King Harald V of Norway, who went into exile in the United States as a child during the Nazi occupation of his homeland and rejected a series of potential brides from European nobility so he could marry his school sweetheart, died Friday. He was 89 years old.
He died at the National Hospital in Oslo at 6:35 a.m., the palace said
Harald was the oldest king of Europe. The popular king has modernized the royal house but has refused to follow in the footsteps of other elderly kings who have recently abdicated. His son automatically became King Haakon VIII.
Like other royal families in Europe, Norway’s kings play a largely symbolic role, enjoying celebrity status while real power in the democracy of 5.5 million rests in the hands of an elected parliament. Harald was crowned after the death of his British-born father, King Olav V, in January 1991, and ruled during his country’s oil and gas economic boom.
“An entire nation is in mourning, and the people of Norway feel a deep sense of gratitude for a long life of service to Norway,” Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Sture said in a statement. “For more than three decades as King, Harald V has demonstrated unwavering faith in the Norwegian people. He has helped us see the best in ourselves – and in each other.”
The royal family fled Norway during World War II
Harald was born in 1937 in Asker, near Oslo, becoming the first Norwegian prince born in the country since King Olav IV in 1370. In the following centuries, Norway did not have a king of its own until Harald’s grandfather, Haakon VII, was elected king after the dissolution of the union between Sweden and Norway in 1905.
Harald was 3 years old when the Nazis occupied Norway at the beginning of World War II. To avoid capture, his mother fled with him and his sisters Ragnhild and Astrid, first to Sweden and then by boat to the United States, while Harald’s father and grandfather went into exile in Britain with the Norwegian government.
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Haakon’s refusal to agree to German demands won respect among his people.
During their time in the United States, members of the Norwegian royal family were often guests at the White House. Harald was six years old when he undertook his first official duty, christening new warplanes at a Norwegian air base in Canada.
The family was reunited in Norway in June 1945, shortly after the end of the war in Europe. Harald attended public schools, the Norwegian Military College, and Oxford University.
Like his father – a 1928 Olympic champion sailor – Harald loved the sea and sailboats. He represented Norway in several Olympic Games, and in 1987 he captained his yacht to the gold medal in the World Championships.
Harald married his high school sweetheart
As a young man, Harald was urged to find a bride among the nobles and princesses of Europe. He avoids a series of odds for nine years, holding out until he finally gets his father’s permission to marry his school sweetheart, Sonja Haraldsen, the daughter of a successful businessman.
King Olav feared that the marriage would weaken the still young Norwegian monarchy. Instead, Norwegians greeted the wedding on 29 August 1968 with joy, and later embraced Sonja as their queen. The couple had two children, Haakon and his older sister, Martha Louise.
The Norwegian constitution was amended in 1990 to allow the first-born, regardless of gender, to have precedence in the line of succession. However, it was not applied retrospectively, meaning that Haakon continued to take precedence over his sister.
When Harald took the throne on 21 January 1991, he adopted the same slogan used by his father and grandfather: “Everything for Norway.” He spent the following years trying to modernize the monarchy.
“It has been my experience that the monarchy stands strong,” he once said. “This is not least because my father and grandfather did most things right. This puts me under pressure, but I see it as a challenge.”
Harald won the country’s praise with an emotional speech at a memorial service after right-wing extremist Anders Behring Breivik killed 77 people in bomb and gun attacks in Norway in 2011.
The king said, “I am still convinced that faith in freedom is stronger than fear. I am still convinced of faith in democracy and an open Norwegian society. I am still convinced of faith in our ability to live freely and safely in our country.”
In 2016, Harald gave an unexpectedly impassioned speech in support of LGBT equality and religious tolerance, saying: “Norwegians are girls who love girls, boys who love boys, and girls and boys who love each other.” He added that many Norwegians immigrated from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Poland and other countries and that they “believe in God, God, the universe and nothing.”
The public speech praised the diversity of the Scandinavian nation and was viewed by millions on social media.
Scandal and serious allegations have hung over the Norwegian royal family this year. Harald’s daughter-in-law, Crown Princess Mette-Marit, has faced renewed scrutiny over her ties to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. This raised questions about her judgement, although she has not been accused of any wrongdoing. Mette-Mariet apologized for the situation she had put the royal family in, as part of a broader apology to all those she had “disappointed.”
Around the same time, her eldest son, Marius Borg-Huebe, was convicted of rape in a high-profile trial and sentenced to four years in prison. Höbe, Mette Marit’s son from a previous relationship before she met Haakon, has no royal titles or official duties.
In 2022, Harald’s daughter, Martha Louise, abandons her royal duties after raising eyebrows by saying she can communicate with angels and becoming engaged to an American man known as a shaman. They married two years later.
In January 2024, after the abdication of Queen Margrethe of Denmark – his second cousin – Harald said he was bound by the oath he took when ascending to the throne: “It lasts for life.”
However, he was hospitalized twice on overseas trips after that, including during a holiday in Malaysia in 2024 when he was fitted with a pacemaker, and during a February 2026 holiday on the Spanish island of Tenerife when he developed a skin infection.
