Nils Hjelmtveit (21 July 1892–30 October 1985) was a Norwegian educator and politician for the Labour Party. He was mayor of

Stokken Stokken is a List of former municipalities of Norway, former municipality in the old Aust-Agder Counties of Norway, county in Norway. The municipality existed from 1919 until 1962 when it was merged into the newly created Moland municipality. T ...

, MP from 1925 to 1930, Minister of Education and Church Affairs from 1935 to 1945 and County Governor of Aust-Agder from 1945 to 1961.

Early career

He was born at Hopland in Alversund municipality as a son of farmer Nils Hjelmtveit, Sr. (1861–1911) and his wife Ingebjørg Herland (1865–1893). He graduated from Stord Teacher's College in 1913, and was hired as a teacher in Eydehamn in the same year. He was promoted to headmaster in 1918. In December 1918, he married Karen Adelma Andersen (1894–1991).

National politics

From 1919 to 1920 he also published the temperance weekly magazine ''Egden''. Hjelmtveit was a member of

municipal council A municipal council is the legislative body of a municipality or local government area. Depending on the location and classification of the municipality it may be known as a city council, town council, town board, community council, borough cou ...

from 1919 to 1937, and served as mayor from 1923 to 1928 and 1932 to 1935. He also chaired the school board from 1921 to 1922. He was elected to the

Parliament of Norway The Storting ( ; ) is the supreme legislature of Norway, established in 1814 by the Constitution of Norway. It is located in Oslo. The unicameral parliament has 169 members and is elected every four years based on party-list proportional represe ...

from

Aust-Agder Aust-Agder (, ) was a county (''fylke'') in Norway from 1 January 1919 to 31 December 2019, after it was merged with Vest-Agder to form Agder county. In 2002, there were 102,945 inhabitants, which was 2.2% of Norway's population. Its area was . ...

1924 Events January * January 12 – Gopinath Saha shoots Ernest Day, whom he has mistaken for Sir Charles Tegart, the police commissioner of Calcutta, and is arrested soon after. * January 20–January 30, 30 – Kuomintang in Ch ...

and

1927 Events January * January 1 – The British Broadcasting ''Company'' becomes the BBC, British Broadcasting ''Corporation'', when its Royal Charter of incorporation takes effect. John Reith, 1st Baron Reith, John Reith becomes the first ...

, serving two terms. In 1935, when

Nygaardsvold's Cabinet __NOTOC__ Nygaardsvold's Cabinet (later becoming the Norwegian government-in-exile) was appointed on 20 March 1935, the second Labour cabinet in Norway. It brought to an end the non-socialist minority governments that had dominated Norwegian p ...

assumed office, Hjelmtveit was appointed Minister of Education and Church Affairs. He reportedly had to be strongly persuaded by

Johan Nygaardsvold Johan Nygaardsvold (; 6 September 1879 – 13 March 1952) was a Norwegian politician from the Labour Party who served as the prime minister of Norway from 1935 to 1945. From June 1940 until May 1945, he oversaw the Norwegian Government-in-exile f ...

. Some of the cases that were decided during Hjelmtveit's tenure were naming of the committees that prepared the

University of Bergen The University of Bergen () is a public university, public research university in Bergen, Norway. As of 2021, the university had over 4,000 employees and 19,000 students. It was established by an act of parliament in 1946 consolidating several sci ...

Riksteatret Riksteatret (English: National Traveling Theater) is a Norwegian touring theatre. It was established by law in 1948. Its first performance was in Kirkenes in 1949, with Sigurd Christiansen's play ''En reise i natten''. The theatre plays on about ...

and the

Norwegian State Educational Loan Fund The Norwegian State Educational Loan Fund () is a government agency that allocates loans and grants to Norwegian and certain foreign students for their education. Lånekassen was established in 1947. Lånekassen is organized under the Ministry o ...

