Den Svenske Nationalsocialisten

Den Svenske Nationalsocialisten (English: The Swedish National Socialist, Shortening: DSNS) was the main organ of the National Socialist Workers' Party (NSAP) (after name change in 1938 Swedish Socialist Gathering) before and during the Second World War, and published its first issue on January 25, 1933.

The newspaper was published once a week from 1934 and twice a week from 1935. Until July 1938, the newspaper was produced in Gothenburg. From August 1, 1938, the newspaper was printed in the party's new printing house Grundläggaren, which was set up in the recently purchased property at Luntmakargatan 27 in Stockholm. After NSAP's name change, a name change also took place for the newspaper. DSNS was called Den Svenske Folksocialisten from January 1939 and was published from New Year 1942 as a weekly newspaper. The newspaper was published in the 1950s, but the newspaper's quality, circulation and rate of publication declined in line with the lack of German war success. The party itself ended definitively in 1950.

National Socialist Workers' Party (Sweden)

Nationalsocialistiska Arbetarepartiet (English: National Socialist Workers' Party, NSAP) was a Swedish political party that initially espoused National Socialism before adopting a more indigenous form of fascism. It was also widely infamous under the name Svensk Socialistisk Samling (SSS, i.e "Swedish Socialist Gathering"), which was generally among the public called "Lindholmarna" ("the Lindholm'ers", after the leader's name).

The party was revealed after WWII to have had well-organized plans, containing death lists of local Jews to be rounded up and deported and also plans for the construction of two Swedish concentration camps, in case of a National Socialist German invasion of Sweden. Lindholm himself had planned to take the role as a "Swedish Quisling" if such an invasion had happened.

The Swedish king Gustav V had friendly ties to the SSS/NSAP during the war.

Newspaper

• Den Svenske Nationalsocialisten

Leader

• Sven Olov Lindholm

Sven Hedin: Geographer, Topographer, Explorer, Photographer and Travel Writer

Travels and expeditions

At 15 years of age, Hedin witnessed the triumphal return of the Arctic explorer Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld after his first navigation of the Northern Sea Route. From that moment on, young Sven aspired to become an explorer. His studies under the German geographer and China expert, Ferdinand Freiherr von Richthofen, awakened a love of Germany in Hedin and strengthened his resolve to undertake expeditions to Central Asia to explore the last uncharted areas of Asia. After obtaining a doctorate, learning several languages and dialects, and undertaking two trips through Persia, he ignored the advice of Ferdinand von Richthofen to continue his geographic studies to acquaint himself with geographical research methodology; the result was that Hedin had to leave the evaluation of his expedition results later to other scientists.

Between 1894 and 1908, in three daring expeditions through the mountains and deserts of Central Asia, he mapped and researched parts of Chinese Turkestan (now Xinjiang) and Tibet which had been unexplored by Europeans until then. Upon his return to Stockholm in 1909 he was received as triumphantly as Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld. In 1902, he became the last Swede (to date) to be raised to the untitled nobility and was considered one of Sweden's most important personalities. As a member of two scientific academies, he had a voice in the selection of Nobel Prize winners for both science and literature. Hedin never married and had no children, rendering his family line now extinct.

Hedin's expedition notes laid the foundations for a precise mapping of Central Asia. He was one of the first European scientific explorers to employ indigenous scientists and research assistants on his expeditions. Although primarily an explorer, he was also the first to unearth the ruins of ancient Buddhist cities in Chinese Central Asia. However, as his main interest in archaeology was finding ancient cities, he had little interest in gathering data thorough scientific excavations. Of small stature, with a bookish, bespectacled appearance, Hedin nevertheless proved himself a determined explorer, surviving several close brushes with death from hostile forces and the elements over his long career. His scientific documentation and popular travelogues, illustrated with his own photographs, watercolor paintings and drawings, his adventure stories for young readers and his lecture tours abroad made him world-famous.

As a renowned expert on Turkestan and Tibet, he was able to obtain unrestricted access to European and Asian monarchs and politicians as well as to their geographical societies and scholarly associations. They all sought to purchase his exclusive knowledge about the power vacuum in Central Asia with gold medals, diamond-encrusted grand crosses, honorary doctorates and splendid receptions, as well as with logistic and financial support for his expeditions. Hedin, in addition to Nikolai Przhevalsky, Sir Francis Younghusband, and Sir Aurel Stein, was an active player in the British-Russian struggle for influence in Central Asia, known as the Great Game. Their travels were supported because they filled in the "white spaces" in contemporary maps, providing valuable information.

Hedin was, and remained, a figure of the 19th century who clung to its visions and methods also in the 20th century. This prevented him from discerning the fundamental social and political upheavals of the 20th century and aligning his thinking and actions accordingly.

Concerned about the security of Scandinavia, he favored the Swedish Navy's construction of the battleship Sverige. In World War I he specifically allied himself in his publications with the German Empire and its conduct of the war. Because of this political involvement, his scientific reputation was damaged among the Allied powers, along with his memberships in their geographical societies and learned associations, as well as any support for his planned expeditions.

After a less-than-successful lecture tour in 1923 through North America and Japan, he traveled on to Beijing to carry out an expedition to Chinese Turkestan (modern Xinjiang), but the region's unstable political situation thwarted this intention. He instead traveled through Mongolia by car and through Siberia aboard the Trans-Siberian Railway.

With financial support from the governments of Sweden and Germany, he led, between 1927 and 1935, an international and interdisciplinary Sino-Swedish Expedition to carry out scientific investigations in Mongolia and Chinese Turkestan, with the participation of 37 scientists from six countries. Despite Chinese counter-demonstrations and after months of negotiations in the Republic of China, was he able to make the expedition also a Chinese one by obtaining Chinese research commissions and the participation of Chinese scientists. He also concluded a contract which guaranteed freedom of travel for this expedition which, because of its arms, 300 camels, and activities in a war theater, resembled an invading army. However, the financing remained Hedin's private responsibility.

