Bjarne Dalland

Who was Bjarne Dalland?

Bjarne Dalland was a Norwegian trade unionist, politician and communist resistance member.

Dalland was born in Bergen as the son of Christoffer Dalland from Manger and Ingeborg Tvedt from Meland. He married Birgith Hansen from Bergen in 1933. They had two children. His brother Randulf Dalland was a member of the Parliament of Norway from 1945. His brother Thorvald Einar Dalland, born 1908, perished with the ship Blia while trying to escape to the United Kingdom in 1941.

From 1929 to 1930 he led the Young Communist League of Norway. He was a dock worker in Bergen, a steward of the local trade union, and a member of the central committee of the Communist Party. During the occupation of Norway by Nazi Germany, he was in charge of organizing the illegal activities of the Communist Party in Western Norway. He was arrested by the Nazis in 1940, and imprisoned for six months at the Ulven concentration camp. He was arrested for the second time on 8 September 1942, and imprisoned in the Grini concentration camp and Møllergata 19. He was sentenced to death in a trial on 27 February 1943, along with eight prisoners from Odda. In the same trial his brother Hans was sentenced to ten years imprisonment in Germany.