, closing of the teachers' colleges at

Hamar Hamar is a List of cities in Norway, town in Hamar Municipality in Innlandet Counties of Norway, county, Norway. Hamar is the administrative centre of Hamar Municipality. It is located in the Districts of Norway, traditional region of Hedmarken. ...

and

Notodden is a municipality in Telemark county, Norway. It is located in the traditional district of Aust-Telemark. The administrative centre of the municipality is the town of Notodden. Other population centres include the villages of Bolkesjø, G ...

, the language reform of 1938, poet's grant to

Arnulf Øverland Ole Peter Arnulf Øverland (27 April 1889 – 25 March 1968) was a Norwegian poet and artist. He is principally known for his poetry which served to inspire the Norwegian resistance movement during the German occupation of Norway during World ...

, construction of Kringkastingshuset and the signing of a Norwegian-Czechoslovak cultural cooperation treaty. From 1940 to 1945 Hjelmtveit was exiled in London together with the rest of Nygaardsvold's Cabinet, because of 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 ...

. Hjelmtveit later defended the cabinet's actions on 9 April 1940, when they fled from the invading Germans. The war memoirs ''Vekstår og vargtid'' came in 1969. While exiled he wrote the book ''Education in Norway'', published 1946. Between the war's end (

8 May 1945 Victory in Europe Day is the day celebrating the formal acceptance by the Allies of World War II of Germany's unconditional surrender of its armed forces on Tuesday, 8 May 1945; it marked the official surrender of all German military operations ...

) and Hjelmtveit's return to Norway, Alv Harald Helland and

Terje Wold Terje Wold (23 August 1899 – 6 September 1972) was a Norwegian judge and politician for the Labour Party. Terje Wold was born in Evenes Municipality. He graduated as cand.jur. in 1921. He worked as a jurist, becoming a Supreme Court Justice o ...

filled in as Minister of Education and Research. He stepped down in June 1945, when Gerhardsen's First Cabinet took over. On 1 December 1945 he became County Governor of Aust-Agder, a post he held until 1961. He headed the Norwegian delegation to found

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO ) is a List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) with the aim of promoting world peace and International secur ...

in London in 1945, and also headed the delegation for UNESCO's 1st General Conference in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

in 1946. Hjelmtveit was a temperance activist, and was a local board member of the

International Organisation of Good Templars The International Organisation of Good Templars (IOGT; founded as the Independent Order of Good Templars), whose international body is known as Movendi International, is a fraternal organization which is part of the temperance movement, promoti ...

. He was a member of the council of

Vinmonopolet Vinmonopolet (), symbolized by Ⓥ and colloquially shortened to Polet, is a government-owned alcoholic beverage retailer and the only company allowed to sell beverages containing an alcohol content higher than 4.75% in Norway. As the arm of the ...

from 1929, deputy chair from 1932 to 1935, and then chair from 1946. He was also a board chairman of the newspaper from 1929 to 1934, a board member of the Norse Federation, deputy chair of the

Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation The Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (), commonly known by its initialism NRK, is a Norwegian state-run, government-influenced radio and television public broadcasting company. The NRK broadcasts three national TV channels and thirteen nat ...

from 1946 to 1957 and chair from 1957 to 1965. In the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s he wrote local history books about

Nordhordland Nordhordland is a traditional district in the western part of Norway. The district consists of the northern portion of the old Hordaland county (now in Vestland county), north of the city of Bergen. It includes the municipalities Alver, Aus ...

. He was decorated with the

Royal Norwegian 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 ...

in 1954, and died in 1985 at

Flosta Flosta is a List of former municipalities of Norway, former municipality in the old Aust-Agder Counties of Norway, county in Norway. The municipality existed from 1902 until its dissolution in 1962. It is currently part of the municipality of Ar ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hjelmtveit, Nils 1892 births 1985 deaths People from Lindås Stord/Haugesund University College alumni Norwegian educators Norwegian temperance activists Labour Party (Norway) politicians Mayors of places in Aust-Agder Members of the Storting Government ministers of Norway Norwegian expatriates in the United Kingdom Norwegian World War II memoirists County governors of Norway Ministers of education of Norway