The Man Who Pronounced Rinnan’s Death Sentence
As the presiding judge, he pronounced the death sentence on Henry Rinnan. As a historian, he fought to preserve Trondheim’s historic wooden buildings.
Gunnar Brun Nissen 1897–1991: The Man Who Pronounced Rinnan’s Death Sentence
As the presiding judge, he pronounced the death sentence on Henry Rinnan. As a historian, he fought to preserve Trondheim’s historic wooden buildings.
At Tilfredshet Cemetery, there is an almost overgrown gravestone that few people notice. Buried here is Gunnar Brun Nissen, a name recognised by few today. Yet Brun Nissen played a central role in one of the most dramatic trials in Norwegian history.
He was born in Trondheim in 1897 and trained as a lawyer. Over the course of his long life, he pursued a career as a judge, district court judge and, later, presiding judge at the Frostating Court of Appeal. He was regarded as one of Norway’s foremost legal experts and served on several occasions as an acting Supreme Court justice.
However, one case in particular made him known far beyond Trøndelag. In 1946, Gunnar Brun Nissen presided over the trial of Henry Rinnan and the members of the Rinnan gang. The case was vast in scope. The indictments alone ran to more than a thousand pages, and the trial lasted several months.
As presiding judge, Nissen oversaw the highly emotionally charged proceedings, and on 20 September 1946 he read out the historic verdict. The words he spoke when sentencing Henry Oliver Rinnan to death became one of the best-known moments in Norwegian legal history.
Nissen was also a historian and author who wrote books and articles. As a member of the Trondheim Historical Association, he became involved in the preservation of entire historic environments during the 1970s. He campaigned to preserve the Adresseavisen building, the historic Bakklandet district and his childhood home, Svaneapoteket in Thaulowgården, even though his family had recently sold the latter for demolition. Nissen navigated this contradictory situation in a manner that earned him considerable respect and admiration.
When Gunnar Brun Nissen died in 1991 at the age of 93, he had received numerous honours and distinctions.