Konrad Nordahl

Konrad Mathias Nordahl (25 September 1897 – 22 May 1975) was a Norwegian trade unionist and politician for the Labour Party. He was the leader of the Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions from 1939 to 1965, and an MP from 1958 to 1965.

Early life He was born in Laksevåg (at that time it was part of Askøy Municipality). At the age of two, he lost his mother and was raised by his uncle and aunt as foster parents; he was then given the surname Nordahl instead of Johannessen. He joined the Norwegian Labour Party in 1912, and a trade union in 1915. He had secretary jobs for the Labour Party and its youth wing, and became a central board member of the Young Communist League of Norway in 1923. In the same year the organization seceded from the Labour Party, and became the young wing of a new Communist Party of Norway. Nordahl was a Communist Party member until 1927, and in 1929 he rejoined the Labour Party.

On 9 April 1940 Norway was attacked by Nazi Germany. Hindahl followed the cabinet as they fled the capital. Unlike the cabinet Nordahl did not flee the country in 1940. After protests against the new Nazi authorities Nordahl was arrested in November 1940, but later released. Nordahl fled to the United Kingdom in September 1941 and established a leadership-in-exile. From 1945 to 1965 he was the undisputed leader. In 1945 he attended the World Trade Union Conference in London along with many renowned trade union leaders.

He was also elected twice to the Parliament of Norway, in 1957 and 1961. The newspaper Morgenbladet are among those who has expanded this group somewhat, to include Haakon Lie and Trygve Bratteli as well. Nordahl was pro-EEC and pro-Israel, and was an anti-Communist during the Cold War. He issued several books, including Israel, en demokratisk utpost i Midt-Østen ("Israel, a Democratic Outpost in the Middle East", 1965). In 1991 and 1992 his diaries were published in two volumes. He died in May 1975 in Oslo, his urn interred at Østre gravlund.