Gunnar "Kjakan" Sønsteby - About Unity and Collective Commitment - Finn Robert Jensen

Norwegian title: Gunnar "Kjakan" Sønsteby - Om samhold og innsatsvilje

‘Words fill no backpack’

‘Faith, motivation, and will’

Hi book friends,

Another turn around the sun and I suppose this is the time where we should reflect upon the year we’ve put behind us. I find that this reflection is very well done alongside reviewing this book because, as the synopsis says: ‘This book should inspire us!’. 2024 has been an exciting year in many ways, also bookwise. I’ve discovered some authors I’m looking forward to exploring more, the house renovation is coming along nicely, and we’re expecting our first child. As His Royal Highness King Harald pointed out in his New Year’s speech, 2025 will be marking the 80th anniversary of the Norwegian liberation from the Nazi empire. I am blessed with an historical interest that I’ve carried with me for many years but not too many of my peers share this interest. Yet, in the last couple of years, there’s been made more World War 2-related movies about Norway than before and people surge to the movies to see them. The interest is there, also amongst the young, but how to keep it alive? Books are one way, movies are another, and when the world looks like it does today, shouldn’t it be easier for us to see the remnants of our history repeating around us?

How many young or middle-aged Norwegians today will know about one of our greatest heroes? Here is a short summary of the man himself. Gunnar ‘Kjakan’ Sønsteby was born and raised in Rjukan, Norway. As a young man, he completed his schooling before moving to Oslo to serve his conscription period before starting his studies. In April 1940, when the Nazis invaded Norway, he worked as an auditor assistant and was recruited for the fighting which was starting up in Norway. Sadly this fight was quickly shut down by the Nazis. However, Sønsteby soon became engaged in the resistance movement, leading him to Sweden and England for training as a SOE, Special Operation Executive, agent. Throughout the war, Sønsteby led many successful operations in the resistance movement where he had his group known as Oslogjengen. When peace finally came, he remained in the Norwegian forces before returning to work where he continued his business career to become both a successful leader and founder of several companies.

This book is about reflections upon a life well lived and how you find the motivation to do what needs to be done even when that presents you with difficult choices as reflected in the quotes at the beginning of this review. The book is full of humour even though the majority of the events the book presents are full of seriousness, but isn’t this the situation where we get to prove ourselves? When the road ahead is difficult, and we know that we have to make a difficult choice that will present consequences no matter what? How come we as a world today haven’t learned much from our history and are well on our way to repeating it in many ways? How many Norwegians would have known that it is 80 years in May since we were liberated from the Nazis if His Majesty had not mentioned it in his speech? What this book can give its readers is food for reflection on many levels.

The questions presented to Sønsteby in this book are both basic and complex. On the more, arguably, basic side we have the following:

‘How do you set a goal for yourself?’ To which the beginning of Sønsteby’s answer is thus: ‘You start as an apprentice and then you’re on your way. The goal must be something you believe in, something reasonable. There was no doubt in our hearts that we had to get our democracy back’.

On the more complex side: ‘… What about wounds and troubles?’. ‘You can process the negative instead of clinging to it. I, for example, experienced many hundred risks back then but even at those times we could separate the majority of it by thinking everything through properly. Realistically. This is also relevant when you’re facing a specially difficult decision at work’.

Whereas today’s voices, often, present to me as loud and boisterous with a lot of grandour, Sønsteby’s voice presents as sober and grounded. It’s almost like he doesn’t view his actions and sacrifices as something major in our history. He knows very well what he has done, this becomes very clear in his own reflections, but it strikes me that he views it in another way than we do today. Maybe because he was born in a different time where the values were somewhat different than what they are today and that his generation was thrown into this massive conundrum the Nazi empire inflicted upon Norway? Mass media wasn’t a thing back then, not in the way we know it today at least. The newspaper came out once or twice a day and the radio had so and so many updates during the day. It was a different time. This is something we can all agree about so how then do the experiences and voices from this not-too-distant past stretch forward and affect ourselves? We see traces of history all around us today in politics, economy, religion, and societies. Didn’t we learn anything after two world wars that almost broke the world? Aren’t we able to think further than the tip of our noses even with so many documented examples from history?

This book will both teach you some important lessons from a historical person and hopefully make you question some of the world you see around you today. Maybe it even makes you question yourself and some of your own choices. Reflection is good and as we move further into 2025 and leave 2024 in the past I hope we can aim to make the world and ourselves better in the year to come. Ask a few more questions, and try to look inside yourself if you’re able. This is difficult so we might have to take it one step at a time, or with some resemblance to Sønsteby’s own answer; breaking the situation down and thinking about things realistically.

Published: 2008

Genre: Nonfiction

Theme: World war 2, reflection, values

- The Book Reader