SwedenThe following is a paper I wrote in 1995 while studying history at UC Santa Barbara. If you need any reference information regarding this paper, I would be happy to provide it for you.

 

Swedish Neutrality During the Second World War

When the Second World War broke out in September of 1939, the fate of Sweden was far from clear when compared to those nations that were immediately enveloped in the nightmare of the European war. Sweden was not only set apart from the European conflict due to its geographical location, its policy of strict neutrality enabled the country to separate itself from the continental politics that helped create the war. It is erroneous to assume that Sweden could simply proclaim a policy of neutrality in order to stay out of the European conflict, since several other factors contributed to the success of neutrality, factors that were often out of the control of Swedish politicians and diplomats. The fact that only five nations were capable of sustaining a policy of neutrality throughout the entire war, as compared to the twenty nations that declared such a policy in September of 1939, demonstrated the extremely delicate balance that a nation had to deal with in order to avoid being dragged into the European war. For Sweden, a long legacy of neutrality in international diplomacy, a strong military buildup, and the fate of events far beyond Swedish borders all served as factors in Sweden’s long and winding road to success in its policy of neutrality during the Second World War. These were not the definitive factors that decided the fate of Sweden during the war, but they were primary factors that helped lead to its ultimate success.

The 1930’s marked a new period when Sweden’s long-standing policy of neutrality was severely tested on numerous occasions, most of which came from a strongly rejuvenated nationalistic Germany. Since the founding of the League of Nations in 1919 and up until the year 1935, Sweden had been a strong supporter of the League and most of its energy on the international stage had been put into its preservation. However, the Anglo-German Naval Agreement (AGNA) of 1935, concluded between England and Germany, seriously challenged the independence of Sweden and its long-standing policy of peaceful neutrality. Signed on June 18, the agreement was “the most startling event of 1935″. Despite provisions in the Treaty of Versailles, the AGNA allowed Germany to increase the size of its navy to one-third the size of the British navy. At the same time, Britain agreed to withdraw its navy from the Baltic Sea completely, making Germany the dominant power in the Baltic, making itself a potential threat to Sweden and the other Baltic countries during a time of war as well as in peacetime. Hitler himself was privately ecstatic at the agreement saying, “Great Britain has in fact renounced her naval influence in the Baltic, a bottle that we Germans can close. The English cannot exercise any control there. We are the masters of the Baltic.” Even the Times, in London reported that the, “…German Fleet will now be in unchallenged control of the Baltic. Every new unit added to the German fleet makes Sweden’s (and the rest of the Baltic nations) position so much worse…Even before 1914 our position was better, as then the Russian and German fleets about balanced.” The AGNA made it easier for the German navy to control a major portion of the sea traffic traveling in and out of the Baltic, including sea traffic traveling through the Gulf of Bothnia. It was from the Gulf of Bothnia and the Swedish port of Lulea where a majority of Germany’s iron-ore imports were originating from. With fifty percent of Germany’s iron-ore imports coming from Sweden, iron-ore was of major importance to Germany, especially for the German military’s attempts at rebuilding its war arsenal. Admiral Raeder, head of the German navy, said himself that it would be “utterly impossible to make war should the navy not be able to secure the supplies of iron-ore from Sweden.” By controlling the Baltic, as Gunnar Hagglof has stated, “All the iron-ore needed by Germany could be shipped from the harbors of the Baltic.” Of course, at the time of the signing of the AGNA, Denmark had the capability of deciding what ships made their way into and out of the Baltic, but when the Second World War began and Germany invaded Denmark and Norway, it was Germany that gained complete control of the Baltic, since Great Britain had voluntarily withdrawn herself from Baltic waters. It was now truly a ‘bottle’ that the Germans were capable of closing. If the British naval withdrawal from the Baltic had not been included in the AGNA, and had the British navy continued to sail the waters of the Baltic, Germany’s ability at securing the iron-ore shipping routes with Sweden in the Gulf of Bothnia in time of war may have been made more difficult and Germany’s ability to initiate war may not have been possible with such a vital mineral as iron-ore cut off from the German mainland. Britain’s superior navy may have been able to stave off a smaller German naval fleet, but in considering the power of the German Luftwaffe, Britain’s ability at controlling the German navy may have been much more difficult than it would have appeared.