Because of failing health, the civil war in Chinese Turkestan, and a long period of captivity, Hedin, by then 70 years of age, had a difficult time after the currency depreciation of the Great Depression raising the money required for the expedition, the logistics for assuring the supplying of the expedition in an active war zone, and obtaining access for the expedition's participants to a research area intensely contested by local warlords. Nevertheless, the expedition was a scientific success. The archaeological artifacts which had been sent to Sweden were scientifically assessed for three years (or four years according to Chung-Chang Shen (C.C. Shen), who was the administrative officer for the Sino-Swedish Expedition Council, and drafted the contract), after which they were returned to China under the terms of the contract.

Starting in 1937, the scientific material assembled during the expedition was published in over 50 volumes by Hedin and other expedition participants, thereby making it available for worldwide research on eastern Asia. When he ran out of money to pay printing costs, he pawned his extensive and valuable library, which filled several rooms, making possible the publication of additional volumes.

In 1935, Hedin made his exclusive knowledge about Central Asia available, not only to the Swedish government, but also to foreign governments such as China and Germany, in lectures and personal discussions with political representatives of Chiang Kai-shek and Adolf Hitler.

Although he was not a National Socialist, Hedin's hope that National Socialist Germany would protect Scandinavia from invasion by the Soviet Union, brought him in dangerous proximity to representatives of National Socialism, who exploited him as an author. This destroyed his reputation and put him into social and scientific isolation. However, in correspondence and personal conversations with leading National Socialists, his successful intercessions achieved the pardoning of ten people condemned to death and the release or survival of Jews who had been deported to National Socialist concentration camps.

At the end of the war, United States Army troops deliberately confiscated documents relating to Hedin's planned Central Asia Atlas. The U.S. Army Map Service later solicited Hedin's assistance and financed the printing and publication of his life's work, the Central Asia Atlas. Whoever compares this atlas with Adolf Stielers Hand Atlas of 1891 can appreciate what Hedin accomplished between 1893 and 1935.

Although Hedin's research was taboo in Germany and Sweden because of his conduct relating to Nazi Germany, and stagnated for decades in Germany, the scientific documentation of his expeditions was translated into Chinese by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and incorporated into Chinese research. Following recommendations made by Hedin to the Chinese Nationalist government in 1935, the routes he selected were used to construct streets and train tracks, as well as dams and canals to irrigate new farms being established in the Tarim and Yanji basins in Xinjiang and the deposits of iron, manganese, oil, coal and gold discovered during the Sino-Swedish Expedition were opened up for mining. Among the discoveries of this expedition should also be counted the many Asian plants and animals unheard of until that date, as well as fossil remains of dinosaurs and other extinct animals. Many were named after Hedin, the species-level scientific classification being hedini. But one discovery remained unknown to Chinese researchers until the turn of the millennium: in the Lop Nur desert, Hedin discovered in 1933 and 1934 ruins of signal towers which prove that the Great Wall of China once extended as far west as Xinjiang.

From 1931 until his death in 1952, Hedin lived in Stockholm in a modern high-rise in a preferred location, the address being Norr Mälarstrand 66. He lived with his siblings in the upper three stories and from the balcony he had a wide view over Riddarfjärden Bay and Lake Mälaren to the island of Långholmen. In the entryway to the stairwell is to be found a decorative stucco relief map of Hedin's research area in Central Asia and a relief of the Lama temple, a copy of which he had brought to Chicago for the 1933 World's Fair.

On 29 October 1952, Hedin's will granted the rights to his books and his extensive personal effects to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences; the Sven Hedin Foundation established soon thereafter holds all the rights of ownership.

Hedin died at Stockholm in 1952. The memorial service was attended by representatives of the Swedish royal household, the Swedish government, the Swedish Academy, and the diplomatic service. He is buried in the cemetery of Adolf Fredrik church in Stockholm.

Gustaf Ekström: SS-Rottenführer, Federal Secretary of the Nordic Youth (1936) and Co-founder of the Sweden Democrats Party (1988)

Gustaf Ekström was born on 9 October 1907 in Hedvig Eleonora Parish, Stockholm, the son of gymnastics director Johan Gottfrid Samuel Ekström from Undersvik and of Hilda Katarina Mickelsson from Färila. Both had been residing in Stockholm since 1899. After his mother's divorce, Gustaf Ekström moved to Lindesberg with his mother and her sister.

Ekström graduated as an engineer and moved to New Jersey in the United States in 1929, where he worked at an oil refinery and later as a sailor. In 1932 he returned to Sweden and joined the Swedish National Socialist Party (SNSP) under the leadership of Birger Furugård, and a year later joined the Swedish Socialist Assembly (SSS) led by Sven Olov Lindholm. In October 1936, he became Federal Secretary of the Nordic Youth. He volunteered to join the Waffen SS in 1941, serving in the 11th SS Volunteer Panzergrenadier Division Nordland. He achieved the rank of SS-Rottenführer and served from 1941 to 1943 at the SS-Hauptamt in Berlin, where he translated, among other things, Swedish newspaper articles to German for the needs of National Socialist Germany.

At the end of the war, he managed to get home to Sweden again with the help of the Red Cross's White buses. If he had stayed, as a volunteer in the Waffen-SS, he could have been arrested, interned and interrogated by the American occupying power.

After World War II he returned to Germany and studied chemistry. Upon retiring, he returned to Sweden and founded the Sweden Democrats party in 1988, at the age of 81. He was initially elected auditor of the newly formed party and was elected to the party board the following year. He was monitored by SÄPO since 1940 as he was classified as one of the most dangerous National Socialists in Sweden and a potential traitor in the event of a German occupation.

He died at the Sankt Hans Assembly in Lund in 1995, and is buried at the cemetery in Färila.

Sven Hedengren: National SA Leader, Army Inspectorate (1943) and Major and Reserve officer (1947)

Hedengren, who came from an officer family with rich military traditions, was born as the son of lieutenant colonel Josef Hedengren of the Livregementet grenadiers and his wife Gerda Lilliehöök af Fårdala. He grew up partly in Härnösand and Sollefteå. In 1916, he completed his matriculation at Härnösand's higher general education institution in Härnösand.

After matriculation, he enlisted and was placed as an ensign in the Göta Life Regiment in 1918. He was appointed lieutenant in 1920. In 1925–1927, Hedengren went through the Military Academy and graduated with a rather low honor. In 1928 he was commissioned into Gotland's infantry corps and appointed captain in 1933.

