World War II
When Norway was invaded by Germany in April 1940, Lie immediately started organising resistance, taking charge of free radio broadcasts from various locations in the country. For two months this work kept him in constant movement around Norway, and on 7 June 1940, when King Haakon VII and the government left the country for London, he was in Vadsø, replacing a broken transmitter. At this point further broadcasts became impossible, and Lie had to make his way south, through Finland and Sweden, to Oslo. Here he became involved in the underground labour movement, mainly through printing newspapers and spreading information.
After the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, the occupying authority in Norway started cracking down harder on opposition. A strike over milk rations in September led to the arrest and execution of the two labour leaders Viggo Hansteen and Rolf Wickstrøm. This was followed by several high-profile arrests – among them Einar Gerhardsen – and Lie had to flee the country. He left his house only hours before the Germans appeared to arrest him. From Sweden he made his way to the United Kingdom, where he worked as a propaganda secretary for the exiled Norwegian labour movement in London. He made two visits to the United States to gather support and financial aid, the second time as a labour attaché with diplomatic status. While Haakon was in exile, his brother Per, who was also a labour activist, was arrested in Norway in 1942. He was imprisoned and eventually sent to Dachau, where he died from typhoid fever in March 1945.
Read more about this topic: Haakon Lie
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