Obituary
Carl Heinrich Hudtwalcker (1912 – 1991)
Carl Heinrich Hudtwalcker (1912 – 1991)Carl Heinrich Hudtwalcker («Charly») died in Arlesheim, Switzerland, on the morning of 23 June 1991, at the age of seventy-nine. He was born in Christiania (now Oslo) on 25 January 1912, the second of three brothers. His mother, Sigrid Holm, was the daughter of a Norwegian clergyman. His father, Heinrich C. Hudtwalcker, was German and, at the turn of the twentieth century, established the Norwegian branch of the family company, Hudtwalcker & Co., founded in Hamburg in 1743 and engaged in the refining and export of fish oil.
Although born in Norway, Carl H. Hudtwalcker grew up in Hamburg and later earned his doctorate in economics at the University of Munich. In 1936 he was sent to Norway to take over the management of the family’s business there, and he remained in Norway for the rest of his life.
On Norway’s Constitution Day, 17 May 1939, he met the woman who would become the great love of his life, Merete. The war years proved difficult for them both. His heart belonged to Norway, a loyalty he demonstrated not only in conviction but also through his actions. Their love endured every hardship, and they were married on 10 October 1946. Their son, John Michael, was born in 1954.
Carl H. Hudtwalcker was an exceptional industrialist and businessman. His interests and activities extended far beyond what is usually associated with commerce and industry. He was a devoted lover of the arts and a friend of painters such as Rolf Nesch and Olaf Strømme. Through his father he also came to know Edvard Munch. He published a novel entitled Die Septemberinsel (The September Island), and from his earliest youth he retained a profound love of the mountains. Well into later life he continued to hike in the Norwegian highlands. Yet his travels reached far beyond Norway. Together with his family, he journeyed extensively throughout the world.
I knew him only during the last twenty years of his life. During those years I came to know a thoughtful man with a quiet wit, gifted in the arts of observation, storytelling and attentive listening. In everyday life he united the qualities that experience had taught him to cultivate: the businessman’s instinct for what truly mattered, a breadth of vision that seemed born of the high mountains, and the artist’s humorous yet remarkably precise eye for the details of ordinary life. I believe these same qualities gave him the strength to endure the painful illness that struck him so suddenly a little more than three years ago.
Until the very end, Carl H. Hudtwalcker remained deeply engaged with contemporary political and cultural affairs. His outlook encouraged and inspired those around him. During the course of his treatment, at the age of seventy-seven, he embarked upon an entirely new chapter in life. He began to paint and to practise eurythmy, pursuits that brought him both joy and deep engagement. He spent his final days in hospital in Arlesheim, where his life gently came to an end between the German-speaking and the Norwegian worlds—a fitting reflection of the life he had lived.
Peter Normann Waage
Aftenposten, 31 July 1991
Originally published in Norwegian in 2019
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