How Neutral Is Sweden?

by SIGNE TOKSVIG

1

SURE I know we’re neutral,” an Irishman said. “What I want to know is, who re we neutral against?”

No Swede would have to ask that question. His convictions would tell him the answer; and whether they did or not, his press, radio, religious and educational leaders, even his government from its rope over the abyss, have all directly or indirectly told him that Sweden is neutral on the right side. This is not always understood in the United States. Some people express doubts as to where Sweden stands.

The Axis press has no doubts. Recent quotes from Germany about the Swedes call them “vultures of neutrality, tired gourmands, and shopkeeper souls,” while the Italians speak of them as “selfish anti-Europeans.”

The trouble lies in the word “neutrality.” Even if a country is neutral “on the right side,” its position requires a lot of explaining before belligerents can sympathize with it, as the United States found out in the period before Pearl Harbor. The Swedes are very bad at explaining themselves. The Danes don’t mind alluding to their good qualities; the Norwegians are able to define their stern virtues; but ask a Swede where he stands and he is likely to turn as still as the wooden horses carved in Dalecarlia. At most he’ll mutter that Sweden will fight for its freedom against all comers. The puzzling Swedish mixture of slow obstinacy and hot temper takes the outward form of laconic pride. The Swedes think one ought to know that people with their love of democratic liberty could not possibly be “pro-German.”

Their attitude is also due in part to provincialism. The Swedes are only six and a hall million people in a country the size of California. They forget that the world does not always remember, or even know, how few they are. If it did, it might have a better understanding of Sweden’s conduct in this war.

Look at recent Swedish history and the country’s “concessions” with these facts in mind. During the Finno-Russian War of 1939-1940 the anti-Nazi world, hypnotized by the fact that Sweden is a sovereign nation with all the organs and paraphernalia of independence, urged Sweden to take on both Germany (eighty million people) and Russia (a hundred and ninety million people). Both Norway and Sweden were then vituperatively blamed for refusing passage to Allied troops on a highly problematic expedition. Had these troops been able to land and to receive supplies, the result would have been the same as it was later in less remote Norway: Sweden would have been overrun by the Nazis, who were eager for the chance. What Sweden did do for Finland was to strip itself of so much food, clothes, and war materiel that its action, as the New York Times said, “ought to be written in letters of gold. ... It would be equivalent to a gift of more than twenty-five hundred million dollars from the people of the United States.”

Sweden was therefore in a bad way as to stores and war matériel when the attack came on Norway anti Denmark in April, 1940. Yet, expecting to be attacked, she mobilized. Germany did not attack, probably because Russia would then have objected, and the Nazis felt they had Sweden in a trap and could devour her at leisure. Still, during the first month after April 9, forty-five encroaching German aircraft were shot down over Sweden by what remained of the formidable Bofors guns. The number downed has increased considerably since then, but the figures are not published. The Swedes were not exactly out to curry favor with the seemingly invincible conquerors.

Yet Sweden — six and a half million people — was blamed because it made a concession to Germany, then in the flush of having knocked out Holland, Belgium, and France, and hence with a practically “unemployed” army. When military resistance in Norway itself ceased, the Swedish government did permit German “ leave-trains ” to pass through Sweden from Norway to Germany and back again. Only unarmed German soldiers, carefully checked and sealed up in the wagons by Argus-eyed Swedes, were allowed so to pass, and only the same number of soldiers was allowed to return. How the Swedish people felt about even this is shown by the fact that when some wagons containing Swedish soldiers were to be attached, for convenience, to one of these leave-trains, the Swedish soldiers refused to allow it. And when German residents in Gothenburg attempted to give cigarettes to the German soldiers in a train, an angry Swedish crowd prevented it.

Some German medical matériel, however, has been allowed passage by the Swedish government, and shortly after the German attack on Russia, when Finland had joined Germany, one German division was allowed a once-for-all passage across Sweden from Norway to Finland. This was at the request of Finland as well as of Germany, and here it must be remembered that both Finland and Norway are like next of kin to Sweden, and it was feared that Finland would be overrun by Russia. But Sweden now limits her assistance to Finland to feeding Finnish children and to rendering other forms of humanitarian aid, and though Swedish volunteers in the Finno-Russian War of 19391940 numbered ten thousand, there are only about a thousand in the present conflict. The Swedes frankly deplore Finland’s present company.

The passage of that one German division (it was later nearly annihilated by the Russians) was the second and last of the concessions made by the Swedes to the Nazis, and it was severely criticized by the majority of the people. Many times the Germans have demanded passage for more troops, only to be firmly refused, in spite of such pressure as only Nazis bring to bear on small nations. The British, who made a formal protest about the leave-trains, made only a verbal one about the division, and these are the only protests they have made. The Germans make formal protests about one thing or another almost every day.

