The Historians, an addendum

I picked up The Historians because I only had a vague impression of the contours of Swedish neutrality, and wanted to know more. In my post on the book, I mainly detailed Cecilia Ekbäck’s vision of how neutrality worked, via her characters and their connections and opinions. I also read John Gilmour's history of the war era in Sweden, to understand the context in greater depth.

My impression now is that Sweden’s response to the crises of the 1930s was similar to that of the U.S. and the New Deal, in that the government was left-leaning, pro-worker, and explicitly Keynesian. In this way, they successfully navigated the economic and political shoals that endangered democracy in other countries. Though a near neighbor to Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, Sweden followed neither as a political example, maintaining its independence from each. The Social Democrats who had steered this middle course in the Swedish parliament remained in power throughout the war—with the support of other parties in the form of a unity cabinet. The Swedish right exerted pressure to help Finland in its struggles with Russia, but were not in control of the government and could only push so far. Having agreed to the basic principle of neutrality as a kind of common denominator for the unity cabinet, there was always going to be a limit to that support. Once Germany invaded Norway, a similar pressure came to bear from the opposite direction, to help the Norwegian government in exile and the Norwegian resistance. As Ekbäck suggests in the novel through the medium of the university friend group, Sweden’s ties to the other Nordic countries were stronger than its ties to Germany or the Allies. In practice, those ties pulled in different directions during the war and therefore reinforced the policy of neutrality.

The wartime Swedish foreign minister, Christian Günther, shows up as a character in The Historians. A main part of the plot is that Günther’s (fictional) secretary, Jens Regnell, helps solve the murder of the Uppsala student, Britta Hallberg, who is investigating the State Institute of Racial Biology. Günther’s role is more ambiguous, as it remains uncertain whether he is helping or hindering the investigation. This indeterminate status mirrors his real life political demeanor. John Gilmour describes Günther as a skilled practitioner of realpolitik, who was cold-blooded and reserved enough to keep the Great Powers guessing about Sweden’s goals and intentions. Apparently he operated as a figurehead for a larger government strategy of avoidance. The Swedish parliament as a whole engaged in little debate during the war, preferring to have their party leaders bring up issues behind closed doors in cabinet meetings. The unity cabinet worked to give the combatant countries as little purchase on Swedish divisions as they could.

The shape of Swedish neutrality generally followed the German prospects in the war. In 1940, the Germans threatened to seize iron ore shipments by force if necessary. Swedish leaders feared they would invade, so made various concessions that impinged on their headline neutrality, such as allowing German troop movements on Swedish rail. Foreign diplomats in Sweden thought invasion was likely enough after the fall of Denmark and Norway that they started burning official papers. Later, as German conflict with Russia loomed, Germany increased pressure on Sweden to control its press, which was critical of German actions. Germany went so far as to interrupt food supplies to Sweden to make the country fall in line with German war aims. Germany demanded, for instance, that the Swedish navy lay mines in the Baltic Sea, to thwart the Russians—an action the navy did end up taking.

Sweden hedged its bets throughout, maintaining ties with the Allies even as they came under the German sphere of influence. As German fortunes in the war reversed in late 1942 and into 1943, the Allies began to demand an end to Swedish concessions to Germany, offering the carrot of increased fuel supplies in addition to the stick of future punishment for collaboration. As the likelihood of German defeat increased, the Swedish government sent more diplomats to London and Washington, strengthening relations with the presumptive victors.

The main effect of being in Germany’s shadow in the early part of the war was a muting of official and public opinion. Once Germany’s power began to break, Swedish newspapers became more openly critical of German policy in Norway and Denmark—e.g., on the issue of forced labor. With greater press criticism, public condemnation of Germany became sharper and more widespread. It was as if the country had been under a glass dome that lifted after Stalingrad.

This is not to say that German ideology never gained popularity in Sweden. Presumably the microcosm of Ekbäck’s group of university friends captured the progression: apart from the hardcore ideologue among them, they flirted with Nazi or racist ideas in their youth, but became disenchanted by reality of conquest—a distaste growing into horror as they discovered the details of killings and experiments.

The only question I had after finishing the fictional and historical accounts of Swedish wartime neutrality was the extent of Sweden’s own racist campaign against the Sámi. I may revisit that question in a later essay.