Jens Galaaen was a Norwegian

Norway

Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...

 newspaper editor and politician for the Labour

Norwegian Labour Party

The Labour Party is a social-democratic political party in Norway. It is the senior partner in the current Norwegian government as part of the Red-Green Coalition, and its leader, Jens Stoltenberg, is the current Prime Minister of Norway....

 and Communist

Communist Party of Norway

The Communist Party of Norway is a political party in Norway without parliamentary representation. It was formed in 1923, following a split in the Norwegian Labour Party. The party played an important role in the resistance to German occupation during the Second World War, and experienced a brief...

 parties.

He was born in Røros

Røros

is a town and municipality in Sør-Trøndelag county, Norway. It is part of the Gauldalen region. The administrative centre of the municipality is the town of Røros. Other villages include Brekken, Glåmos, Feragen, Galåa, and Hitterdalen....

 as a son of farmers. He contributed to the local Labour newspaper Arbeidets Rett

Arbeidets Rett

Arbeidets Rett is a local newspaper published in Røros, Norway. It was first published as Mauren on 16 January 1907, but has been published under the current name since 4 January 1912. The newspaper is owned by A-Pressen, and had a circulation of 8441 in 2007....

from a young age, and edited the newspaper from 1919 to 1923. He was also imprisoned from 1918 to 1919 for being a conscientious objector

Conscientious objector

A conscientious objector is an "individual who has claimed the right to refuse to perform military service" on the grounds of freedom of thought, conscience, and/or religion....

.

In 1923 he broke away from the Labour Party, joining the Communist Party. He was a journalist in Buskerud-Arbeideren

Buskerud-Arbeideren

Buskerud-Arbeideren was a Norwegian newspaper, published in Buskerud county.Buskerud-Arbeideren was started on 5 December 1923 as the Communist Party organ in the county. It was published daily. However, the party struggled economically and the newspaper went defunct after its last issue on 13...

from 1924 to 1925, edited Møre Arbeiderblad

Møre Arbeiderblad

Møre Arbeiderblad was a Norwegian newspaper, published in Ålesund in Møre og Romsdal county.Møre Arbeiderblad was started on 13 September 1923 as a newspaper with an unofficial affiliation with the Labour Party. Before the affiliation was made formal, the Communist Party broke away from Labour and...

from 1925 to 1929 and Arbeidet

Arbeidet

Arbeidet was a Norwegian newspaper, published in Bergen in Hordaland county.Arbeidet was started in Bergen as a socialist newspaper on 6 December 1893, by a grouping called . It was the first socialist daily newspaper in Norway...

from 1929. In 1932 he was again imprisoned, this time for six months.

He defended the Moscow processes in Klassekampen

Klassekampen (1909–1940)

Klassekampen was a Norwegian newspaper. It was established in 1909 as an organ for the youth movement of the Norwegian Labour Party, Norges socialdemokratiske ungdomsforbund. Its editor-in-chief from 1911 to 1921 was Eugène Olaussen.At the Labour-Communist party split in 1923, the newspaper was...

in 1937. In 1938 he edited the book Norske frivillige i Spania. En dokumentasjon om antifascistiske frontkjempere i Spania, about Norwegian volunteers in the Spanish Civil War. Adam Egede-Nissen

Adam Egede-Nissen

Adam Egede-Nissen , Norwegian Communist politician. Born in Levanger and he started his political involvement in the Liberal Party of Norway and was elected to the Storting in 1900. In 1905 he broke with the Liberal Party and joined the Norwegian Labour Party and became one of its leaders...

, Lise Lindbæk

Lise Lindbæk

Lise Lindbæk was a Norwegian freelance journalist and foreign correspondent, and writer of several books. She is commonly regarded as Norway's first female war correspondent.-Personal life:...

 and Nordahl Grieg also contributed.

During the Second World War he was involved in the calamities around Peder Furubotn

Peder Furubotn

Peder Furubotn was a Norwegian cabinetmaker, politician for the Communist Party and resistance member during World War II.-Early and personal life:...

. In 1941 he was dispatched by the central committee of the Communist Party to relieve Furubotn of his position as party secretary in Western Norway. This did not happen; instead the Western Norway party branch excluded Galaaen from the party.