Germany’s expanded power, as granted through the AGNA, posed a serious threat to the independence of nations that bordered on the Baltic, particularly Sweden and the Baltic nations of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. It forced some of those nations to seriously reconsider their traditional policies up to that point, with Sweden being no exception. On April 20, 1936, a poll conducted by the newspaper Nya Daglit Alleganda found that ninety-four to ninety-nine percent of those Swede’s polled felt that Sweden should withdraw from the League of Nations in favor of protecting its independence by rebuilding its military defenses. As the Times stated in 1935, “the days of disarmament were over in Sweden”, and instead Sweden was forced to adhere to a policy of armed neutrality. Germany’s expanded power prompted Sweden to revert to a policy requiring it to improve and enlarge its military defenses. Opposition to this new policy of armed neutrality was weak in that all major parties, such as the Conservatives, Agrarians and People’s Party, supported the government’s position. On a regular basis, beginning in 1936, the Swedish government requested increases in its defense budget to strengthen its military preparedness as the international situation continued to worsen from 1936 onwards. The actual military budget from 1936 to 1939 increased many times over. In 1936, military spending was $37,000,000; 1937, $50,000,000; 1938, $58,575,000; and in 1939 it was at $322,325,000. After the war began itself, military spending peaked in 1942 at $527,575,000 in one year alone. With the increased demand of an expanded military, Swedish industry was required to not only supply the increased demand of domestic products, exacerbated by the German blockade of the North Sea, it also had to meet an increased demand in military armaments for the Swedish government. Before the war, production of armaments did not exceed more than tens of millions of Swedish kroner, but during the war, production exceeded the cost of one billion Swedish kroner ($240,000,000).

Not only was the Swedish government providing money in order to further strengthen its military defenses, the government began calling up conscripts who previously were no longer in training. On May 6, 1938, the Swedish government called up the entire conscript class of 1923, then at the age of 35, for short periods of training. In addition to this, the Swedish Cabinet ordered that one quarter of the 1938 military class be retained for further training. In addition to the expansion of military personnel, Sweden had what was then known as Home Guard Units. The Home Guard was officially passed into law by the Riksdag on May 31, 1940, after the beginning of the war, but the military had formed these groups before it was passed into law. Home Guard Units were groups of usually eight to fifteen men that served as defense units in a time of war, located in towns and in both private and public factories, all throughout Sweden. Members of these small units usually consisted of former professional military men who were equipped with rifles, machine guns, ammunition, medicine, special clothing (uniforms), and had the option of buying additional materials such as skis, sweaters and marching boots. An additional group, called the “Lotta” corps, helped with additional tasks that the Home Unit was unable to perform themselves. The “Lotta” corps helped provide the home unit with additional items such as socks, scarves and gloves as well as performing all administrative work that the unit could not afford to do themselves. In a time of war, in case the Home Guard was unable to utilize any local hospitals for their use, the Swedish Red Cross was prepared to set up first aid stations to help aid the Home Guard.

By arming itself, the government felt that it was necessary to articulate and enforce its policy of neutrality. Prime Minister Per Albin Hansson stated shortly before the Second World War began that, “Friendly with all other nations and strongly linked to our neighbors, we look on no one as our enemy. There is no place in the thoughts of our people for aggression against any other country, and we note with gratitude assurances from others that they have no wish to disturb our peace, our freedom, or our independence. The strengthening of our defense preparations serves merely to underline our fixed determination to keep our country outside the conflicts among others and, during such conflicts, to safeguard the existence of our people.” Other members of the Swedish government expressed the same sentiment. Georg Homin, a captain in the General Staff stated that, “without a defensive force we cannot follow any policy of our own, our declarations become merely empty words, and we leave the country’s fate to chance or to the decision of others. With a defense as strong as Swedish conditions allow we secure for ourselves the basis of a continued independent Swedish policy.”