In 1943 he was appointed to the Army Inspectorate. In 1947 he became a major and reserve officer, after which he worked as an actuary at the Army Staff 1947–1963.

Time as a Finland volunteer

Hedengren joined the Swedish Volunteer Battalion where he served from September 6, 1941 to September 26, 1942. After many Finnish officers were killed at the Hanko Front, he was assigned to IR24, 24th Infantry Regiment, as commander of the regiment's seventh company. In December 1941, Hedengren was appointed major and commander of the regiment's first battalion. In January 1942 he became commander of the regiment's third battalion and later that year he was transferred to IR 61, where he served the rest of his time in Finland.

Political commitment

Hedengren, like many of his contemporary professional colleagues, had a National Socialist commitment which was largely a consequence of the 1925 radical defense decision. Many Swedish officers saw communism as a serious and real threat and they not infrequently joined defense-friendly right-wing circles. Hedengren became an active member of the Munckska corps and the National Socialist People's Party.

Family

His grandfather was Major General Johan Lilliehöök, his uncles Lieutenant General David Hedengren and Colonel Gabriel Hedengren. Hedengren married 21 February 1931 to Ingrid Andersson (born 19 March 1910 in Södertälje, died 10 July 1967 in Saltsjö-Duvnäs). Carl Andersson, Member of Parliament and printer, was Ingrid's grandfather. The Hedengrens are buried at the Northern Cemetery outside Stockholm.

Speech in Stockholm, January 22, 1932:

On January 22, 1932, the Swedish National Socialist Party (SNSP) organized its first public meeting at Hötorget in Stockholm. 6,000 listeners gathered to listen to Birger Furugård's speech.

By Birger Furugård. 

Short part of his speech:

"It wants Sweden's rescue from oppression under supranational secret powers, which threaten to bring our people to ruin. It wants a Nordic renaissance, which preserves the spiritual and material power of the people and prevents foreign races with a hostile attitude from ravaging and committing violence against the country."

The speaker gave an illuminating account of the prevailing state of corruption and allowed a large number of the ruling "democratic" system's transgressions to pass review - the scandals in the state alcohol and tobacco monopolies, the large-scale financial looting of the people through the big banks, the crippling of the retail trade through the EPA company, the squandering of Bolidenguldet to a private enterprise for a fraction of its real value, the government's weakness and servitude to communist elements and big finance, etc.

SPEECHES OF BIRGER FURUGÅRD

1932

• Speech in Stockholm, January 22, 1932:

Malte Welin: Professor of Nordic Literature at the University of Berlin (1933) and Editor of the Swedish National Newspaper (1933-1940)

Malte Welin was the son of teacher Justus Welin and Elna, née Svensson. He was an employee of Sydsvenska Dagbladet Snällposten 1916–21 and Lunds Dagblad 1919–20, and was a correspondent for several other Swedish and foreign newspapers 1916–28. In 1921, Welin became a candidate of philosophy at Lund University. He then worked as a lecturer in Swedish at the University of Vienna 1923–28, where he was promoted to Doctor of Philosophy in 1925.

In 1928, Welin founded the newspaper Vest-Svenska Dagbladet in Gothenburg, whose editor he was until 1933. For a short period, Welin collaborated in this role with the Swedish National Socialist Party (SNS), under the leadership of Birger Furugård; The newspaper then functioned as the organ of the party. During the spring of 1933, the newspaper also received support from National Socialist Germany, in the form of 6,000 subscriptions. In the years 1933–40, he was then editor of the Swedish national newspaper, also linked to SNS.

In 1933, Welin was appointed associate professor of Nordic literature at the University of Berlin, after Carl David Marcus had been forced to leave his post the year before. This was mainly due to Welin's National Socialist beliefs as well as his contacts with Hermann Göring and within the German Foreign Ministry, rather than because of his academic credentials. The appointment attracted a lot of attention in the Swedish press and also met with opposition within National Socialist Germany, which led to its withdrawal before Welin could take office.

Welin continued during the 1930s as a National Socialist opinion leader in Sweden and founded several short-lived National Socialist organizations, including the National Opposition, the Friends of Greater Germany in the Nordics, the National Socialist Union and the National Front. From 1941 he was also the Swedish representative in the Nordic National Socialist Union, a cooperation organization for Nordic National Socialista founded by Vidkun Quisling. In 1941 he was enrolled as a schütze in the German volunteer division 5. SS-Panzer-Division Wiking.

From 1925, Welin was married to Birgit, née Möller (1896–1988). He is buried at the Northern Cemetery in Stockholm.

Clarence von Rosen: Master Horseman in the Swedish army (1907) and Chief Leader of the Swedish Olympic team in Lake Placid (1932)

In 1887, Clarence von Rosen became an officer with the Livregementet's hussars, master of horse in the army in 1907 and in 1916 master of the court stables. He received riding training at the Military Riding Instructor Institute and the Imperial Spanish Riding School in Vienna. He built up a high-class racing stable and was Sweden's most successful competition rider around the turn of the century.

He worked to get horse racing on the Olympic program and in 1900 he became a member of the International Olympic Committee. Clarence von Rosen became Secretary General of the Committee for the Equestrian Games at the 1912 Summer Olympics in Stockholm and was responsible for its equestrian competitions. The equestrian disciplines were dressage, show jumping and eventing. On the initiative of von Rosen, the International Equestrian Federation was formed in 1921 and he became its honorary president in 1935.

von Rosen did significant work for Swedish sport. He was a member of the Swedish Olympic Committee 1913–1932, chief leader in 1932 of the Swedish Olympic team in Lake Placid and was in charge at the summer games in Los Angeles in 1932 and Berlin in 1936. He was the founder of the Central Association for the Promotion of Sports and its chairman 1939–1947 . He also founded the newspaper Nordiskt Idrottslif in 1900 and was the founder of the Royal Automobile Club in 1903 and its first chairman 1903–1933. von Rosen had board assignments in a number of sports associations, including as a board member in Stockholm's Allmänna Skridskoklubb, chairman of Stockholm's Rowing Association and in swimming club Neptun. He was also the one who introduced bandy in Sweden, as well as organized the first tennis competition for schoolchildren.

