Johan Bernhard Hjort

Johan Bernhard Hjort (25 February 1895 – 24 February 1969) was a Norwegian supreme court lawyer. He is known for co-founding Nasjonal Samling in 1933, his later resistance work against Nazi Germany, including his work to help Scandinavian prisoners, as well as for his role as one of the country's leading defense attorneys after the war.

Hjort joined Harald Nørregaard's law firm in 1932 and after 1945 continued the firm as Advokatfirmaet Hjort. He was deputy leader of Nasjonal Samling from 1933, and from 1935 he served as the leader of Hirden, the party's paramilitary wing. However, he broke with the party in 1937 and was arrested by the Gestapo in 1941. He was then sent to Germany, where he was interned at the Gross Kreutz estate together with Didrik Arup Seip, and carried out resistance work that saved the lives of many Scandinavian prisoners. Among other things, the group at Gross Kreutz collected lists of names of Scandinavian prisoners, and these formed the basis for the rescue operation with the white buses.

After the war, he was notable as a defender of homosexual rights and as a defender of controversial artists' freedom of expression, as in the so-called Red Ruby controversy. From 1961 until his death, he was chairman of Riksmålsforbundet. As a public figure, he stood for a liberal worldview, sharply criticizing the Labor Party governments of the 1950s and 1960s.