Stockholm has a long history of illuminated signs and ads, for obvious reasons, we have long dark nights in the autumn/winter.
It is interesting to see a picture like this from Stockholm the year WWII ended, it is not what you would expect from a European capital at the end of a devastating war involving almost all of Europe.
It can be seen in three ways.
- Artistically, it is a beautiful photo, the neon, the mist and the still not completely darkened sky, it all makes the photo quite beautiful.
- It shows that the Swedish government had the skill to avoid being drawn into the conflict.
- It makes one question about how the Swedish government actually managed it, and that my friends is a much darker story than most people want to hear about....
So let's talk about the big dark reason why we were spared, what made us special.
Nazi trade and cooperation.
It is no secret that we were far from neutral during WWII, we collaborated with both sides as the war developed.
We sold iron to the Nazis, we sold a lot of iron to the Nazis, the Nazis bought so much iron from Sweden that the UK made plans to seize the port of Narvik in Norway through which most iron was exported.
We were paid in gold, and the wealth we were paid made it possible to ride out the war in relative comfort.
The truly bad shit we did was however, was to let the Nazis send troop replacements on our railways, we alsoffacilitated Hitler's sending troops for leave and new fresh troops were sent up through Sweden to the the front.
Thai photo is in the public domain
All of the neon gives it very strong proto-cyberpunk vibes.
Were there ever really any repercussions for working with the Nazis, or was it just kind of quietly forgotten?
Right after the war we were not super popular, but it is important to not forget that we also helped the allies and our neighbors.
Examples:
When the Nazis wanted to use a telegraph line from Norway, through Sweden and onwards to the Third Reich, the internal response was:
We obviously tapped the line which carried the highest levels of communications in the Nazi government, this was obviously encrypted, and not with the simple Enigma machine, but with the far more capable Geheimschreiber, or Siemens & Halske T52 machine, in Sweden called "G-skrivaren".
We collected everything on that line, and while we at first couldn't read it, Swedish mathematician Arne Beurling managed to crack the code and we were reading the highest level of communications in the Nazi regime.
During the occupation of Norway, we got help from the Sapmi people who helped smuggle weapons and ammunition across the border, their nomadic lifestyle and northern heritage played well into the stereotypes that the Nazis had ascribed to them, and they were allowed to pass freely over the border.
We also set up training camps for police troops that were intended to quickly take back control from the Nazis when their regime collapsed.
Then we come to some more intelligence work, when the Nazis tested their V2 rockets, they fired them out over the Baltic sea. Some flew further than expected and landed in Sweden, Swedish intelligence collected the wreackage and sent it to the UK so they could study it.
At the last stages of the war, Sweden mounted a humanitarian operation and sent busses down to Germany to try and bring home Swedes, Norwegians and Danes from Nazi concentration camps, it was a huge humanitarian success, however it was tarnished by how it collaborated with the SS and used the busses to transport other prisoners between camps.
Then, let's not forget the increadible work by Raoul Wallenberg who with extremely limited support from Sweden was able to rescue many jews from Hungary, using little more than forged documents and the Nazi's belief in procedure and order.
I kinda feel bad for including this as this was an individual man's effort, not the Swedish government's effort, but I am including it as it affected the global opinion of Sweden.
Overall the Swedish reputation at the end of the war was heavily tarnished. It took a lot of work to rebuild our image.
One thing that I deliberately left out from the above list was the aid we gave to Finland when Soviet attacked, this was due to it not being an action against the Nazis. It was however a massive aid action which involved the entire country.
We gave up and sent over and entire airwing, 131000 rifles, 42 million rounds of ammunition, 100 anti-air guns, and thousands of voulenteers.
I hope this give a slightly better perspective on the times.
Makes sense, thanks for the background! Interesting to hear about Arne Beurling, not something you hear about nearly as much as Turing / Enigma machine
He cracked the encryption on his own, using only pen and paper.
When asked how he did it he simply said "A magician never reveals his tricks"