He was involved in forming the Swedish Football Association in 1902 and the Swedish Football Association in 1904 and was the first chairman of both organizations. von Rosen also got to name the von Rosen trophy.

National Socialist activism

Historian Heléne Lööw believes that von Rosen, together with his brother Eric, were "important people among Swedish nationalists" and that they were involved in "introducing National Socialism into the upper strata of society in Sweden".

Together with his brother Eric, he was one of Sweden's most outspoken National Socialists both before and during World War II. According to a report from the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1999, he was a personal friend of both Adolf Hitler and Hermann Göring. He got to know her later when, in 1923, she married his brother Eric's sister-in-law Carin von Kantzow.

During the 1930s, Clarence von Rosen was associated with the Manheim Society, for which he gave a lecture on his impressions of the NSDAP Day in Nuremberg in 1936. In 1939, von Rosen participated in a Swedish delegation that in Berlin congratulated Adolf Hitler on his 50th birthday, in the company of Navy Commander Fabian Tamm, Army Chief of Staff Helge Jung and Chairman of the Swedish-German Association Henri de Champs. von Rosen was 1938–1943 a member of the Sweden–Germany National Association.

Nordisk Ungdom (1933-1950)

Nordic Youth (Nordisk Ungdom), originally National Socialist Workers' Youth, was a National Socialist youth organization belonging to the National Socialist Workers' Party that was formed in 1933. The organization died out at the latest in 1950.

After an attempt on Clarté, Nordic Youth changed its name to the Wasa Youth Movement in 1939, but took the old name again in 1941. The press organization was called Stormfacklan (from 1939 Ungt Folk). The leader was Arne Clementsson, until he was excluded retroactively due to the attack on Clarté. After that, Sven Olov Lindholm, the party leader in the parent party, was also the official leader of the youth organization.

• Sven Olov Lindholm
• Gustaf Ekström
• Åke Johan Ek

Åke Johan Ek: Member of Nordisk Ungdom, Head of the Information Department at TBV's central office (1966) and Chairman of the Swedish section of the World Anti-Communist League (1988)

Background

In his teens, Åke J. Ek became a member of Nordisk Ungdom, the youth association of the National Socialist party Svensk Socialistisk Samling (SSS). Åke J Ek also became a party member during the Second World War. During 1941, the top rank in the party came to form the organization Frontmannaföreningen Sveaborg. The idea of the organization was to function as a gathering place for Swedish Finland volunteers. Åke J. Ek, who came to serve at the Swedish volunteer company, joined the organization, accompanied by a large part of the Swedish volunteer soldiers.

Ek was a war volunteer in Finland in 1943–1944 and took part, among other things, in the battles at the Svirfronten. He was one of only 35 Swedes left when Finland broke its cooperation with National Socialist Germany and made peace with the Soviet Union on September 26, 1944. After his time as a volunteer soldier, Ek came, on April 16, 1945, (the same day the final battle for Berlin began) to enter the Swedish military. He went through a series of command courses within the Swedish armed forces, a total of eight during the period 1947 to 1950.

During the 1950s, Ek joined the People's Party, and worked as a People's Party politician in Vällingby, where he lived for 50 years. He was also an active People's Party in the city of Stockholm - he sat, among other things, as a People's Party representative on various committees in the city hall.

In 1950, he belonged to the first contingent of volunteer Swedes in the Korean War at the Swedish Red Cross war hospital together with a number of other right-wing extremists, the so-called Swedish Korea Ambulance. Meanwhile in Korea, the Newspapers Telegram Agency used Ek as a reporter. After his time in Korea, Åke J Ek founded the Swedish Korea Ambulance Association and was involved in the Swedish Korean Association, both support organizations for the then South Korean dictatorship. The Royal Society Pro Patria awarded Ek a gold medal for "faithfulness and hard work" in his work for the cause of South Korea. In 1954 he also became an honorary member of the Norwegian Korea Association and two years later he was appointed editor and responsible publisher of the Korean Journal. Subsequently, he has been decorated several times with medals from the South Korean state and was also appointed an honorary doctor of law at Kyunghee University in Seoul.

Later he came to serve with the third Swedish UN battalion in Gaza in 1957–1958. After returning to Sweden, Ek worked as an insurance consultant at Svenska liv Städernas-Hansa 1956–1966 and in 1966 became head of the information department at TBV's central office. He has also been the main teacher in psychology at the Police Academy.

Studies

Åke J. Ek studied political science at the Swedish Academy in Finland 1948–1949, at Stockholm University 1949–1953 and 1963 and at the University of Manchester in England in 1954. He conducted insurance studies at the European Center for Insurance Education and Training in Sankt Gallen in Switzerland in 1962, graduated from the Institute for Higher Advertising Education in Stockholm (DIHR) in 1963 and conducted special studies at the University of Wisconsin in the USA in 1965.

Later political career

He was chairman of the Nordic War and UN Veterans Association (which brought together former war veterans from, among other things, the Waffen-SS, the Finnish Winter War, UN soldiers and mercenaries from the various post-war colonial wars and Cold War conflicts) and from 1988 until his death chairman of the Swedish section of the World Anti-Communist League. He later sat on the board of the bourgeois Samling för Framsteg.

Sven Olov Lindholm: Second-in-command in the Swedish National Socialist Party, Editor of Vår kamp and Leader of the Swedish Socialist Union

Sven Olov Knutsson Lindholm was born February 8, 1903 in Jönköping, Sweden. After graduating from secondary school, Lindholm joined the military, in 1933 he became a foreman in the reserve on the A9 in Stockholm. In 1927 he joined the newly formed Sweden's Fascist Struggle Organization (SFKO), which in 1929 changed its name to the National Socialist Folk Party (NSFP). 

Lindholm visited Nuremberg in 1929 and as a consequence abandoned Italian fascism in favour of National Socialism and as a result he played a leading role in both the National Socialist People's Party of Sweden and its successor the Swedish National Socialist Party.

In 1930 the NSFP merged with the Nysvenska folkförbundet (NSFF) and formed the Swedish National Socialist Party (SNSP) under the leadership of Birger Furugård. Lindholm was editor of SNSP's magazine Vår kamp.

