Early Life and Political Career
He was born in Kristiania as a son of Gudmund Harlem, Sr. (1885–1918) and Olga Haug (1887–1942). He finished his secondary education in 1935, enrolled as a student at the University of Oslo in the same year, and graduated with the cand.med. degree in 1946. He fled the country for Sweden in 1943 because of the German occupation, and stayed there until the end of war. In the autumn of 1945 he was the leader of the Norwegian Students' Society. He was hired as a physician at Statens Attføringsinstitutt in 1946, and was promoted to chief physician in 1953.
He also became involved in politics. He was a member of the revolutionary group Mot Dag from 1934 to its disestablishment in 1936, and then joined the Norwegian Labour Party and sat on the Oslo city council from 1945 to 1947, and of the school district board from 1948 to 1955. He was also a member of the central committee of the Workers' Youth League from 1946 to 1949, and of the International Union of Socialist Youth board from 1946 to 1951. From 1949 to 1957 he was a deputy member of the Labour Party's central committee; he was deputy chairman of the Oslo branch from 1952 to 1957.
In 1938 he married Swedish citizen Inga Margareta Elisabet Brynolf (1918–2005), daughter of two lawyers. Their daughter Gro Harlem Brundtland, born 1939, became Prime Minister of Norway (1980–1981, 1986–1989, 1990–1996) and Director-General of the World Health Organization (1998–2003). A much younger daughter Hanne Harlem, born 1964, has been Minister of Justice (2000–2001).
Read more about this topic: Gudmund Harlem
Famous quotes containing the words early, life, political and/or career:
“In the course of twenty crowded years one parts with many illusions. I did not wish to lose the early ones. Some memories are realities, and are better than anything that can ever happen to one again.”
—Willa Cather (1873–1947)
“We realize that we are laggards from the past century, still living in what Marx kindly calls ‘the idiocy of rural life,’ and we know that our rural life is like that of the past, not like that of much of the present.”
—For the State of Vermont, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“We in the South were ready for reconciliation, to be accepted as equals, to rejoin the mainstream of American political life. This yearning for what might be called political redemption was a significant factor in my successful campaign.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)
“What exacerbates the strain in the working class is the absence of money to pay for services they need, economic insecurity, poor daycare, and lack of dignity and boredom in each partner’s job. What exacerbates it in upper-middle class is the instability of paid help and the enormous demands of the career system in which both partners become willing believers. But the tug between traditional and egalitarian models of marriage runs from top to bottom of the class ladder.”
—Arlie Hochschild (20th century)