Per Ludvig Kohl-Larsen (1914 - 2001)

Biography

Per Ludvig Kohl-Larsen was born in Norway

Per Ludvig Kohl-Larsen has roots in the region now known as Rheinland-Pfalz, Germany.

Per Ludvig Kohl-Larsen is Notable.

Per Ludvig Kohl-Larsen was born 21 Jun 1914 in Kristiania, Norway (present-day Oslo), the son of Ludwig & Margit Therese Kohl-Larsen.^[1] His maternal grandfather, Carl Anton Larsen (1860-1924), was a Norwegian whaler & Antarctic explorer, considered the founder of the modern whaling trade in that region, who founded the Grytviken settlement on the British island of South Georgia in 1904. In 1911, while aboard one of Wilhelm Filchner’s exhibitions to the Antarctic, Per’s father, a German physician educated at the Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg, contracted appendicitis, &, rather than continue with the exhibition, disembarked at Grytviken to be treated. It was there he met Per’s mother, & they were wed in 1913, with Per born the next year.^[2] In the 1910s, Ludwig studied paleontology at Heidelberg. During World War One, they were in Micronesia, & in 1920, the family lived in the Tana Municipality, Finnmark, where his father was employed as a District physician.^[1]

Kohl-Larsen’s father joined the Nazi party in 1931, & it was with funding from the Party & the German Research Foundation that the family embarked on expeditions to the polar regions, & to East Africa, where the paleontologist went searching for evidence of prehistoric human beings. Ludwig attempted to use what he found in the expeditions to defend Nazi revisionist & racial supremacist philosophy.^[3]

Though Per Kohl-Larsen’s own beliefs are not easily discerned, as the son of a Nazi Party member, he was part of the Hitler Youth for a time, & did apply for party membership in 1934. Though not part of the military, Kohl-Larsen was sent to Tunisia in 1943 as an interpreter, & was captured with other Germans outside Tunis in August of that year, spending the rest of the war in British captivity.

It was around 1934 that Kohl-Larsen was wed to Emma Margareta Hauth, a German woman from Wiesloch, Baden, & together they had at least four children between 1935-1941, each born in present-day Tanzania, where the family was engaged in coffee cultivation for a time.^[4]

After release, with Germany in shambles & attempting to rebuild, & his father disgraced & out of work, in September 1948, Kohl-Larsen decided to try to return to Norway, sailing into Oslo aboard a boat called the “Kronprins Olav.” According to the records of the Norwegian immigration authority, then a part of the police, Kohl-Larsen claimed in his application for a residence permit that he had never been a member of the Nazi Party, & in fact told wild stories of saving Jewish lives, spying on behalf of the British, & so forth, which was likely an attempt on his part to avoid post-war suspicions given his half-German heritage. The permit was issued, & his family moved into a house in Nesodden.

Witnessing the frustration many had over the difficulty of importing cars to Norway, & the lack of any major producers within the country, Kohl-Larsen got in touch with an acquaintance of his father’s, notable German car designer & convicted Nazi Hanns Trippel, who had developed an amphibious automobile for the Nazis some years earlier, & who later created the “gullwing” door design used by Mercedes-Benz & other companies. Trippel provided the design, while Kohl-Larsen & partners, including another German engineer, Bruno Falck, were engaged in the manufacture & bureaucratic side of matters, creating the Troll Plastik & Bilindustri in Lunde, Telemark, in August 1956, where the local government provided the efforts with premises & money. The first Troll prototype was displayed to the press in November 1956, gaining the project more media attention, & the first working model was developed later that winter.

In the meantime, Kohl-Larsen had to work hard to convince the government to issue the necessary permit to allow the company to sell the cars. Without the permit, the company was not allowed to sell more than fifteen cars per year, thanks to trading deals the government had struck with Russia, & without the government’s support, the company never achieved much success. The first car was sold in May 1957.

Troll Plastik & Bilindustri's first working model, displayed at the Norsk Kjøretøyhistorisk Museum (Norwegian Vehicle History Museum)

Though they had developed plans for far more extensive production, the lack of cooperation from the government resulted in their investors withdrawing from the effort, & the company went out of business in early 1958. They never produced more than five complete vehicles, two of which eventually ended up in museums. At least one attempt to create a replica was made after the company closed, from the leftover production materials.

Per Ludvig Kohl-Larsen died in Kristiansand, Vest-Agder on 12 Apr 2001.^[5]

Sources

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1} SATØ, Folketelling 1920 for 2025 Tana herred, 1920, s. 2864. https://www.digitalarkivet.no/fs10151708921612
2. ↑ Lüdecke, Cornelia. “Kohl-Larsen, Ludwig.” ‘’Dictionary of Falklands Biography’’, 2015, https://www.falklandsbiographies.org/biographies/kohl-larsen_ludwig. Accessed 28 Nov. 2021.
3. ↑ Autoren der Wikimedia-Projekte. “Ludwig Kohl-Larsen.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., 30 Jan. 2005, https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_Kohl-Larsen. Accessed 28 Nov. 2021. ‌
4. ↑ "Free Access: Europe, Registration of Foreigners and German Persecutees, 1939-1947"
   Arolsen Archives, Digital Archive; Bad Arolsen, Germany; Lists of Persecutees 2.1.1.2
   Ancestry Sharing Link - Ancestry uk Record 61758 #8743211 (accessed 27 November 2021)
   Name: Per Kohl-Larsen; Record Type: Miscellaneous; Birth Date: 1 Jun 1913; Birth Place: Oslo; Last Residence: Wiesloch, Heidelbergerstr. 21; Reference Number: 02010102 oS; Document ID: 70516854.
5. ↑ “Per Kohl-Larsen - Dødsfall I Norge (1947) 1995-April 2001 - Digitalarkivet.” Digitalarkivet, https://www.digitalarkivet.no/view/15/pa00000000484068. Accessed 22 Nov. 2021.

• Kvamme, Paal. Drømmen Om Troll. Nesttun, Fiasko Forlag, 2019.

• Haugen, Av, et al. Bileventyret Troll -Om Bilen, Dens Pappa Og to Eiere Denne Artikkelen Er Gjengitt I Norsk Vegmuseums Årbok for 2020. https://dms-cf-04.dimu.org/file/0136KRRRo7pA

• “Per Kohl-Larsen.” Trollbilen.no, 2021, https://trollbilen.no/Historien/Per-Kohl-Larsen/per-kohl-larsen.html. Accessed 22 Nov. 2021.

• Bidragsytere til Wikimedia-prosjektene. “Troll (bil).” Wikipedia.org, Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., 2 Sept. 2004, https://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_(bil). Accessed 22 Nov. 2021.