Count Johan Oxenstierna comes from one of the oldest noble families of Sweden, whose origins go back to 1292. In 1917 he graduated from school and became a Navy officer. Five years later he married Görel Elisabeth Huitfeldt, with whom he had two sons and one daughter. From 1922-23 he studied at the Gymnastiska Centralinstitutet and also continued his Naval career. In the year of his Olympic victory he was appointed Naval attaché in Paris, after which he returned to Sweden and rose to the rank of Lieutenant Commander. Beginning in 1942 Oxenstierna served as a defense attaché in London. His communications to the Swedish government were sent from Stockholm to the Germans, becoming an important source for their Nazi naval intelligence. In 1946 he got divorced but remarried the same year. In 1954, he retired from the Navy with the rank of sea captain. He was buried in the Roslags-Bro Church near Norrtälje, Uppland.
Sweden