Birger Meidell: Minister of Church and Education (1940-1941) and head of the Ministry of Social Affairs (1940-1941)

Background

Birger Meidell studied in Norway, Germany and France, and took an insurance exam at the University of Göttingen in 1906.

He was employed as an actuary in the Life Insurance Company Norske Liv in 1907 and in the State Pension Fund from 1913. He was director of the Oslo Municipal Pension Fund 1917–24, and from 1923 was professor of insurance engineering at King Frederiks University, later the University of Oslo. He was a member of the Norwegian Academy of Sciences from 1923.

Nasjonal Samling & Second World War

Meidell became a member of the Nasjonal Samling in the 1930s. He was one of those whom Vidkun Quisling announced as members of an intended government in his radio speech during the German invasion on 9 April 1940. Meidell was then mentioned as Minister of Church and Education.

Immediately after Quisling's coup d'état on 9 April, Meidell laid out a broadly designed strategy for NS domination in Norwegian society. His main idea was to win the workers for NS and for National Socialism. On 25 September 1940, he was appointed "commissary minister" and head of the Ministry of Social Affairs. In November 1940, he had a law on unemployment benefits introduced, a revision of the law the Storting had adopted in 1938, but which was suspended in the spring of 1940. His strategy to establish control over the Workers' Trade Union National Organization met strong opposition in the NS-hostile part of the trade union movement.

Eventually, Meidell came into conflict with Josef Terboven's Reichskommissariat over the issue of increased wages for the workers. He was also opposed for his attempt to pursue an independent policy towards the trade unions from Quisling and the wing of NS which was eager for a takeover of all social functions by force.

Meidell resigned as commissary minister in September 1941 and then became director of Norges Brannkasse.

After the war

In 1946, Meidell was sentenced to lifelong forced labor for treason. He was pardoned three years later.

Birger Meidell was the brother of the writer and journalist Sigurd Segelcke Meidell.