But some people may ask: How about Swedish trade with Germany? And how about the Swedish ore?

At the outbreak of the war, Sweden arranged trade treaties with both Britain and Germany, in which both agreed that it was fair for the Swedes to supply each belligerent with an amount of iron ore based on the average supplied in the three years preceding the war. After the Germans had seized Norway and established their Skagerrak blockade, the British were unable to get their share of the ore; nor could the usual high-grade steel go to the United States; but in spite of high pressure from Germany, the Swedish government has stubbornly refused to sell the Nazis the English and American shares of the ore. Moreover, the Germans are not getting so much as they did, as is shown by the drop in profits of the Lapland mines companies — a drop of 42 per cent in 1941 as compared with the pre-war year. Probably this decrease is chiefly due to Germany’s seizure of the Lorraine iron mines, which renders her less dependent on Sweden.

Sweden was always a good customer for Germany’s manufactured articles. Much of the ore she sent to Germany came back in this form. When Germany in 1942 asked for credit on iron ore, iron, and steel, the Swedish government refused it.

But — should Sweden sell anything to Germany at all?

Should the Swedes live?

The blockade has closed 70 per cent of Sweden’s export markets. Although a few exchange ships carry on a minimal trade with the American continent, Sweden now has practically no trade except with Germany; hence the value of goods exchanged with Germany has doubled. In any country this fact might cause certain German sympathies in some of the businessmen who profit by it, but the Swedish industrialists know of the subordinate place to which leading Nazi economists have assigned Sweden in the New Order. She is, for instance, to carry on her trade from German ports, and, as modern Sweden derives her wealth largely from overseas trade carried in her own ships, all except a few shortsighted businessmen fear a Germany victory for practical reasons also. Because of the blockade, Sweden is now wholly dependent on Germany for coal and coke, without which it can neither run its industries and defense industries nor keep from freezing in winters 40° below zero. In short, German need for iron ore and forestry products balances Sweden’s need for coal and coke. But Sweden refuses to sell food or finished war materiel to Germany. German residents in Sweden were not allowed to send even the woolens they had collected to Germany.

2

Soon after the fall of France, Germany having had no excuse to hurl some of its unemployed army at Sweden, the Nazis invited several Swedish journalists and army officers to tour the battlefields, the purpose being, of course, to impress and terrorize them. The Swedes, however, wore their wooden expressions, looking at everything in silence, while the Nazis, driven to beg for their candy, kept asking, “Can’t you see now that we’ve won the war?” At last the big, slow-spoken representative of a Swedish government party newspaper said: “I can see that you’ve won a lot of victories, but I can’t see that you ve won the war. If you have, why don’t you dictate a victory peace?”

There was not much more joy to be gained from the Swedish officers. Being shown the Maginot Line did not make them feel the hopelessness of defense; their comment afterwards was that, since it was not much use to have a Maginot Line, they would fight from their forests and mountains.

The haphazard guerrilla warfare which such ringing words might elsewhere imply is not in the Swedish character. With all its remarkable power for thorough organization, the nation had already by that time set about preparing itself for effective militarism — a complete reversal of its former attitude, but all parties agreed on the necessity. The time gained by “concessions” was well utilized. Before 1936, the average annual allotment for defense was about 31 million dollars. In the budget for 1942-1943, passed by large majorities in the Riksdag, defense is allowed about 675 million dollars. For each of the past two years, defense has been granted some 600 million dollars. The whole Swedish state income for 1941-1942 was around 520 million dollars, and this was a record figure, the result of taxing everything in sight out of sight. The deficit has to be made up by loans. For the three national loans in the war years the Swedes have subscribed about 530 million dollars.

Before the war Sweden had a citizen army in which all able-bodied men had to serve for various training periods. There was a permanent army of only nineteen thousand, really a teaching staff. At present Sweden could raise a little over a million men of military age and some training, about half a million of whom would be line troops, with at least a year’s training, the older men being territorials. They can nearly all ski, and have had much practice in winter maneuvers. They are well outfitted, and are rapidly becoming even better equipped, as Swedish industry, inventiveness, and famous mechanical ability work overtime to supply them. The defense industries are scattered in many small units hidden in vast forests.

The one serious lack has been in the air arm, but home production has been speeded up. The number of planes is a secret, but new types are often announced, the special pride of Sweden being a new dive bomber demonstrated this spring. It is entirely home-designed and built. This anti the Swedish pursuit planes of the Seversky type are said to be the equal of any German or United States aircraft. Pictures have also been released of a new heavy bomber made in Sweden. And the Swedish flyers are second to none.

The Swedish navy has also been modernized and is being added to continually. It is well adapted to the shallow waters and skerries along the 1400-mile coastline, a new type of submarine for use in coastal waters having been invented and built. Naval experts estimate that the Swedish navy could match any other in the Baltic fairly well.