During the 1932 election year, an ideological and personal conflict arose within the party's leadership. A breakaway group led by Lindholm formed the new National Socialist Workers' Party (NSAP) on 15 January 1933, which soon became the leading Swedish National Socialist party. NSAP's limited electoral success can partly be explained by its young cadres who often lacked the right to vote (the voting age was then 23). 

In the second chamber elections in the fall of 1932, Lindholm ran as the National Socialists' main name in Gothenburg and received over 6,000 votes. However Lindholm had grown tired of the leadership of Birger Furugård as he had grown more attracted to Strasserism than Furugård's straight National Socialism. In 1933 he formed the Nationalsocialistiska Arbetarpartiet to this end. The new group, which adopted the swastika, took, for propaganda reasons, a more anti-capitalist line and organized its own youth group, the Nordisk Ungdom (Nordic Youth). The year before, in November 1932, Lindholm had visited Germany at the invitation of Heinrich Himmler.

By 1938 Lindholm had become more critical of the government of Germany, and attempted to reorganise the group as a more Swedish version of National Socialism, reinventing them as the Svensk Socialistisk Samling (SSS, "Swedish Socialist Union"). Despite attempts to distance itself from German National Socialism, for example by using the Vasa symbol instead of the swastika (swastika), the party lost virtually all of its support during World War II. 

Lindholm returned to the army in 1941 as a Fanjunkare in the artillery. He maintained an ambiguous relationship with Germany during war-time, attacking Operation Weserübung, yet also helping to recruit men for Adolf Hitler. During the war, Lindholm and his party was planning for, and in secret hoped for, a German invasion of Sweden that could lead to the creation of a Swedish puppet-state under Lindholm and the party as "Swedish Quislings". Secret plans to deport Jews and others, and plans to construct concentration camps inside Sweden, was drawn up by the party. They gathered death-lists of hundreds of Jews which were later (likely when Lindholm and the others realized Sweden would remain neutral and that Hitler was losing) hidden well and some most likely destroyed. Such lists was discovered in the 1970s but no documents has been found showing Lindholm was ever questioned about these plans and lists.

Lindholm was considered "one of Grönheim's men", referring to the National Socialist Arthur Grönheim who was appointed by SS-Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler as a National Socialist German intermediary to the Nordic National Socialist parties.

For a time, Lindholm was married to Vera Lindholm (née Schimanski), who later remarried the leader of the Nordic National Party, Göran Assar Oredsson. As Vera Oredsson, she became known as an ardent proponent of National Socialist ideas.

On May 4, 1945, after Adolf Hitler committed suicide, Lindholm published the following obituary:

” ... History is written by those who win. Consequently, Hitler's name will go to posterity as the world's greatest war criminal, perhaps for a long time to come. But even the reign of the victors will one day be overthrown or permeated by other than today's powerful ideas, and so posterity will be able to judge more objectively about the men who led world politics during this fateful period..."

After the war

Svensk Socialistisk Samling continued to be active until 1950, after which Lindholm went into semi-retirement, with only minor involvement in far right youth groups maintaining his activity. The SSS was disbanded at the end of June 1950.

For a time, Lindholm was married to Vera Lindholm (née Schimanski), who later remarried the leader of the Nordic National Party, Göran Assar Oredsson. As Vera Oredsson, she became known as an ardent proponent of National Socialist ideas.

Lindholm himself wrote some books that propagated his own version of National Socialism or were intended as a defense for it.

Lindholm was for a long time a devoted - and at first uncritical - admirer of Hitler and the German National Socialist movement. In retrospect, he tried to distance himself and claimed that he and close party friends would have stood on an independent ideological basis. He and Vera Oredsson, his then-wife, separated because of Lindholm's growing criticism of National Socialist ideology. He quit the National Socialist movement, and instead became active in the left-wing peace movement and peaceful environmental left-wing politics. During the 1960s and later, Lindholm participated in FNL demonstrations against the South Vietnamese government and its ally the United States during the Vietnam War. The sympathies for the Fédération Nationale de Libération (FNL) brought him, on the practical level, into contact with leftist groups. Politically, he sympathized during this time with the communists.

In the 1970s and 1980s, Lindholm made statements in the Swedish media in which he rejected his former anti-Semitism and the crimes of the Hitler regime. He told Aftonbladet that he no longer believes in such racism as he believes there are good and bad people within all different races.

Birger Furugård: National Leader of the Swedish National Socialist Party (1931)

• SPEECHES OF BIRGER FURUGÅRD

Birger Furugård was born in 1887 in Silbodal in Värmland as Birger Lundin, and was the son of Crown County Commissioner Johan Peter Lundin, born in 1848, and his wife Fatima Lovisa Charlotta, born in 1853. He had three brothers, Johan Gunnar, born in 1878, Georg, born in 1881 and Sigurd, born in 1886 and a sister, Sigrid Fatima, born in 1890. He served as a district veterinarian in Värmland, first in Deje in 1928 and then in Molkom in 1934.

Birger Furugård spent a year studying business in Germany before enrolling at Lund University in the fall semester of 1909. He studied there until 1912. During Furugård's time at the university, he came under the influence of the professor and socialist Bengt Lidforss. Through Lidforss, the then young Furugård became interested in socialism but also nationalism and racial ideology when H S Chamberlain also inspired and popularized Furugård's interest. However, Furugård abandoned his university studies and transferred to the Veterinary Institute, from which he graduated in 1918.

                                         

In the early years of the 1920s, some rumors began to circulate about a man named Adolf Hitler, who would gather many followers around a movement called the NSDAP, the National Socialist German Workers' Party, which, by means of violence and the use of terror, wanted to fight Jews, capitalism and Marxism and advocated a fanatical racial biology. Furugård made contact in 1922 with the German-Nordic poet Dietrich Eckart, who was one of Hitler's closest men. He also came into contact with Germany's leading authority on racial issues, Professor Hans F.K. Günther, who spent some time in Sweden and visited Furugård at his home in Värmland. The German antisemite Theodor Fritsch also influenced him through his magazine "Hammer". 