When war broke out in September of 1939, the Swedish government adhered to its policy of strict neutrality, attempting to stay out of any conflict on the European continent. However, it was very clear that the Swedish public and some members of the government itself felt very strongly that it was wise to abandon its prudent policy of strict neutrality and instead take bolder steps to help those nations in trouble, particularly Finland. Sweden, it was felt, had to fulfill a moral obligation. Sweden’s interest in Finland lied in the fact that Sweden ruled Finland for several hundred years, only to lose control of the country in 1809. When the Soviet Union attacked Finland in 1939, an overwhelming number of Swede’s favored some sort of involvement in the conflict, both on a humanitarian and a military basis. Despite the government’s policy of strict neutrality, as many as 20,000 Swedes voluntarily went to Finland to help the Finns defend their homeland against the advancing Soviet army. The Swedish government did send food, clothing, medicine and a very small amount of weapons to aid the Finns at the beginning of the war, but held back any official military involvement.

The public’s sentiments were widely published in the Swedish press, causing a large amount of protest from the German government and prompting the Swedish government to censor areas of the press on a limited basis. In Sweden, the press fell under the control of several councils, despite the claim that ‘the Swedish press was free.’ The Government War Information Board regulated what military information was released and what information remained secret. The Press Council served as a “promotion of good relations between the press and the public authorities and to serve as an instrument of self-discipline for the press.” The Press Council issued warnings, public or confidential, to those who abused the freedom of the press. To say that Sweden had a truly free press was somewhat of a false statement. Sweden was concerned that its neutral policy might run the risk of being unbalanced should the Swedish press be too vocal in its opinions. Both the Press Council and the Information Board issued comments such as “As far as the material received permits, attempts should be made not to give prominence to the reports of one side at the expense of the other”, or “headlines, whether on the billboards or in the newspapers, should be worded in such a way as to avoid favoring one side or the other”, and finally, “Editorials and surveys as well as articles discussing military events or the military situation, should be strictly objective…”.

The politician who stood as the biggest thorn in the side of the government was the Swedish Foreign Minister, Rickard Sandler (1932-36, 1936-39). Sandler strongly opposed the government’s policy of strict neutrality, feeling it necessary that the government relax its stringent policy. Sandler expressed a desire to defend the Aland Islands from either German or Soviet control, by mining the area around the islands in conjunction with the Finnish government.

The Aland Islands are of extreme strategic importance in the Baltic. Lying at the base of the Gulf of Bothnia, the Aland Islands are situated along all the sea traffic that comes in and out of the Gulf, and is within strategic range of Sweden, Finland and the Baltic states to the east. Prior to 1809, Sweden controlled the Aland Islands, but was forced to give up all control of the islands, along with Finland, in the Peace of Fredrickshamn on September 17, 1809, to Russia, despite that ninety percent of the island’s inhabitants were Swedish. In the Treaty of Paris of April 18, 1856, Russia was required to withhold the construction of any new fortifications on the island, which Russia obeyed, despite unsuccessfully attempting to change the status of the islands in 1908. In 1914, however, the Russian government turned the islands into a submarine base for British and Russian submarines during the First World War. In December of 1917, the Finnish government proclaimed that Finland was a sovereign state and a dispute over whether the islands belonged to Sweden or Finland ensued. In 1921, despite the fact that ninety percent of the islands population was Swedish, and that they expressed a desire of being incorporated into Sweden, the League of Nations granted the Aland Islands to Finnish control. Despite Sweden’s grievances over losing control of the islands to Finland in 1921, all difficulties in relations between Sweden and Finland were resolved by the mid-1930’s. The fear of the Aland islands falling under the influence of Germany or Soviet Union was very real, and it is why Sandler proposed defending the status of the islands.

