Bumps against the current

In January, historian and teacher Randi Aas (61) came out with the book "Between Fronts". The book is about Johanne Reutz, (1896-1989), a controversial lady in the history of the Norwegian labor movement.

- The book is the first thorough description of Johanne Reutz's work and role in the Norwegian labor movement. When did your interest in Reutz start?

- It started many years ago when I read her autobiography «For equality and peace». Later I heard that her papers left behind were at Kornhaug Norwegian Peace Center, in Follebu in Gausdal. For two years, between 1994 and 96, I worked on this drug. It was very interesting. I myself tried to get in touch with her in the late 80's. By then, however, she had suffered a stroke and lost the use of speech. I arrived too late, says Randi Aas.

Craft Family

Johanne Reutz grew up in Bergen. His father, Adam Munthe-Reutz, was the captain of the ship. His mother, Ragnhild Jørgensen, was a craftsman and ran coffeehouses and cafés for many years.

When Johanne was 10 years old, her father lost his job, which hit the family hard financially. Johanne attended teacher school, but did not like it. In 1920 she traveled to England and was a time at Woodbroke, a college run by nurseries. Between 1921 and 1925, she worked in Statistics Norway with her three-person opinion, head of the Eilif Gjerdmoe office. They married in 1940, but did not have children together. In 1925, Johanne Reutz was employed by LO's statistical office, 29 years old. Here she worked, among other things, to write cyclical overviews to the unions and to the labor papers to substantiate the workers' wage demands. The office was characterized by a rough bodywork culture, far from her own environment. "They were never happy, just annoyed," she wrote in a flashback in 1983 about her time in the office.

- Even then, "ruler techniques" were used against women?

- Yes, and I'll give you an example. Johanne was invited to Fredrikstad together with a male parliamentary representative to present the Labor Party's crisis plan. When she started talking, the man demonstratively left the room. She herself thought that the explanation had to be that she had talked about a subject that was usually reserved for men, and that men thought they had the exclusive right to. Even though it was Reutz who had worked on formulating the crisis requirements, the member of the Storting took it for granted that he was the one to talk about that topic, says Randi Aas.

In 1927, Johanne Reutz was granted leave to take an official degree in social economics. In the autumn of 1928, she was back at LO's statistical office, now as cand.oecon. It gave professional weight and much needed self-confidence. Next to Aase Lionæs, she was the only woman in the LO / DNA apparatus with higher economic education.

woman Organization

- One of Johanne Reutz's king thoughts was that the women, both in LO and in the Labor Party, needed their own organizations. It would make it easier for working women to speak up and advance their demands, she said. But also because women and men had different requirements. She wanted independence in relation to the party, and believed that the working women in some areas had more to gain from cooperating with bourgeois women's associations such as the Norwegian Housewives' Association and the Sanitary Women. Her goal was a socialist women's union that they had in Sweden and Denmark, says Randi Aas.

These were thoughts that created conflict in relation to the party apparatus, also in relation to Åse Lionæs, who thought it was unthinkable to cooperate with the bourgeois women's organizations as long as the party did not have such cooperation. Johanne Reutz was labeled a woman businesswoman, a powerful political slander at the time.

In 1923, the Labor Party's women's union was dissolved, in line with the Comintern's demand that independent women's organizations should not exist. Instead, the Labor Party's Women's Secretariat was established. Of the six members of the secretariat, two came from the party's central board. These two were always men. The women's secretariat, in turn, elected two members to the party's central board. This is how Johanne Reutz entered the party's inner circles.

- At the national women's conference in November 1939, Reutz was elected head of the Labor Party's women's secretariat with 115 votes. The opposing candidate Aase Lionæs, who was nominated by the nomination committee, received only eight votes. A fact that many, including Pax Leksikon, have overlooked, says Randi Aas.

Women's organization Another of Johanne Reutz's struggles was the establishment of LO's women's committee. When the proposal was first raised in 1936, it was rejected by the cooperation committee between LO and DNA who were afraid it could split LO into a women's and a men's organization. The women's agitation was a task for AOF, said the secretary of LO, Lars Evensen and added: "In the national organization, everyone is treated equally."

At the Labor Party's national women's conference in 1939, Reutz proposed re-establishing LO's women's committee. A unanimous conference decided to forward the matter to the secretariat so that they could present it to the upcoming LO congress. Due to the outbreak of war, nothing happened. In the autumn of 1940, however, a new initiative was taken, this time from female federal board members who asked to be approved as the National Organization's Women's Committee. The proposal was adopted by the secretariat of LO.

- The Women's Committee continued its work during the war, almost in illegality. Among other things, the plans were made for Arbeiderkvinnenes FagligeHusmorforbund .. The intention was that these plans should be presented to Kvinnesekratariatet after the war. After the war, however, the organization, at the initiative of Konrad Nordahl, was declared illegal. The archive was retrieved from Reutz's home in Asker. When the women's committee in LO celebrated its 25th anniversary in 1965, a festival publication was published. Johanne Reutz's efforts and work in the Women's Committee were not mentioned in one word, says Randi Aas.

