Norway

Willy Brandt continues his fight against National Socialism in Oslo after April 1933. He manages very quickly to learn the language. This is for him as a journalist a matter of vital importance, since he has to earn his living in Norway through reporting.
In order to carry out the orders of the underground SAP to establish a support base, he contacts the leadership of the Norwegian Workers' Party (the (DNA) and joins the Norwegian Workers' Youth Organization (the AUF) He organizes a secret courier service to the Party leadership in Berlin; collects funds in Norway to support the resistance in Germany; and authors numerous newspaper articles and books in which he enlightens the Norwegian public about the real character of the National Socialist regime in his homeland.

Willy Brandt in Norway © Bundesbildstelle

Brandt's political activities in his Norwegian exile are facilitated at first by the ideological similarity between the SAP and the DNA. Both parties collaborate within the workers' coalition of leftist-socialist parties but outside of the Comintern and the Socialist Workers International. Rejecting all the various totalitarian dictatorships that rule in Europe during those years (in Germany, Italy, Spain, and the Soviet Union), the DNA reaches a political turning point in the mid-1930s. 

In 1939, the Party strikes the Marxist ideology from its programme. The new orientation of the DNA influences Willy Brandt's political thought and actions. He vainly hopes that the splinter party SAP might become the center of a crystallized German workers' movement.
Willy Brandt's return to Social Democracy receives its first impetus from these developments.

In the course of his exile, Brandt's ties to Norway are strengthened. He becomes involved with a seafarers' trade union and joins the Oslo Workers' Association, with its rich traditions. He thereby becomes a full member of the DNA.

Street szene in Oslo during the 1930s ©Willy-Brandt-Archiv

At the time Norway has no statutory entitlement to asylum. Brandt is therefore forced to rely on the tolerance of the Norwegian alien police. In order to legalize his stay in the country, he matriculates at the Royal Fredericks University in Oslo and passes a preliminary examination in philosophy.
As a political journalist, Brandt authors numerous articles. He writes for the Swedish, Swiss, and Dutch press. One of this best-known books of these years is entitled Why Did Hitler Win in Germany?