Jan Dahm

At the German attack on Norway in April 1940 Jahn Dahm, who was born on 5 April 1921,^[1] was a nineteen-year-old engineering student at Bergens Tekniske Skole. He had been an eager radio amateur and a member of Bergen Radio Relé Liga for years, and at home he also had a workshop for building radios.^[2] On 25 June 1940, while he had an examination at the school, he was taken to the Gestapo office in Bergen, where he was confronted with equipment taken from his home and told he would be charged with espionage. On 28 June he was transported by bus from Bergen to Møllergaten 19 in Oslo with ten other arrestees.^[3]

The German court-martial started in Oslo on 22 August 1940. The court in Oslo consisted of the 3rd Senate of the Deutsches Reichskriegsgericht (Reich Military Tribunal) in Berlin, and the prosecutor sought the death sentence for the six defendants, according to paragraphs 2 (espionage) and 89 (treason) of the German penal code.^[4] On 28 August three of the six defendants, travelling agent Konrad Rendedal, Colonel Gabriel Lund and Doctor Odd Solem, were sentenced to death; Jan Dahm and another defendant were set free, as the charges could not be proved; and policeman Erling Staff was sentenced to five years in prison. This was the first court-martial in Norway after the German occupation, and the first death sentences in Norway since 1876. The death sentences were later reduced to five years imprisonment (Festungshaft). Jan Dahm could go back home, but had to report to the Gestapo every second week.^[2]