New collection attempt

A new gathering attempt for Norwegian women's organizations saw the light of day in August 1945. This time, the Labor Party's women's secretariat was included from the start. Johanne Reutz was deprived of all his duties in the party and in the trade union movement and therefore did not participate. The Labor Secretariat of the Labor Party had retained its old "centralism", which provided little elbow room for local cooperation.

Central to the secretariat was criticism of the government that was ruled by the Labor Party. This cooperation project also had a short life span. When the Cooperation Committee initiated an action to get more women into the Storting, the Women's Secretariat refused to participate. And when in March 1946 the Tribunal refused to consider a proposal for an abortion, the Labor Party's Women's Secretariat announced in protest. Another collaboration attempt had been stranded.

Reutz also took the lead in marrying women. It was not until 1936, with falling unemployment, that the Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions' National Conference decided to lift the "restrictions" on the participation of married women. But the victory was far-fetched and was met with opposition from, among others, the editor of Arbeiderbladet, Martin Tranmæl, who believed that the demand was "bourgeois women's cause." The women had to wait for the working class to take power, he thought. This was too expensive for many. The reactions were strong, not only from large parts of the press and the other political parties, but also from their own. In January 1937, the National Board of DNA decided to remove the restrictions on the participation of married women. Not for reasons of principle, but because unemployment was now far lower than in the worst crisis years. At the same time, the problems for married women at work continued. In October 1937, a saleswoman was fired from the Oslo Cooperative. With Viggo Hansteen as lawyer, the woman went to court and won in the Supreme Court. Married women were now guaranteed the right to work, at least on paper.

On collision course

- In a number of areas, professional as well as political, Johanne Reutz was in opposition to the party leadership. Do you see any common denominators here?

- The cases were many, they went over a number of years and covered a wide range. Johanne Reutz was an anti-militarist. Therefore, she was opposed to the party's new line from 1936 with increased funding for the defense. At the outbreak of war in 1940, she supported "People's Rise Against War" and called for the organization's leader Olaf Kullmann to present on 22 April 1940, asking the Norwegian people not to take part in the ongoing great power war. Reutz advocated that Norway should seek peace with Germany, according to the Danish model. Another thing that provoked the party leadership strongly was that she refused to use the Women's Secretariat for "Women's Work Aid", a war and crisis preparedness based on the Finland War. She was also opposed to the merger of the statistics office with AOF, which she saw as another way for the party leadership to cut her wings. Johanne Reutz fought with beak and claw against the fact that the Labor Party, and especially those she called the "clique", Torp, Gerhardsen and Tranmæl, strengthened their influence in LO. The labor movement should be politically independent, she thought. This was a matter of principle for her and is probably the common denominator in her opposition to the party leadership, says Aas.

Striped?

- There were many rumors about Johanne Reutz during the war, both as a professional and as a woman. Who spread these rumors and what did they consist of?

She must have been too "willing", she must have given lectures at the LO school with NS leaders, given lectures in Trondheim and attended a festive meeting with Minister Lippestad.

- After the war, Reutz lost his positions in the Labor Party and LO. How did Reutz defend himself against these accusations?

- In LO's own investigation committee, it was stated: "one expresses its strongest criticism of Mrs. Johanne Reutz's attitude under the Nazi leadership in the National Organization, and finds that after this she should not be taken in her previous position in the National Organization". However, the case was not finished. It now began to become a burden for the party apparatus, which among other things met with strong criticism from the minority in the investigation committee and from the NKP. Now it was a matter of suddenly preventing the Reutz case from being presented to the LO Congress as part of the investigation report. Instead, they would try to reach a compromise with Reutz. It read as follows: "It is confirmed that when Mrs Johanne Reutz did not take up her position as head of LO's statistical office after the liberation, this happened at her own request. It is further confirmed that there is nothing to complain about her national and political attitude during the war. "

- But the case did not end with what seemed to be a complete victory for Johanne Reutz. In the last hour, Martin Tranmæl intervened and demanded the last part of the compromise ironed out! The end of the visa was that the whole case was dropped and taken out of the investigation report, says Randi Aas.

- For her own part, Reutz defended herself by saying that she had only done her work in LO as before. "If working with pay issues and food issues is to be willing to serve, well then I was willing to serve," she said. "But not to the Nazis, but to the members. There was no other body that took care of the living conditions of the workers at that time. Someone had to do it, and that entailed a necessary cooperation with the occupying forces. "

The winner

- What has made the biggest impression on you about the person Johanne Reutz?

- I think what has made the most impression on me is her ability to stand up to power and her ability to hold on to her convictions. Today's apathy and one-sided focus on material wealth and positions of power need a corrective by showing such personalities as Johanne Reutz. On the political front, Johanne Reutz faced many defeats. But in a historical light, I see her as a winner. If I have stated this in the book, I am satisfied, Randi Aas concludes.