Ottar Lie (5 March 1896 – 1 March 1943) was a Norwegian communist and resistance member. Stolperstein für Ottar Lie (Oslo-Gamle)

He was born in

Løten Løten is a municipality in Innlandet county, Norway. It is located in the traditional district of Hedemarken. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Løten. Other villages in the municipality include Ådalsbruk, He ...

, to a father from Vang and a mother from Ås. He was married twice, last to Inga, née Knutsen. He had two children, and lived in Oslo. He was originally a member of the

Norwegian Labour Party The Labour Party ( nb, Arbeiderpartiet; nn, Arbeidarpartiet; A/Ap; se, Bargiidbellodat), formerly The Norwegian Labour Party ( no, Det norske Arbeiderparti, DNA), is a social-democratic political party in Norway. It is positioned on the centr ...

. In 1921 he was hired as county secretary in

Hedmark Hedmark () was a county in Norway before 1 January 2020, bordering Trøndelag to the north, Oppland to the west, Akershus to the south, and Sweden to the east. The county administration is in Hamar. Hedmark and Oppland counties were merged i ...

. At the time he was also active in the

Young Communist League The Young Communist League (YCL) is the name used by the youth wing of various Communist parties around the world. The name YCL of XXX (name of country) originates from the precedent established by the Communist Youth International. Examples of YC ...

(until 1923 the Labour Party youth wing). In 1923, at the founding of the

Communist Party A communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the socio-economic goals of communism. The term ''communist party'' was popularized by the title of ''The Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. A ...

, Lie became Hedmark's representative in the central board. He continued as party secretary in Hedmark until 1927, then in

Oslo Oslo ( , , or ; sma, Oslove) is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a population of in 2022, while the city's greater urban area had a population of ...

for the party nationwide. Before it was stopped in 1940, Lie was also a board member of the newspaper ''

Arbeideren ''Arbeideren'' ("The Worker") was a daily newspaper published in Oslo, Norway. It was started on 2 November 1929 as the official party newspaper from the Communist Party of Norway, Communist Party. It lent its name from a Hamar-based Arbeideren ( ...

''. He was a member of the

Communist Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...

resistance movement A resistance movement is an organized effort by some portion of the civil population of a country to withstand the legally established government or an occupying power and to disrupt civil order and stability. It may seek to achieve its objective ...

, as Norway was occupied by Nazi Germany from 1940. In the now-illegal Communist Party he was one of the leading figures together with

Henry W. Kristiansen Henry Wilhelm Kristiansen (12 February 1902 – 16 January 1942) was a Norwegian newspaper editor and politician for the Communist Party. He served as party chairman from 1931 to 1934, and then as editor-in-chief of the party organ ''Arbeideren'' f ...

, Just Lippe,

Johan Strand Johansen Johan Strand Johansen (3 February 1903 in Åfjord - 12 February 1970 in Moscow) was Norwegian Minister of Labour in 1945. From 1945-1949 and later from 1954-1957 he represented the Communist Party of Norway in the Parliament of Norway. His impor ...

and

Emil Løvlien Emil Løvlien (22 September 1899 – 4 June 1973) was a Norwegian forest worker, trade unionist and politician from Løten. He represented the Norwegian Labour Party, Labour Party until the split in 1923, and the Communist Party of Norway, C ...

. He was held imprisoned in

Møllergata 19 Møllergata 19 is an address in Oslo, Norway where the city's main police station and jail was located. The address gained notoriety during the German occupation from 1940 to 1945, when the Nazi security police kept its headquarters here. This is ...

from August to September 1940. Eventually, together with Arne Gauslaa he led the party's organizational centre which had contact with communist resistance members who hid in the mountains. The centre was moved from

Steinsfjorden Steinsfjorden is a branch of the lake Tyrifjorden located in Buskerud, Norway. It has a length of about eight kilometers, stretching from the sound Kroksund at Sundvollen northwards to Åsa, in the municipalities of Ringerike and Hole. At th ...

Vikersund Vikersund is a town of 3,232 (in 2020) inhabitants in the municipality capital of Modum, in the county of Viken, Norway. Overview Vikersund is located 30 kilometers south of Hønefoss and 40 kilometers northwest of Drammen. The village is loca ...

in October 1942.Pryser, 1988: p. 375 The centre was blown after former resistance member Karsten Sølvberg had cracked during

Gestapo The (), abbreviated Gestapo (; ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one organi ...

torture, become a Gestapo agent and ratted them out. Already on 30 October 1942 the centre in Vikersund was surrounded by Gestapists. Gauslaa and another person were shot to death. Lie was arrested and tortured. He was held at Møllergata 19 from 30 October 1942, then in

Grini detention camp '', '' no, Grini fangeleir'', location=Bærum, Viken, Norway, location map=Viken#Norway, built by=Norway, original use=Constructed as a women's prison, operated by=Nazi Germany, notable inmates= List of Grini prisoners, liberated by= Harry Söderm ...

from 24 February 1943. He was transferred to

Trandum Trandum leir is a former army camp Ullensaker, Norway. The camp was shut down when the civilian airport at Gardermoen was built since most of the buildings were located directly underneath the flightpath for planes landing there. The woods near T ...

on 1 March 1943 and executed at

Trandumskogen Trandumskogen is a forest located in Ullensaker, Akershus county, Norway. It was the site of one of the first discoveries in May 1945 of Nazi Germany, German mass graves in Norway. The German executioner Oskar Hans was the officer in command of t ...

. He was buried in Oslo. His brother Ivar Lie was also a communist resistance member, who managed to flee to Sweden.Pryser, 1988: p. 483

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lie, Ottar 1896 births 1943 deaths People from Løten Hedmark politicians Labour Party (Norway) politicians Communist Party of Norway politicians Norwegian resistance members Grini concentration camp prisoners Resistance members killed by Nazi Germany Norwegian civilians killed in World War II Executed Norwegian people People executed by Germany by firing squad Norwegian torture victims Norwegian people executed by Nazi Germany