The gasoline reserves are said to be sufficient for a year and a half of war, and Swedish inventors have found ways of making lubricating oils from petroleum shale and from wood stumps. There are stores of some five hundred essential military supplies, hidden away in a thousand places. Furthermore, Sweden can now, by throwing a switch, blow up its mines and the electric power stations supplying the railways that carry the ore, so that many months would pass before they could be utilized again. Its cities are prepared for bombing. In Stockholm one shelter has a bombproof fifty-foot natural rock ceiling. It can hold fifty thousand people and can be used after the war as a car park. The way in which civilian defense and preparedness have been organized could serve as a model.

The Swedish army chief, General Ivar Holmquist, is no doubt right when he says that all the Swedish soldier now lacks is experience in war. “ However, if we are forced to fight, our nerves will be better. We have elite troops. We have no outmoded or outworn matériel. After the last war I was told by French military men that while the soldiers of the AEF might not have been so well trained — an army is not made in so short a time — the Allies were encouraged by the high spirits, the freshness, and the fine equipment of the American troops. I believe the Swedish soldier has, and will show, the same courage in any trying situation.”

What trying situation? Who would cause it? The Swedish Defense Minister gave the answer in a speech this spring: “A situation could arise where a strategical desire could make a belligerent violate our peace.” In March, when he made this statement, the Germans had massed a great number of troops in Denmark near the Swedish coast. They feared then, as they do still, an Allied invasion of the narrow part of Norway, because here alone on the long European west coastline they have not been able, because of the rugged terrain, to stud the country with airdromes. If the Allies held this strip, they could cut off the German troops in the far north and deal with the menace to the convoys bound for Murmansk. There would be no way for the Germans to get troops up to the north, except by going through Sweden. A Nazi attack on the key center of Sweden by parachute troops was planned, the Baltic being too full of ice for transports. Sweden at once sent a hundred thousand well-equipped soldiers to hold maneuvers right at the danger spot, and the Germans showed no further interest in the matter.

3

What about the Nazis within Sweden? Experts in human percentages estimate the genuine Swedish Nazis to be less than one per cent. They comprise the usual crackpots and soreheads. A certain fluctuating percentage, say ten per cent, are waiting on victory to decide their opinions, but the rest are solidly pro-democratic, even if not altogether pro-British. During the last war, there was a circle centering in the late German-born Queen, the so-called “Activists,” who favored Germany. It is chiefly this group which people mean when they speak vaguely of Sweden as being “proGerman”; public opinion about remote countries is prone to lag twenty years behind events. There was also the fear of Russia, which was perhaps the reason why a faction of the Conservative Party was then Germanophile. But all that has emphatically changed; since the democratic reform of 1918 the Swedish people rule the country. George Gibson, vice president of the British Trades Union Congress, interviewed in the United States after a visit to Sweden last winter, said of it: “With a population of less than seven million, there are about one million members in the Federation of Labor. This means that Labor has a very firm grip on the government.”

Organized labor is necessarily anti-Nazi. It is the dominant political group, but it has formed a coalition government with the other parties, and unanimity exists among them as to the defense of “a free nation’s peace.”

Although German Foreign Office circles have lately attacked Sweden as a “new center of Bolshevism,” the Swedes know that the real danger lies in even a small number of Nazis. This summer the government ordered the army to clean house. Defense Minister Per Edvin Sköld spoke out, on August 30, as to what this means: “Since all of our manpower does military service, it is inevitable that some Nazi sympathizers may be in the ranks, but we have knowledge of those whose loyalty is dubious. Their number is infinitely small in relation to the whole, and this applies to the officers as well. There are none in responsible positions.”

Swedish Nazis have never been able to elect a member of the Riksdag; at the last elections in 1940 they did not even try to. Although so few, they have the vociferousness of the tribe, and they attempt to hold meetings in some towns. Almost invariably they get a hot reception. The Trelleborg incident is typical, where nine Nazis set up a platform and began to orate. A crowd of a thousand shouted “Down with the traitors!” rushing the platform. The police rescued the Nazis, but they had to be kept at the police station, guarded by soldiers with machine guns.

A recent visitor to Sweden tells of being at a winter resort where the wife and family of a German official of the German Legation thought they would spend a holiday. They had to leave after a few days, unable to stand the quick emptying of any public room where they tried to sit down.

4

Unfounded rumors circulate in America regarding the Swedish royal family. The truth is that it is one of the active forces of democracy. The King is strictly constitutional and fearless. The scholarly Crown Prince is married to an English princess; he is wholly democratic in outlook. Prince Wilhelm often writes and speaks for Norway. His poem “To Norway” is movingly beautiful. Prince Eugen auctions off his own paintings in aid of Norway.

