Bold About Norwegian Dual Agents – Book Review: Eda Espeland: «XU Agents» – VG

In her new book, Edda Espeland delves into an important part of the history of the occupation, while at the same time she recounts her father’s special war efforts as an intelligence agent and double agent.

Erling Espeland was a young journalist and dual role in the newspaper editor’s office in Gjøvik; Took new news from London, mapped out the internal conditions of the NS and the Germans, the Gestapo and the planned arrests.

He sent all the information by train to the Secret Intelligence Service XU in Oslo.

Through this book, the experienced journalist Edda Espeland has risen in the history of war with great dedication in the fields in which professionals are primarily active.

This is done boldly, because such work will be explored by many lovers and war enthusiasts.

Many topics in the book XU Agents. Hop researcher, journalist, magician and student. Silence for 50 years testifies to the journalist’s vision and entrance: Espeland sees people in a big cloth.

XU is Norway’s largest and most important intelligence agency with about 1,500 agents. Most are under the age of 30, and many are science students. They are all involved in the struggle to help restore democracy in Nazi-occupied Norway.

XU is an intelligence agency with a large female staff, and at the center of XU’s management are two women: Astrid Logan (hop researcher) and Anne-Sophie Østvedt (science student), the book’s two main characters. .

Espeland simply and directly tells the story of the company’s origins and key players in XU, from founder and founder of the company Arvid Storeswein to Øivind Strømnæs, the third main character (magician) in the book.

XU was formally under the command of the Armed Forces in London, an annexation of Army Office 2 in Stockholm. Espeland depicts dramatic events and controversial issues within the organization, differences between the way civilians think and military leadership, whether leadership should be in occupied Norway or in Stockholm.

The fourth main character in the book is Espeland’s father (journalist), one of the 1500 XU agents.

Earling Espeland was a young journalist at the Nazi-friendly newspaper Vestapland. He took an active part in the resistance work, but did not expect that he would work for the XU until the occupation was over. Erling Espeland joined the National Assembly to seek more information, thus opposing the opposition from within.

Overall, the stories coming from the Gjøvik area mean new and exciting.

The well-written journal book has no footnotes and is in a sense source controlled. After Anne-Sophie and Øistein Strømnæs and Edvard K. Barth, she has received material, documents and correspondence from many XU families. From his sister Vera Espeland and brother-in-law Egil Ertresvåg, Edda Espeland took several interviews with her father, Anne-Sofie Strømnes, Astrid Løken and Gunnar F. Kværk.

So here, too, a family story is completed – in a large XU framework.

The portraits of Anne-Sofie Østvedt, Astrid Løken and Øistein Strømæs are warm and admirable, with many excellent observations. Strømnes is a hero of Espeland – concerned with security, decent, and contributed to the XU being regarded as one of the best intelligence services in the Allies.

Eda Espeland believes that XU has come in the shadow of another occupation history.

This is probably both right and wrong.

Those interested in war and occupation know about XU and, above all, some books and many reviews have been published. The story of the two women is told in Marie Jonason’s best work on women and war, among others.

Espeland describes the duty of secrecy that XU agents received as a special burden after the war: they said nothing, many struggled physically and mentally with the aftermath of intelligence operations, and some struggled with dreams.

According to the daughter, it was soon accepted after the war that Earling Espeland was not an NS man because he worked with illegal newspapers and was involved in the Civil War. Espeland claims that the XU people lost the post-war period, and joins in the book with the demand that the XU people deserve respect, pride and adornment.

Espeland’s works show that XU’s story deserves to be told again, because it’s a fascinating story. One can only hope that historians will follow.

Reviewed by: Cure Healthiness