Furugård and his brothers Gunnar and Sigurd published an appeal on August 12, 1924 in which they declared themselves to form the Swedish National Socialist Freedom Federation (SNFF), in 1926 transformed into the Swedish National Socialist Farmers' and Workers' Party (SNBAP). The party's first party program in 1929 was almost a direct translation of the NSDAP's. SNBAP was not a success and in 1929-1930 it merged with Sweden's National Socialist People's Party (under the leadership of Sven-Olov Lindholm, who was a furrier on the A9 in Stockholm) and the Nysvenska Folkförbundet (with Stig Bille as leader) and formed the Nysvenska Nationalsocialistiska Förbundet (NNSF) which the following year changed its name to the Swedish National Socialist Party (SNSP). Furugård became party leader and Lindholm party secretary and editor of the party's newspaper Vår Kamp. The SNSP received just over 15,000 votes (0.61%) in the 1932 parliamentary election.

He made several trips to Germany, and met with Adolf Hitler, Hermann Göring and Heinrich Himmler.

In March 1931 Hitler and Joseph Goebbels were invited to speak at public meetings in Sweden, but the police chief in Stockholm refused to give permission.

In 1933, Lindholm broke with Furugård and, together with his followers, Lindholm formed the National Socialist Workers' Party (NSAP) on 15 January. According to Dagens Nyheter, the split was "directed from the German side". The newspaper also believed that the break between Furugård and Lindholm had been more about personal problems and Furugård's financial irregularities than political differences.

SNSP and Furugård continued their political struggle with, among other things, participation in city and municipal council elections and church council elections in 1934/35 as well as the second chamber election and the Riksdag election in 1936. As a result in the city and municipal council elections in 1934/35, the party received 11,400 votes on its own lists and 5,400 votes on collective lists with, for example, the National Socialist Block (NSB) and a total of 80 mandates in various municipalities around the country. The greatest success was achieved in Gothenburg with 5.7%, followed by Värmland with 2.9% of the votes.

In 1933/1934, a few years before World War II, the party's membership was at its highest with an estimated 10,000 members. In Stockholm, the party had 1,700 members, approximately 1,400 of whom were men. In 1935, the party had 132 local branches around the country. In the years 1933-1936, the SNSP published the newspaper "Nationalsocialistisk Tidning" (NST) and in the years 1934-1935 the ideological magazine "Klingan".

The SNSP had a special women's organization, Kristina Gyllenstierna (KG) and Skyddsavdelningar (SA), as well as in 1934 its own trade union for sailors, the Swedish Maritime Association, which published the magazine "Vikingen" that same year. The party's youth movement between 1933 and 1934 was called National Socialist Youth (NSU), which published the journal "Det Unga Sverige". In 1935, the youth movement changed its name to Vikingarna, which published the magazine "Solkorsfanan" in 1935-1936. The youth leader for National Socialist Youth and the Vikings was captain John Åstrand in Karlstad.

The Vikings ceased their activities at the same time as the mother party in 1936. The members of the Vikings were then urged by Furugård and Åstrand to individually seek entry into Lindholm's youth movement Nordic Youth (NU), which several did. Åstrand himself joined NSAP and contributed, among other things, to Nordic Youth's magazine "Stormfacklan". The party's symbol was the swastika, which figured in the membership badge as well as on banners, pennants and armbands.

Furugård's SNSP and Lindholm's NSAP competed with each other as best they could in the years after the mining. The 1936 parliamentary election was a disastrous miscalculation for Furugård. Despite an election cartel with the National Socialist Block (NSB), the party only managed to scrape together 0.1% of the votes (3,025 votes), which is why Furugård decided to dissolve the party in November 1936. The party then had 4,640 members, of which 378 were functionaries. Many former members subsequently joined Lindholm's NSAP, including SNSP's former management staff. Other former members formed the party Sweden's National Socialists (SNS) with the youth movement Swedish Front.

In February 1943, Furugård joined Nils Flyg's Socialist Party.

After the war, Furugård continued his work as a veterinarian. When Dagens Nyheter interviewed him in 1951, the "ex-Führer in Molkom" was described as a sickly and broken man. The newspaper noted that he admitted that there had been atrocities in Hitler's Germany, but he would not admit that, for example, gas chambers had been used.

Furugård died in 1961.

Swedish National Socialist Party

The Swedish National Socialist Party (Swedish: Svenska nationalsocialistiska partiet, abbreviated SNSP) was a National Socialist political party in Sweden. Birger Furugård served as riksledare ('National Leader') of the party. The youth organization Vikingarna and the women's organization Kristina Gyllenstierna were also connected to the party.

Leadership

• Birger Furugård
• Sven Olov Lindholm

Members

• Malte Welin
• Sven Hedengren
• Gustaf Ekström

Per Engdahl: Leader of Sveriges Fascistiska Kamporganisation and Deputy Leader of Sveriges Nationella Förbund

Early life

Born in Jönköping, he came from a conservative family with a strong military tradition. He attended Uppsala University, where he studied philosophy.

Fascism

Engdahl began his political career while still a student in Uppsala, advocating a fascist-influenced policy of his own creation which he called nysvenskhet ('new Swedishness'). An attempt was made in 1932 to incorporate his group into the newly formed Nationalsocialistiska folkpartiet of Sven Olov Lindholm although Engdahl resisted their overtures.

As an ideology, nysvenskhet supported a strong Swedish nationalism, corporatism, anti-Semitism and anti-communism as well as a cult of personality around Engdahl himself. It placed an emphasis on racial nationalism, advocated the Madagascar Plan, and called for the replacement of the existing Swedish parliament with a corporatist body elected on an occupational franchise. The policy overtly rejected National Socialism, instead looking more towards Benito Mussolini for inspiration while also seeking to unify all groups against democracy, whether they were fascist or not. He wrote the first published Swedish biography on Mussolini.

However, he is also known to have praised Hitler in comments such as: "Today [23 April 1944], we can only pay tribute to Adolf Hitler as the one sent by God to save Europe. And with all the fanaticism that is characteristic of the new Swedish socialism, we shall go to work to crush Judaism, Bolshevism and democracy within Sweden's borders and thereby create the conditions for a new and better socialist order in our motherland. […] For us, the most Swedish among Swedes, there is no alternative but a German victory in this battle of fate. We confess that boldly and without ulterior motives. We have chosen a side."

