Kai Knudsen

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Norwegian judge and politician

title: "Kai Knudsen" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["1903-births", "1977-deaths", "people-from-vardø-municipality", "labour-party-(norway)-politicians", "mayors-of-places-in-telemark", "deputy-members-of-the-storting", "norwegian-state-secretaries", "norwegian-judges", "20th-century-norwegian-lawyers", "ministers-of-justice-of-norway", "ministers-of-defence-of-norway"] description: "Norwegian judge and politician" topic_path: "law" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kai_Knudsen" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Norwegian judge and politician ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox officeholder"]

Field	Value
office	Minister of Defence
term_start	15 June 1954
term_end	22 January 1955
primeminister	Oscar Torp
predecessor	Nils Langhelle
successor	Nils Handal
office2	Minister of Justice
term_start2	20 December 1952
term_end2	15 June 1954
primeminister2	Oscar Torp
predecessor2	O. C. Gundersen
successor2	Gustav Sjaastad
birth_name	Kai Birger Knudsen
birth_date
birth_place	Vardø, Finnmark, Sweden-Norway
death_date
spouse	Lilli Margrethe Wergeland (m. 1943)
party	Labour
::

He was born in Vardø as a son of kemner Kai Angell Knudsen (1869–1944) and Julie Huse (1873–1952). He finished his secondary education in 1922, and graduated with the cand.jur. degree in 1926. He worked as an auditor in Haugesund 1926-1927, then deputy judge for the Heddal District Court from 1928-1930, and junior solicitor in Notodden Municipality 1930-1935. After the war he was acting district stipendiary magistrate (sorenskriver) of Tinn and Heddal District Court from 1945 to 1946, and also mayor of Notodden Municipality during the same period. As an elected politician he served in the position of deputy representative to the Parliament of Norway from the Market towns of Telemark and Aust-Agder counties during the term 1945–1949. He then worked in the Office of the State Conciliator of Norway from 1946 to 1948.

From 1948, he worked as a Secretary for the Prime Minister (from 1956 known as "State Secretary in the Office of the Prime Minister"). During Torp's Cabinet Knudsen became acting Minister of Justice and the Police from 18 October 1952 to 20 December 1952, then on a permanent basis until 15 June 1954. His successor Gustav Sjaastad studied law in the same period as Knudsen, from 1922 to 1926. Knudsen served as Minister of Defence until the cabinet change in 1955. In the new Gerhardsen's Third Cabinet Knudsen was appointed Secretary to the Prime Minister again, but left in late 1955.

Knudsen was then district stipendiary magistrate in Indre Follo District Court from 1955 to 1973. He chaired the board of the Norwegian Directorate of Labour from 1950 to 1975 as well as the National Wages Board from 1955 to 1968.

In 1943, he married Lilli Margrethe Wergeland, a sister of Harald Wergeland. He died in March 1977.

{{stortingetbio. KAKN
"State Secretaries at the Office of the Norwegian Prime Minister". [[Government.no]].
(1985). "Storting og regjering 1945–1985". Kunnskapsforlaget.
{{stortingetbio. GUSJ
(1973). "Knudsen, Kai". Aschehoug.

::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::