Anne-Sofie Østvedt (later married Strømnæs) (2 January 1920 – 16 November 2009) was one of the leaders of the Norwegian intelligence organisation XU. She started her resistance work by publishing

underground newspaper The terms underground press or clandestine press refer to periodicals and publications that are produced without official approval, illegally or against the wishes of a dominant (governmental, religious, or institutional) group. In specific rece ...

s, and in December 1941 XU recruited her. The

Gestapo The (, ), Syllabic abbreviation, 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 F ...

began hunting her in the autumn of 1942, and she had to live undercover for the rest of the war. Despite her young age, she was vital to the organisation and was second in command, but her identity was a strict secret and almost none within the XU knew her. Since one of her cover names was "Aslak" - a male name in Norway - it was a huge surprise for many to meet her after the war was over. After the end of the war she received a scholarship and from the summer of 1945 she studied chemistry at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...

, graduated with a master's degree and then returned to Norway in 1951. Studying with her in California was the leader of XU,

Øistein Strømnæs Øistein Strømnæs (28 June 1914 – 21 July 1980) was the head of XU, the main Norwegian intelligence organization from 1943 to 1945. Strømnæs was born in Sarpsborg in Østfold county, Norway. He studied biology at the University of Oslo ...

, whom she married.

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