Kristian Gleditsch

Kristian Gleditsch, MBE (30 June 1901 – 7 April 1973) was a Norwegian Mot Dag activist and geodesist.

He was born in Tromsøysund as a son of headmaster Karl Kristian Gleditsch (1851–1913) and Petra Birgitte Hansen (1857–1913). His family moved to Trondhjem and then Fredrikshald in 1905. From 1913 he lived with his sister Ellen Gleditsch. He was also a nephew of Jens Gran Gleditsch and Kristen Gran Gleditsch, a first cousin of Henry Gleditsch and second cousin of Rolf Juell Gleditsch and Odd Gleditsch, Sr.

He took his examen artium in Kristiania in 1919, enrolled at the Norwegian Institute of Technology and graduated as a civil engineer in 1923. He studied further in France until 1925. He worked for the Norwegian Mapping and Cadastre Authority (then known as Norges Geografiske Oppmåling) while studying, and when he returned from France to Norway in 1927 to work as a research assistant at the Norwegian Institute of Technology, he became a prominent member of the Student Society in Trondheim, Mot Dag and Clarté. He was also active in the Communist Party of Norway, but was excluded in 1929 because of his membership in Mot Dag.

He worked as an editor of science articles in the working class encyclopedia Arbeidernes leksikon from 1932 to 1936, and worked in the publishing house Arbeidermagasinets Forlag in the same period. He also wrote books. From 1936 to 1937 he was a secretary for the Norwegian Support Committee for Spain, which sided with the Second Spanish Republic. He also chaired the Norwegian Students' Society in 1934 and 1937. In February 1934 he married fellow activist Ingrid Margaret Haslund (1908–1996), better known as Nini Haslund Gleditsch.