When the Milorg leader was taken in Storgata

Place: notodden · Exact position

Ottar Haugland (1915–2002) grew up at Rjukan, trained as an engineer in Germany and was taken on at Hydro in Notodden. There he became sector commander of a larger Milorg unit in Øvre Telemark.

In the early hours of 24 November 1943 German and Norwegian police carried out a coordinated raid against the resistance movement in Notodden. Haugland was taken in his flat in Storgata. The same night his brother Knut Haugland – the radio operator from the heavy water operation, later known from the Kon-Tiki expedition – was arrested at Kongsberg, but he managed to get away.

Ottar was tortured in Oslo. In an attempt to avoid giving others away he took a poison pill, but survived. On 10 August 1944 he was sent on to the Stutthof concentration camp in occupied Poland, together with the courier Liv Gundersen. His mother Gunnhild saved from her rations and sent parcels to the camp. Ottar Haugland survived both the camp and the death march, came home after the war and later became principal of Hydro's training centre at Brattrein.

The prisoner archive lists Storgata 58 as his home address. The book literature about him says he was taken in a flat in "Aasnesgården" – the neighbouring building Storgata 56, a large house in the Swiss chalet style with seven flats that the engineer Amund C. Aasness built in 1909–1910. The two houses lie about 35 metres apart, and both were put up by the same developer. The marker stands at the registered address.

Sources

• Ottar Haugland – Norsk digitalt fangearkiv 1940–1945 (Fanger.no) — Fangeregisteret fører opp Storgata 58, Notodden, som bostedsadresse.
• Militær motstand på Notodden – Måna Forlag — «Natt til 24. november gikk tysk og norsk politi i gang med en razzia på Notodden der rundt 40 personer ble arrestert.» Nevner avsnittssjefen Ottar Haugland og at han og Liv Gundersen ble sendt til Stutthof 10. august 1944.
• Ottar Haugland (1915–2002) – DigitaltMuseum — Oppvekst på Rjukan, ingeniørutdanning i Tyskland, ansatt ved Hydro på Notodden, avsnittssjef i Milorg i Øvre Telemark; arrestert natt til 24. november 1943 i en leilighet i Aasnesgården; senere rektor ved Hydros opplæringssenter på Brattrein.
• Storgata (Notodden) – lokalhistoriewiki.no — Storgata 56: «Stort bolighus i sveitserstil, «Aasnessgården» … Ingeniør Amund C. Aasness, som også tegnet huset, var byggherre og bodde der. Huset ble oppført i perioden 1909–1910 og har sju leiligheter.» Storgata 58: «Tegnet av og oppført for ingeniør A.C. Aasness ca. 1927.»
• Adresse: Storgata 58, 3674 Notodden – Kartverkets adresse-API — Offisielt representasjonspunkt 59.561535 N, 9.261404 Ø.