Olav Steinnes

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Olav Steinnes
Olav Martinus Steinnes.jpg
Minister of Education and Church Affairs
In office
28 January 1928 – 15 February 1928
Prime MinisterChristopher Hornsrud
Preceded byOle Bærøe
Succeeded bySigvald Hasund
Member of the Norwegian Parliament
In office
1 January 1922 – 31 December 1936
ConstituencyTelemark
Personal details
Born
Olav Martinius Knutsen Steinnes

(1886-01-09)9 January 1886
Ørsta, Møre og Romsdal, Sweden-Norway
Died26 June 1961(1961-06-26) (aged 75)
Political partyLabour
Nasjonal Samling

Olav Martinius Knutsen Steinnes (9 January 1886 – 26 June 1961) was a Norwegian educator and politician for the Labour Party and Nasjonal Samling.

He was born at Steinnes in Ørsta as a son of farmers Knut Olai Olavsen Steinnes (1856–1935) and Berte Sporstøyl (1860–1924). After some years as a laborer he attended and then Volda Teachers' College from 1907 to 1910. He worked as a teacher in Vikna from 1910 to 1912, then in Rjukan. In 1920 he was promoted to school headmaster, still in Rjukan. He remained here until 1935, when he was appointed as school director in the Dioceses of Agder and Stavanger.[1]

He was a member of the executive committee of Tinn municipal council from 1916 to 1925. He was elected to the Parliament of Norway in 1921, representing the constituency of Telemark. He was re-elected in 1924, 1927, 1930 and 1933, with his last term ending in 1936. In January 1928 he was appointed as Minister of Education and Church Affairs in Hornsrud's Cabinet. Hornsrud's Cabinet only lasted until February. While Steinnes was a Minister, his parliamentary seat was filled by Eileif Kolsrud.[1]

During the German occupation of Norway he joined the Fascist party Nasjonal Samling. He claimed to have joined the party to stay in the school director job and counteract Nazification of the school system. He probably did so only when his own position was not at stake. Other than his job, he was preoccupied with nuclear physics as a hobby. After the war, he claimed to have made several great inventions in the preceding years. In a letter to Kaare Fostervoll in the autumn of 1945, he said that his "series of inventions" would "bring honor and benefit to me and my country. They are—after my calculations—the most important discoveries ever made in history by a single man".[2]

On 1 February 1947, during the legal purge in Norway after World War II he was convicted of treason and sentenced to six months in prison and loss of his job.[1]

References[]

  1. ^ a b c "Olav Martinius Knutsen Steinnes" (in Norwegian). Norwegian Social Science Data Services (NSD). Retrieved 23 October 2010.
  2. ^ Pryser, Tore (1991). Arbeiderbevegelsen og Nasjonal Samling (in Norwegian). Oslo: Tiden. pp. 98–99. ISBN 82-10-03346-8.
Political offices
Preceded by Norwegian Minister of Church and Education
January – February 1928 		Succeeded by

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