Nonetheless Engdahl also frequently claimed that he followed neither man, arguing that his ideology was purely Swedish in nature, and as such he claimed his inspirations to be Sven Hedin, Adrian Molin and Rudolf Kjellén.

Engdahl founded his own group, Riksförbundet Det nya Sverige, in 1937. Before long he merged this group into the pro-NS Sveriges Nationella Förbund (National League of Sweden), becoming deputy leader of this organisation. Adopting a policy which he described as nysvenskhet ('new Swedishness') he split from this group in 1941 to lead his own Nysvenska Rörelsen which continued to strongly support the National Socialist.

Before the end of the war his supporters had united in the Svensk Opposition (Swedish Opposition) which also included the supporters of Birger Furugård. The group advocated Swedish entry into World War II on the Axis side and went public with this aim in 1942, but in fact the country stayed neutral.

Post-war activity

After World War II, Engdahl revived Nysvenska Rörelsen, publishing a paper, Vägen Framåt ('The Way Forward'), that concerned itself with attacks on communism and capitalism. Changes in the defamation laws in Sweden however meant that he largely had to eliminate the earlier strident anti-Semitic rhetoric from his writing. Nonetheless his reputation for attacks on the Jews saw him barred from entry into both West Germany and Switzerland. He was one of the contributors of a National Socialist publication, Der Weg, which was published from 1947 in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Engdahl created an escape route for National Socialists from all parts of Europe. This route passed through northern Germany and Denmark, leading to Malmö in Sweden. From there, the fleeing National Socialists were smuggled to various places in southern Sweden and then sent by ship from Gothenburg to South America. Engdahl claimed to have "saved" about 4,000 National Socialists in this way. One of those whom Engdahl assisted was Johann von Leers, who "arrived in Malmö in 1947, and ... got to Buenos Aires, where he edited a paper that became a communications channel between National Socialists in Europe and those who ended up in Latin America".

Engdahl also became a leading figure in the European neo-fascist scene, and was instrumental in setting up the European Social Movement (ESM) in 1951, hosting the meeting in his home base of Malmö. His book Västerlandets Förnyelse, published the same year, was widely read in such circles and was adopted as the chief ideological document of the ESM in 1954. Although this group proved unsuccessful, Engdahl continued to be active in such circles for many years. He presented himself as an electoral candidate in Gothenburg in 1958 and, although unsuccessful, he captured enough votes to deny the Swedish Social Democratic Party the seat.

Engdahl continued to be politically active until well into his old age and was a frequent contributor to the far-right journal Nation Europa. He also served as part of the journal's five man editorial board alongside Hans Oehler, Paul van Tienen, Erik Laerum and Erich Kern. He died in Malmö aged 85.

Ulf Hamacher: Prominent figure in Sveriges Nationella Förbund (1970s) and Founder of the Catholic Order of St. Michael

Ulf Reiner Wilhelm Hamacher, born June 2, 1920 in Stockholm, died March 4, 1993, was a Swedish lawyer and politician, primarily known for his leading position within Sveriges Nationella Förbund during the 1970s and 1980s. Hamacher was also club champion in the Ungsvenska club, founder of the Catholic Order of St. Michael, and driving force in the Pinochet-friendly Swedish-Chilean Society. Hamacher was also active in the far-right international association World Anti-Communist League.

Åke Lindsten: Chairman of Sveriges Nationella Förbund and Secretary of the Swedish-Chilean Society

Åke Lindsten, born June 17, 1921 in Stockholm, died May 5, 1994 in Stockholm, was a Swedish accountant and politician. He was a long-time activist in, among other things, the New Swedish Movement (Nysvenska rörelsen), periodically chairman of Sveriges Nationella Förbund and during the 1970s secretary of the Swedish-Chilean Society. According to some information, in March 1940 Lindsten should have urged Nils Flyg (the leader of the National Socialist Party) to instigate a coup d'état with the help of the Swedish volunteer corps to Finland. In 1978 and 1979, Lindsten represented the Swedish branch of the World Anti-Communist League at the organization's congresses in Washington, D.C. respectively Asunción.

Tobias Hübinette included Lindsten in his list of Swedish volunteers in the Waffen-SS.

John Gustafsson: Member of Parliament (1933-1936)

John Gustafsson, who came from a farming family, was a farmer in Välsnäs in Fagerhult's country municipality, where he also had municipal duties. He was also a member of Kalmar county's southern county council 1931-1934.

He was a Member of Parliament in the second chamber for the Kalmar county constituency 1933-1936. As a candidate for the All-Männa Elmansförbundet, he belonged to the right-wing second chamber group Landmanna-och Borgarepartiet, but when the right-wing broke with the increasingly pro-NS Sweden's National Youth Association (reformed into Sveriges Nationella Förbund), he chose the latter and thereby transferred to the so-called National Group in 1935. He lost his parliamentary mandate in the second chamber election in 1936.

Carl Gösta Jacobsson: Chief Inspector at the Statens Järnvägar (1917), Member of the Mjölby City Council (1931-1937) and Member of Parliament (1933-1936)

Gösta Jacobsson, who was the son of a stint, was a station clerk for the Statens Järnvägar (SJ) in, among other places, Mjölby 1915–1937, was then a station inspector in, among other places, Krylbo and Kiruna, and in 1917 was appointed chief inspector at the Statens Järnvägar. He was a member of the Mjölby city council 1931–1937, the last year as the council's deputy chairman.

He was a Member of Parliament in the second chamber for Östergötland's county constituency 1933–1936. As a candidate for the Allmänna Elmansförbundet, he belonged to the right-wing second chamber group, the Landmanna- och borgarepartiet, but in the break in 1934 between the right-wing and the increasingly pro-NS Sweden's national youth association (reformed into Sveriges Nationella Förbund) he chose the latter and thus transferred to the so-called National group in 1935 .

In the Riksdag, Gösta Jacobsson was, among other things, vice chairman of the fifth temporary committee in 1934, a post he lost when he broke with the right of the second chamber. Also as a national politician, however, he had committee assignments as a member of the third temporary committee in 1935–1936 and deputy in the first temporary committee in 1933–1936.

