editor Jørgen Hustad.[5]
Olav Larssen was involved in the temperance movement at a young age.[6] He had a family background of interest in politics, as his father was a member of Furnes municipal council for the Liberal Party.[7] Later, in 1915, the liberal workers' union Furnes Arbeiderforening under the chairmanship of Kristian Larssen decided to take up collective membership in the Labour Party.[8] Olav Larssen became active in the youth wing of the Labour Party, Norges Socialdemokratiske Ungdomsforbund (NSU), already in 1911 when a local NSU branch was founded in Hamar.[9]
At that time, Larssen underwent the typographer's apprenticeship in the book printer A. Sæthers Bogtrykkeri. He had nearly completed his training when being hired as sub-editor in the Labour Party newspaper Demokraten in June 1913.[1][note 1] Hitherto, his experience with journalism had been limited to writing pieces in the youth wing's national newspaper Klassekampen from time to time, a task associated with his active political role.[9] However, he had also involved himself in a debate on the editor of Demokraten, which incidentally was printed by A. Sæther.[1]
Larssen had recently become secretary in the board of the newly established county branch of NSU.[10] He was later chosen as one of the secretaries at the NSU national convention in Hamar in 1914.[11]
On the tenure in Demokraten, Larsen wrote that "they were not relieved from the eternal financial torment".[12] He resigned from the newspaper in 1916. Newly engaged to Aslaug Rustad, Larssen was hired in the Drammen-based newspaper Fremtiden in October 1916. After some introductory weeks, he was hired as manager of the newspaper's local office in Kongsberg.[13] He returned to the Fremtiden head office in Drammen in the autumn of 1918. He bought a city house in Strømsø together with colleague Olaf Solumsmoen.[14]
He edited the Labour Party newspapers Demokraten from 1920 to 1927, and Hamar Arbeiderblad from 1927 to 1935. In 1935 he was hired as a journalist in Arbeiderbladet. In 1940, when Norway became invaded and occupied by Germany, Larssen was the acting news editor of Arbeiderbladet before it was stopped by the Germans. He co-edited the illegal Bulletinen from 1940 to 1942, but for this he was imprisoned.[15] He was held at Møllergata 19 from January to April 1942, then at Grini until February 1943, and thereafter in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp until the war ended.[16] From this period he wrote the section "Blant landsmenn i Sachsenhausen" ('Among fellow countrymen in Sachsenhausen') in the memoir book 3 fra Sachsenhausen (together with August Lange, Carl Johan Frederik Jakhelln and W. Winiarski).[1]
Following the liberation of Norway in 1945, Larssen again became the news editor of Arbeiderbladet. He was editor-in-chief from 1949 to 1963.[15]
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| Preceded by | Chairman of the Norwegian Press Association 1946–1947 |
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| Preceded by | Chief editor of Arbeiderbladet 1949–1963 |
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