After the German occupation of Norway in April 1940
there was the story of your captivity as a prisoner of war.
Willy Brandt in a Norwegian army uniform.
But even there your identity was not uncovered.
It was a critical situation, you see.
In early May 1940,
I was in a valley on the western coast,
north of a little town
called Åndalsnes,
where the English disembarked around 1 May,
perhaps exactly on 1 May,
as well as a little more towards the north.
So they'd landed there, did nothing,
and were evacuated.
It was clear that the area would become occupied by the Germans.
I met some friends there,
and wondered what to do next.
Should we try to get over the mountains on ski?
I didn't know the area well enough.
Otherwise, that would have been a possibility.
Or do you act as if you're a civilian
and go through the probable border security
to Oslo?
This meant coming into undesired contact with the secret police,
or as we referred to them at the time, the Gestapo.
Or, after careful consideration, we pondered:
Do you put on a uniform
and let yourself be imprisoned with the other Norwegians?
This means you'll not have to deal with
the organs of the German secret police,
but with the German military,
hoping that the process will not take long.
This idea paid off.
The only risk involved was, firstly,
that someone might blow the whistle on me,
someone who knew me.
But this risk was low.
There were few sympathizers of National Socialism in Norway.
The second risk was that friends in Oslo
were just about to mobilize the Red Cross.
It could have proven fatal
if they had followed them...
What do you mean by "mobilizing the Red Cross"? -
To search for me.
Under which name were you captivated?
Willy Brandt.
I had thrown away all the papers that contained the name Willy Brandt,
and was given a certificate.
I wasn't the only one
who didn't have papers, considering the chaos there.
So I got another paper,
signed by a Captain Nippus, I remember.
On it was stated
that Willy Brandt had been in the Dovre barracks from then to then.
"Lodging from then to then."
"Pay from this date to that."
It said that I was paid a daily fixed rate.
And that I now had the right to go to my hometown in Oslo.
You got your uniform from none other than Paul Gauguin,
not the great painter,
but one of his grandchildren.
A good painter too, though not as famous as his grandfather.