Gösta Jacobsson mainly devoted himself to administrative policy, but also put forward a series of proposals in the Riksdag with a strong xenophobic or racist character. For example, he motioned for a new immigration law, compulsory teaching of racial biology at educational institutions and special rules for taxation of foreigners' shareholdings in Swedish companies. He is buried at Örgryte new cemetery.

Alf Meyerhöffer: Member of Parliament, Lieutenant Colonel at Jämtland Field Hunter Regiment and Inspector of the Infantry and Cavalry (1947)

Alf Meyerhöffer was the son of Carl Oskar Theodor Meyerhöffer, major at what would later become Boden Fortress. After matriculation at Luleå higher general education institution in 1910, he became a volunteer at the Norrbotten regiment in 1911. After officer's examination in 1913, Meyerhöffer became a second lieutenant at the Norrbotten regiment, in 1917 promoted to lieutenant and in 1928 to captain. He served 1925–1927 as an aspirant at the general staff but then returned to positions at the Norrbotten regiment.

Dissatisfaction with the defense decision in 1925 led Meyerhöffer to get involved politically within Sweden's national youth union (SNU), which functioned as a youth union for the right-wing national organization Allmänna valmansförbundet (AVF). Meyerhöffer was involved in the youth union's radicalization and opposed the policy of compromise pursued by the party at large at this time. In an attempt to stop the split between SNU and AVF, he appointed and was elected in 1933 as a member of the Riksdag in the second chamber in Norrbotten County's constituency and then belonged to the AVF's second chamber group the peasant and bourgeois party. After SNU broke with the Allmänna valmansförbundet in 1934, SNU was reorganized into Sweden's national federation (SNF) and Meyerhöffer subsequently identified himself as a member of the "National group".

The SNU formed a fighting organization based on the National Socialist model, where Meyerhöffer was appointed head of the corps. The organization often appeared in uniform at mass meetings and after the Riksdag introduced a ban on uniforms at gatherings, Meyerhöffer petitioned several times for the ban to be lifted. He lost his seat in the Riksdag in the second chamber election in 1936. Alf Meyerhöffer also held shares in the pro-NS newspaper Dagsposten and in connection with the discovery that it had received support from National Socialist Germany, he announced his resignation from politics.

After his term as member of parliament, Meyerhöffer continued his military career as a major and lieutenant colonel in the Jämtland field hunter regiment. He still enjoyed the confidence of Army Chief Archibald Douglas and eventually became a colonel. During the years 1942–1948, he was second in command at the Grenadier Regiment (I 3) in Örebro.

A proposal to appoint Meyerhöffer as the army's infantry inspector led to the so-called Meyerhöffer Affair, when the proposal met with opposition from the Social Democratic government. A compromise resulted in Meyerhöffer being appointed Acting Inspector of Infantry in 1947. After threats of resignation from Army Chief Douglas, Meyerhöffer was finally appointed regular Cavalry and Infantry Inspector in 1949. The much more pro-Western Carl August Ehrensvärd had been appointed Army Chief in 1948, which led to the pro-German Meyerhöffer ending up in conflict with his new boss, and he therefore submitted his resignation in 1951. He later became known as a committed defense debater, and was chairman of the Defense Promotion until his death in 1962.

Meyerhöffer became a knight of the Order of the Sword in 1934, commander of the second class of the same order in 1946 and commander of the first class in 1948. He is buried at Lundagård cemetery in Boden.

Elmo Lindholm: Party Chairman for Sveriges Nationella Förbund (1934-1940)

Elmo Lindholm was the son of public school teacher Anders Lindholm and Nilla, née Ohlsson. He became a master of philosophy in Latin, Greek and history in 1921, a licentiate in philosophy in 1927 and a doctor of philosophy in 1931, all at Lund University. During his studies, Lindholm was active in the national student club in Lund, and participated as a writer in Nationell tidskrift, Det nya Sverige and Svensk tidskrift. After his doctorate, he was employed as a docent in Latin language and literature there 1931–35. He was then a lecturer at the Higher General Education Agency for Girls in Örebro 1935–1939 and at Katedralskolan in Lund 1939–64.

In 1932, Lindholm was elected chairman of Sweden's national youth association (SNU), then the youth association of the All-Männa Elmansförbundet (now the Moderates). Lindholm was strongly influenced by conservative and nationalist thinkers, such as Rudolf Kjellén in Sweden and Charles Maurras in France, and in their spirit was anti-democratic, corporatist and traditionalist. Under his leadership, the youth union developed in a conservative, authoritarian and nationalist direction, with inspiration from the National Socialist and Fascist movements in Europe. They also formed a uniformed "fighting organization", under the leadership of Alf Meyerhöffer.

The union's development under Lindholm contributed to getting into a difficult situation in its relationship with the parent party, and especially with its more liberal phalanx, represented by Eli Heckscher. In 1934, the youth association was detached and formed a new party, with the Allmänna valmansförbundet competing, under the name Sveriges Nationella Förbund (SNF). As its own party, SNF continued in the direction taken, and in 1938 a party program was adopted which named the union as corporative, neo-Swedish, radical, nationalist and socialist. It also became increasingly clear to orient itself in the direction of National Socialism and National Socialist Germany, which became a heavy burden for the party after the outbreak of the Second World War. Lindholm resigned as chairman in 1940 and was succeeded by businessman Sven-Erik Sandström in Uppsala.

From 1930, Elmo Lindholm was married to Karin Larsson (1901–). Together they had two children: daughter Inga-Karin (b. 1931) and son Anders (b. 1933).

Sveriges Nationella Förbund

Sveriges Nationalella Förbund (SNF) was a right-wing radical political organization in Sweden that was founded in 1915. The organization, originally formed as a youth association for the Right Party, over time developed in an increasingly pro-NS direction and periodically cooperated with National Socialist groups. SNF also published the pro-German daily Dagsposten, which after 1950 was continued by a political weekly called Fria Ord.

• Per Engdahl
• Elmo Lindholm
• Alf Meyerhöffer
• Carl Gösta Jacobsson
• Åke Lindsten
• John Gustafsson
• Ulf Hamacher

Sveriges Nationella Ungdomsförbund