Resistance man and politician August Petro Theodor Olsen Rathke died on Friday evening, aged 96. He was the last surviving Kompani Linge soldier.
Resistance man and politician August Petro Theodor Olsen Rathke died on Friday evening, aged 96. He was the last surviving Kompani Linge soldier.
Rathke fell asleep peacefully with those closest to him at the Engen nursing home in Bergen on Friday night, his son, Lars Rathke, told NTB.
August Rathke was the leader of the communist youth movement in the Bergen area and editor of the NKP’s illegal Fortroppen newspaper. On 24 January 1945 he fled to Britain when he was wanted by the Gestapo. There he was enrolled in Kompani Linge at the age of 19.
– We have received with sadness the message of his passing. Now the last soldier of Kompani Linge is gone. This closes a chapter in Norwegian war history. We remember Kompani Linge and their efforts with gratitude. I offer my condolences and my thoughts go out to his loved ones, Defense Minister Bjørn Arild Gram (Sp) told NTB.
Last year he wrote Defense Forum And Bergens Tidende that Rathke was the last surviving Kompani Linge soldier. Then Erling Lorentzen and Asbjørn Fjeld had died at short intervals.
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– One was supposed to be the last
– Is sad. Mainly because we had a very strong veterans organization, Rathke told the Forsvarets Forum.
– After the war, I had a close relationship with many great personalities who were in Kompani Linge. One had to be the last. I became me. It’s sad, she told BT.
Rathke highlighted the camaraderie in Kompani Linge as unique.
After the war, Rathke joined the Communist Youth League of Norway and was later active in the Labor Party. He served various terms on the Bergen City Council and Presidency and was a member of Hordaland County Council, where he led the Labor party. Rathke was made an honorary member of the Labor Party.
Since 1975, the war veteran has been editor of Lingeavisen.
He warned against forgetting history
In an interview with Forsvarets Forum last year, Rathke stressed that it was the ideology behind WWII that scared him the most.
– WWII was an ideological war and not just a matter of old-fashioned conquest of land and power. It was about introducing a completely new way of life to the most developed part of Europe. It was an incredible revolution that took place in the cultural land of Germany and threatened the whole world, he said.
Rathke warned of what could happen if young people forget history.
– Parts of the ideology we fought against at the time are still alive. When the unbelievable happened that time 80 years ago, one can fear that something new unbelievable might happen as well. So the struggle to inform wartime and Nazism, we have to keep it alive, she said.
Rathke was awarded the King’s Medal of Merit in silver and several Norwegian and British awards. In 2015, you were awarded the Government’s Commemorative Medal for your efforts during the Second World War.