Norway. The long torture and epic fight of their brother people have moved the Swedes as not even the Finnish struggle did. A few Norwegians, understandably blinded by their agony, have tended to blame the Swedes for not entering the war, but thinking Norwegians realize how much they have benefited by this “neutrality.” In an address to the Norwegian Club of Brooklyn this summer, Mr. J. L. Mowinckel, former premier of Norway, said: “We must admit that, in spite of all emotions, it was an advantage for us too that Sweden stayed neutral.” He described a meeting of all the Swedish trade-unions at which the Norwegian flag, draped with black crepe, was borne forward in tribute to the executed Norwegian leaders. There was a two-minute silence, and “when the President spoke strong words in condemnation of the criminals, the whole of Sweden backed him.”

Mr. Mowinckel said that the Norwegian Legation in Stockholm was Norway’s breathing organ in the world. The great extent of its usefulness could not be revealed, he said, “but the darkness in Norway would have been even greater if we had not had this splendid searchlight system in Stockholm.” He also expressed his gratitude for the generous hospitality of Sweden towards the Norwegian refugees. Sweden, incidentally, still recognizes the rightful Norwegian government in London, while everyone from the King down sent good wishes to King Haakon on his birthday.

Another active assistance to the Allies is the Swedish merchant marine, about half of which is in Allied service — or was. Out of 600,000 tons, only 200,000 remain, the rest having been sunk. It was a Swedish ship, the Stureholm, which alone of all the convoy went back to rescue sixty-five of the officers and crew of the Jervis Bay, after that ship’s historic fight. The captain of the Stureholm, Sven Olander, asked his crew to vote on whether they should return to the danger zone to help “those who had done so much for us,” and got a unanimous “yes.” From a small note in a daily paper one learned some time later that, still sailing for the Allies, the valiant Stureholm had been sunk with all hands. Many Swedish sailors have given their lives, not only in the Swedish merchant navy but in the English, and more especially in the American. There has been hardly a torpedoed ship in the Western Atlantic that has not had at least one Swedish name among those lost.

How is it now in Sweden? With Germany to the south across the narrow Baltic, Nazis in Norway and Denmark to the west and north, Nazis in Finland to the east — do they pipe down, bend low, tread lightly?

A woman who has just returned from a visit to the country gives the best answer: “They stand up to their big hardships with clear eyes and a will to let nothing break them, whatever the cost. I talked to all sorts of people, and they are all the same — uncomplaining, confident, firm in their belief that they are on the right way. Their fighting spirit is their most evident characteristic. And next to that is their loving pity towards all the suffering people of Europe. They are doing much more, especially for the Norwegians and the Finns, than they really ought to, they have so horribly little themselves. I was shocked beyond words at the change in living standards since 1939. Their meat and bread rations are dreadfully small—the people do not get enough; I never had enough! No hot water in that cold winter. Yet everybody’s answer is, ‘ But we can’t complain!’ Everything is endured gladly, willingly, proudly. It made the tears fall to see what I saw and to read what I read. The press! I got frightened several times by reading the newspapers, they are so unflinchingly outspoken, as if they represented the strongest and most independent great power in the world.”

Between January and May, Stockholm apartment houses were allowed only three days of hot water. The bread ration is about seven ounces daily. One egg and six ounces of meat are the weekly allowance of those essentials.

The Swedish press must be mentioned. There is no greater aid to the country’s morale and self-respect. Ninety-five per cent of the population reads a daily paper, and 63 per cent a weekly. Only one afternoon paper, now being boycotted, is rated as proGerman. Typical of hundreds of papers is what a great liberal daily said: “Nothing has meant more for Swedish sense of reality and self-knowledge than the attempt during the past year to force a foreign system on the Norwegians. If people think that the brutality of jailers or the bullets of firing squads will lame the will to resist of the Norwegian patriots, they are just as mistaken as they would be to think that the news of this would throw the Swedes into a state of fear and fatalistic subjection.”

Examples of the courage of the Swedish press would fill several thick books, especially if one were to include the resolutions condemning the Nazis, which are almost daily being passed by Sweden’s many organizations. Remember that the Nazis keep detailed records of the journalists and other people who publicly or even privately oppose them, and when they occupy such a country those are the people who are seized as hostages and put into concentration camps. The Swedes are well aware of it. This knowledge does not throw them into a state of fear or fatalistic subjection; it did not even when prospects looked darkest.

So long as she can maintain her neutrality, Sweden bars the path of the Axis. If she can’t?

“We may have to fight for all that we hold dear,” Sweden’s staunch premier, Per Albin Hansson, said late this summer; “and it we do, I know that our people who love peace will show they love freedom and democracy more.”

How neutral is Sweden?