However, the Swedish government opposed Sandler’s proposal, in that it was felt that this would set a precedent for further moves, moves that might provoke an invasion from either Germany, the Soviet Union or both. When a new coalition was formed to represent Sweden’s policy of neutrality, in light of the Russian-Finnish War, Sandler was dropped from the new lineup of ministers. It was at first believed that the Swedish government dropped Sandler due to his outspoken comments on the government’s policies, and the German Press’ allegations that Sandler was pro-British. Instead it was Sandler who requested permission to retire from the Swedish cabinet, because the government did not represent Sandler’s anti-neutral views.

A vital factor in Sweden’s relations with the great powers, particularly those with Germany and Great Britain, was that of trade. Prior to the war, Sweden had important trade routes with both Germany and Great Britain and the outbreak of war in September of 1939 obviously threatened those trade routes. If Sweden had showed any preference to either side in the war, such leanings would have threatened its policy of neutrality and possibly its independence as well. Maintaining such trade routes with the great powers was not only important in a political sense, but also an economic one as well. In 1938 for example, twenty-four percent of Sweden’s total exports went to Great Britain, with another eighteen percent of its exports going to Germany that same year. When the Second World War began, trade between both countries was greatly affected. At the beginning of the war, agreements were signed between Sweden and the two great powers in order to sustain these vital trade routes. However, when Germany invaded Denmark and Norway in April of 1940, coupled with a German blockade of the North Sea, Sweden’s trade with the west was cut by a total of seventy percent. Trade with Germany, within the blockade, increased with thirty-seven percent of Sweden’s exports going to Germany.

For Germany, the import of Swedish iron-ore was of extreme importance in its attempts to rebuild its military strength, despite the stipulations presented in the Treaty of Versailles. Prior to the Second World War, Germany was able to supply itself with only a quarter of its total iron-ore consumption per year, with the rest being imported from other countries. Sweden provided up to almost sixty percent of the iron-ore that was imported into Germany. Without the sixty percent of iron-ore imports coming from Sweden, Germany might possibly have not been capable of initiating the Second World War. In 1940, iron-ore imports from Sweden as well as Norway constituted 11,550,000 of the 15,000,000 tons Germany consumed that year. With the absence of Britain in the Baltic due to the Anglo-German Naval agreement, Germany was capable of controlling the vital trade routes between Sweden and Germany. The AGNA also made it difficult for Sweden to avoid the wishes of Germany, since its navy was capable of virtually controlling most of the Baltic.

The primary ports where Swedish iron-ore originated from were from the town of Narvik in the northern region of Norway on the North Sea and Lulea in Sweden on the Gulf of Bothnia. During the war, Britain was effective in cutting off the port city of Narvik in Norwegian waters, by mining large areas of the North Sea. But since the AGNA aided in preventing the British from effectively entering and dominating the Baltic sea in naval affairs, iron-ore continued to flow into Germany from the port city of Lulea. Had Sweden stopped providing Germany with its iron-ore on its own accord, Sweden would have run the risk of a German invasion. It was known in government circles in Sweden that Germany had been considering an invasion of Sweden, but the idea was shelved in light of the fact that Sweden was well armed, and a German invasion of the country may have proved difficult and impractical.

The fate of the Swedish nation largely rested upon the outcomes of distant battles and the policies of distant governments, events outside the control of Swedish politicians and diplomats. Had certain battles or policies during the war been different, Sweden’s ability at attaining a successful policy of neutrality may very well have not succeeded. Germany’s attack and occupation of both Norway and Denmark, coupled with the fact that a Soviet puppet government was occupying Finland, made Sweden’s position extremely tenuous, in that countries on both sides of the European conflict were poised on Sweden’s borders and could potentially strike at any moment. As previously mentioned, Germany had considered a Swedish invasion, and with Germany occupying both Norway and Denmark, Germany’s ability at attacking Sweden was less difficult than just a few months before. Sweden was forced to act upon the whims and orders of a belligerent Germany.

