Henning Bremer Bødtker (14 August 1891 – 19 November 1975) was a Norwegian jurist and civil servant. He was the Attorney General of Norway from 1945 to 1962.

Personal life

He was born in

Svelvik is a List of towns and cities in Norway, town in Drammen Municipality in Buskerud county, Norway. The town is located along the west shore of the Drammensfjorden, about to the southeast of the Drammen (town), town of Drammen and about north ...

as a son of ship captain Jacob Bødtker (1847–1923) and Hilda Tofte (1853–1943). He is a second cousin of professor Adam Trampe Bødtker. In 1922 he married Swedish citizen Dagmar von Sydow. Their daughter who was also named Dagmar married landowner and politician Carl Oscar Collett.

Career

He finished his secondary education in 1909 and graduated from the Royal Frederick University with the cand.jur. degree in 1913. He was a law clerk and junior solicitor from 1914 to 1918, and also chaired the

Norwegian Students' Society Norwegian Students' Society () is Norway's oldest student society. The Norwegian Students' Society was established during 1813 in Oslo, Norway. Two years after the Royal Frederick University (today named the University of Oslo) was founded, 18 of ...

in 1916. From 1919 he was a practising lawyer in Oslo. He worked as a secretary for the

Norwegian Bar Association The Norwegian Bar Association () is an association of Norwegian lawyers. It was established in 1908 as , and assumed its current name from 1965. As of 2008 the association had about 7,000 members. Among its publications are the journals '' Norsk ...

from 1929 to 1937, also editing ''Norsk Sakførerblad'' for the last six years. He became a board member in the Norwegian Bar Association in 1938 and chaired the organization from 1940 to 1947. During the

occupation of Norway by Nazi Germany The occupation of Norway by Nazi Germany during the Second World War began on 9 April 1940 after Operation Weserübung. Conventional armed resistance to the German invasion ended on 10 June 1940, and Nazi Germany controlled Norway until th ...

he was 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 ...

from 12 June 1941, then in

Grini concentration camp Grini prison camp (, ) was a Nazi concentration camp in Bærum, Norway, which operated between 1941 and May 1945. Ila Detention and Security Prison is now located here. History Grini was originally built as a women's prison, near an old croft ...

from 12 September 1941 to 4 September 1942. He had endeavored to keep the

from being usurped by the Nazis. His organization was one of forty-three to protest nazification attempts on 15 May 1941, in a letter addressed directly to

Reichskommissar (, rendered as "Commissioner of the Empire", "Reich Commissioner" or "Imperial Commissioner"), in German history, was an official governatorial title used for various public offices during the period of the German Empire and Nazi Germany. Ger ...

Josef Terboven Josef Antonius Heinrich Terboven (23 May 1898 – 8 May 1945) was a German Nazi Party official and politician who was the long-serving ''Gauleiter'' of Gau Essen and the '' Reichskommissar'' for Norway during the German occupation. Terboven wa ...

. This protest of the 43 was met with harsh reactions; already on 12 June 1941 arrest orders were issued on Bødtker and fellow signatory Erling Steen. On 18 June six more protesters were arrested.

Post-war career

After the war he served as the Attorney General of Norway from 1945 to 1962. He chaired the committees that oversaw the transition to peacetime of

Nortraship The Norwegian Shipping and Trade Mission (Nortraship) was established in London in April 1940 to administer the Norwegian merchant fleet outside German-controlled areas. Nortraship operated some 1,000 vessels and was the largest shipping compan ...

between 1945 and 1946, and then the Norwegian whaling fleet between 1946 and 1947. He was also the auditor of the

Norwegian Nobel Committee The Norwegian Nobel Committee () selects the recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize each year on behalf of Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel's estate, based on instructions of Nobel's will. Five members are appointed by the Norwegian Parliament. ...

from 1946 (auditing the year 1945) to 1972. He chaired Fellesbanken from 1945 to 1964 and

Foreningen Norden Foreningen Norden (Norwegian and Danish), Föreningen Norden (Swedish), Norræna félagið (Icelandic), Norrøna Felagið (Faroese), Peqatigiiffik Nunat Avannarliit (Greenlandic) and Pohjola-Norden (Finnish), ''The Norden Associations'', sometimes ...

in Norway from 1950 to 1956, was a board member of the companies Norsk Kulelager and Norsk Trelleborg Gummi. He received the King's Medal of Merit in gold and was decorated as a Commander of the

Order of St. Olav The Royal Norwegian Order of Saint Olav (; or ''Sanct Olafs Orden'', the old Norwegian name) is a Norwegian order of chivalry instituted by King Oscar I on 21 August 1847. It is named after King Olav II, known to posterity as St. Olav. Just be ...

(1955), the

Order of the Dannebrog The Order of the Dannebrog () is a Denmark, Danish order of chivalry instituted in 1671 by Christian V of Denmark, Christian V. Until 1808, membership in the Order was limited to fifty members of noble or royal rank, who formed a single cla ...

, the

Order of the White Rose of Finland The Order of the White Rose of Finland (; ) is one of three official orders in Finland, along with the Order of the Cross of Liberty, and the Order of the Lion of Finland. The President of Finland is the Grand Master of all three orders. The ...

and the

Order of the Polar Star The Royal Order of the Polar Star (Swedish language, Swedish: ''Kungliga Nordstjärneorden''), sometimes translated as the Royal Order of the North Star, is a Swedish order of chivalry created by Frederick I of Sweden, King Frederick I on 23 F ...

. He died in 1975 and was buried at

Ris RIS may refer to: * Radio Information Service, a reading service for the blind in Pennsylvania, US * Radiological information system, for the electronic management of information related to medical imaging * Radiologically isolated syndrome, sugg ...

References

D– {{DEFAULTSORT:Boedtker, Henning 1891 births 1975 deaths People from Svelvik University of Oslo alumni 20th-century Norwegian lawyers Norwegian civil servants Grini concentration camp survivors Commanders of the Order of the Dannebrog Commanders of the Order of the Polar Star Recipients of the King's Medal of Merit in gold