Anders Lange

Anders Lange (September 5, 1904 - October 18, 1974) was the founder of what later became the Norwegian Progress party. He was a charismatic right-wing public speaker who objected to high taxes, state-regulations and public bureaucracy.

ALP and FrP

In 1973 he founded his own party with the long but telling name Anders Lange's Party for strong reductions of taxes, charges and government intervention. (known simply as the 'Anders Lange Party'). The protest movement was an immediate success, capturing 5% of the votes in the parliament election the same year. By that Lange secured himself a seat in the Norwegian parliament where he served until he died of heart failure the next year. After his death ALP was reformed by Carl I. Hagen, and evolved into the more moderate right-wing party Norwegian Progress Party (FrP), which today is one of Norway's biggest political parties.

Fedrelandslaget

From the period 1930 - 1938 Lange was the secretary of the nationalist organization Fedrelandslaget. While it had earlier been a centre-right political alliance spearheaded by Fridtjof Nansen, under Lange's leadership it became known for organizing counter-rallies to working class demonstrations and also nominated Hitler and Mussolini for the Nobel Peace Price. During Nazi occupation of Norway it was disbanded by the Germans.

Apartheid

Anders Lange was a controversial person that, on several occasions, supported the apartheid in South Africa. He wrote several articles about this in his own newspaper "Hundeavisen" (later renamed "Anders Langes Avis"). In the same paper, on April the 16th, 1963 he called those who where against apartheid "traitors of the white race".Dubious|date=March 2008 His political partner Erik Gjems Onstad was also a warm defender of apartheid through the 1960s, 70's and 80's.

References

[http://www.aftenposten.no/nyheter/iriks/politikk/article487761.ece?service=print]

[http://lotus.uib.no/norgeslexi/paxlex/paxleksikon.html]

Article partially based on the no.wikipedia.org articles about Anders Lange and Fedrelandslaget.