Gustav Smedal

Gustav Smedal (28 December 1888 – 30 October 1951) was a Norwegian jurist and irredentist activist.

Biography He was born in Kristiania to Prosecutor General and Minister Harald Smedal (1859–1911) and Caroline Kirkgaard Hofgaard (1863–89). He graduated from the Vestheim school and studied law, obtaining a degree in 1913. After completing his apprenticeship he was employed at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs between 1920 and 1923. In 1921–22, he became the secretary of the Norwegian delegation to the League of Nations in Geneva and private secretary of judge Frederik Beichmann. Between 1923 and 1931 Smedal ran a law office in Stavanger.

A nationalist, Smedal would find himself collaborating with the national socialist regime during the German occupation of Norway. In 1942, he enrolled in Nasjonal Samling (at that time the only legal party), but never worked directly for the party. Wishing to create ties between Smedal and the party, the regime offered him positions as law professor, Supreme Court Justice and even Chief of the Supreme Court. Smedal, being economically independent, only accepted a position as honorary professor in 1943. Instead, he was active in the organization Norges Ishavskomité together with the other prominent leader of Norwegian claims in East Greenland and chairman of the Arctic Trading Co., Adolf Hoel.

As part of the legal purge in Norway after World War II, Smedal was punished economically for his collaboration.