There was much speculation as to whether the Allies would consider an invasion of the European continent by way of Scandinavia and not through Normandy. Hitler was very much concerned with such a prospect and was almost convinced that the Allies would enter Europe by way of Norway. In Hitler’s letter to Sweden’s King Gustaf, dated April 24, 1940, Hitler says, “I have no doubt that our action(the invasion of Norway), which in the last moment forestalled the execution of the Allied plan and which under all circumstances will stop France and England from getting a foothold in Scandinavia, will have consequences which will be of blessing to the Scandinavian peoples.” Had such an Allied invasion of Norway occurred, in order to gain a foothold in Scandinavia and into the European continent itself, Sweden would have undoubtedly been affected. Sweden was considered to be situated in a prime location for air bases for allied planes to make bombing runs into the German heartland. Even towards the end of the war, when German capitulation seemed imminent, the Allies considered an invasion of Sweden, due in large part to Sweden’s strategic location in relation to Germany.

From 1943 onward, when Germany began to meet with a greater amount of misfortune after its losses at Stalingrad and elsewhere, Germany was forced more into a defensive position, while Allied forces met with greater successes on the battlefield, such as the battle in North Africa. Such a position allowed other nations, such as Sweden, to be more decisive in its own policies and actions. Prior to 1943, Sweden’s policy of neutrality was largely under the influence of German politics and the course of events that involved Germany, and it has been said that of the neutral nations in Europe during the war, Switzerland and Portugal were the only nations that were completely neutral at that time. Following August and September of 1943, Sweden was able to stiffen to German demands and instead soften its stance to Allied pressure. However, despite Germany’s defensive posture, Sweden was in constant fear that `the whole course of events suggested that the unexpected might happen,’ an attitude that was sustained until the very end of the war. With Germany’s weakening position came stronger demands from the Allies. The Allies pushed for Sweden to abandon its trade with Germany, and to stop all German troop transit over Swedish soil. Sweden initially turned down such requests, but over time Sweden gradually gave in to such demands.

Sweden’s success at neutrality was largely based upon the whims and outcomes of events abroad, be they of battles or the policies of foreign governments. Had the war continued for a longer period of time, Germany or the Allies may have had no choice but to invade Sweden in order to thwart enemy advances. Had that happened, Sweden’s policy of neutrality would have been a thing of the past. If Germany had been able to sustain its successes on the battlefield beyond 1943, and been capable at bringing the war to an end favorable to its own terms, Sweden would have had no choice but to join the new order of Europe, a new order under the domination of Nazi Germany. Germany would not have allowed a country to exist on the sidelines in the new order of Europe, and Sweden would have had to abandon its policy of neutrality. However, German domination of Europe did not succeed and Sweden was left on its own. Sweden’s ability at maintaining its policy of neutrality until the war’s end was due in large part to luck, since events out of its control played the largest part in the fate Sweden’s policy of neutrality.

In retrospect, one might ask why Sweden’s situation during the Second World War deserves intensive study. Of course, against the vast panorama of the Second World War and the plights of such nations as France and England, Sweden warrants no more than a footnote in the annals of World War Two history. However, there are many elements in Sweden’s history during the period that had a decisive outcome on the war itself. Swedish iron-ore was of prime importance to Germany’s capability at engaging in war, and had such a vital source as iron-ore been cut off from Germany, the war may have not been as long and severe, and there possibly may have been no war at all. Of course, the Allies did not pass over such an important fact during the war itself, but in the study of World War Two history, such vital pieces of information are most often overlooked.

Sweden owes a large amount of its success in its policy of neutrality to luck. The course of events taking place in Europe played the deciding factors of Sweden’s involvement in the war, and had any of those events changed, Sweden’s fate may have been completely different. However, Sweden should be given credit, in that Sweden was able to move along with the events occurring all around its borders. Prime Minister Hansson and the government were able to maneuver the country effectively through the course of the war, capable of avoiding the devastating losses and destruction that a war might bring upon Sweden, protecting themselves from the conflicts of governments beyond their own borders.