Eugène Olaussen

Ansgar Eugène Olaussen (27 December 1887 – 22 January 1962) was a Norwegian newspaper editor, educated as a typographer, and politician. As a politician he started in Young Communist League of Norway (, and notably edited Klassekampen from 1911 to 1921. For the Labour Party he was county leader, central board member and MP for slightly more than a year, until he joined the Communist Party in 1923. Some years after finishing his sole term as an MP for the Communists, he shifted to the far right and associated himself with Nazism during the Second World War.

Career in the labour movement He was born in Tønsberg as a son of Hannibal Olaussen (1848–1916) and Bella Sophie Johansen (1852–1918). His father was an immigrant from Tanum, Sweden, and was a bookbinder by profession, like Eugène's older sister Anna Catharina. The family later lived in Moss. Eugène Olaussen later settled in Hokksund. In 1907 he became editor-in-chief of , and was a central board member of the . From 1911 to 1921 he edited the publication of NSU, Klassekampen. Later that summer he was hired as editor-in-chief of Haugesunds Folkeblad, but he continued in when asked by the central board of to do so.

In 1918 he was a part of the left wing that assumed power in the Norwegian Labour Party. He became a member of the party's central board. In 1921 NSU changed name to the Young Communist League of Norway, as the social democrats broke out of the Labour Party. In 1923 the communists broke out of the Labour Party to form the Communist Party, and the Young Communist League followed. He remained central board member here until 1924. His central board membership in the Labour Party was ended in 1923 as he joined the Communist Party, so did his time as county leader in the Labour Party since 1920. He was also imprisoned for 120 days for antimilitaristic agitation.

Post-war Olaussen wrote the memoirs , "From Kremlin to Youngstorget". The memoirs were printed, but because of the war's end and him being considered Nazi collaborator, his kind was not longer tolerated and the book was not published. In 1947, Olaussen, during the legal purge in Norway after World War II, was sentenced for Nazi collaboration to two and a half-years in prison. He died in January 1962.