The last Linge soldier has passed away – August Rathke (96) has died – news Vestland

Rathke fell asleep quietly with those closest to him at Engen nursing home in Bergen on Friday evening, his son, Lars Rathke, told NTB. August Rathke was the leader of the communist youth movement in the Bergen area and editor of the NKP’s illegal newspaper Fortroppen. On 24 January 1945 he fled to Great Britain when he was wanted by the Gestapo. There he was enrolled in Kompani Linge as a 19-year-old. Last year Forsvarets Forum and Bergens Tidende wrote that Rathke was the last surviving Kompani Linge soldier. Then Erling Lorentzen and Asbjørn Fjeld had passed away at short intervals. – One had to be the last – It’s sad. Especially because we had a very strong veterans’ organisation, Rathke told Forsvarets Forum. – After the war, I had a close relationship with many great personalities who were in Kompani Linge. One had to be the last. It became me. It is sad, he told BT. Rathke highlighted the camaraderie in Kompani Linge as unique. After the war, Rathke joined Norway’s Communist Youth League and was later active in the Labor Party. He served several periods on Bergen city council and chairmanship and was a member of Hordaland county council, where he led the Labor group. Rathke was appointed an honorary member of the Labor Party. From 1975, the war veteran was editor of Lingeavisen. Warned against forgetting history In the interview with Forsvarets Forum last year, Rathke emphasized that it was the ideology behind the Second World War that scared him the most. – The Second World War was an ideological war and not just a matter of old-fashioned conquest of land and power. It was a question of introducing a completely new way of life in the most developed part of Europe. It was an incredible revolution that took place in the cultural land of Germany and that threatened the whole world, he said. Rathke warned of what could happen if the youth forget history. – Parts of the ideology that we fought against at the time are still alive. When the incredible happened that time 80 years ago, one can be afraid that something new incredible can also happen. So the fight to inform about the wartime and Nazism, we have to keep it alive, he said. Rathke was awarded the King’s Medal of Merit in silver and several Norwegian and British awards. In 2015, he received the government’s memorial medal for efforts during the Second World War.



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