Abraham Berge

Abraham Theodor Berge (20 August 1851 – 10 July 1936) was Prime Minister of Norway from 1923 to 1924. He was a teacher and civil servant who represented Venstre, the social liberal party, and later Frisinnede Venstre, a right-of-centre party.

Berge was born at Lyngdal in Lister og Mandals amt (present-day Vest-Agder, Norway). He was the son of Johan Tobias Johnsen Berge (1813-1883) and Helene Andreasdatter Kvalsvig. A teacher by profession, Berge started his political career in Lista in the present-day municipality of Farsund, where he was in 1882 elected mayor. From here he went on to the Norwegian Parliament in 1891. He served, in different periods, as both Minister of Culture and Church Affairs and Minister of Finance. Then, after a 10-year absence from politics, he became again Minister of Finance, and later also Prime Minister, when sitting Prime Minister Otto Bahr Halvorsen died. He resigned this post as the result of the defeat in a vote to lift prohibition.

In 1926 he was, as the only Norwegian Prime Minister ever, impeached. The charge was withholding information relating to the government rescue of a bank threatened by bankruptcy. He was, however, acquitted in 1927, along with the six ministers who stood trial alongside him.