Audun Rusten

Audun Rusten was the only Norwegian breaststroke swimmer to compete at the 1912 Olympics. However, he placed last in his heat and was eventually disqualified. At Norwegian championships, Rusten won the 200 metres breaststroke in 1911 and 1913. He placed second in the 100 metres backstroke in 1913 and third four times in various freestyle events. His sisters Gunvor and Velaug also made the podium at the 1911 and 1912 Norwegian championships.

The son of a shipowner, Rusten was trained in business administration. He went to Berlin after World War I and became managing director of a drug-making company, which was liquidated in 1929. A radical Nazi and leading member of the Norwegian National Socialists in Germany, he was the first editor of the Norwegian edition of the anti-Jewish news agency Welt-Dienst. Later, he ran a bookstore in Berlin’s Grunewald neighbourhood. Rusten was married in Berlin, the city where he died in 1957.