Nazism in Sweden has been more or less fragmented and unable to form a mass movement since its beginning in the early 1920s.Bojerud, P. 25 Several hundred parties, groups, and associations existed from the movement's founding through the present.Lööw (2004), p. 13 At most, purely Nazi parties in Sweden have collected around 27,000 votes in democratic parliamentary elections. The high point came in the municipal elections of 1934 when the Nazi parties were victorious in over one hundred electoral contests.Lööw (2004), p. 244 As early as January 22, 1932, the Swedish Nazis had their first public meeting with Birger Furugård addressing an audience of 6000 at the Haymarket in Stockholm.
Like their German counterparts, the Swedish Nazis were strongly antisemitic and as early as May, 1945 became early adopters of Holocaust denial.Lööw (2004), p. 108 The Swedish Nazi groups persisted after the war until they were officially dissolved in 1950. During this post-war period, they were more or less completely inactive politically. In 1956, a new Swedish Nazi party, the Nordic Reich Party (NRP), was formed by Göran Assar Oredsson and Vera Oredsson (previously married to Nazi leader Sven-Olov Lindholm). This party brought together the heritage of the older Nazi generations in the 1980s when Swedish neo-Nazism began growing stronger, and they managed to gather some small groups of the new generation of Nazi skinheads. A Swedish white supremacist movement arose during this period, especially among some former criminal motorcycle gang members and younger white power skinhead youths.
Particularly in the 1990s, there was a plethora of neo-Nazi organizations, most infamous being the militant network Vitt Ariskt Motstånd ("VAM") which translates to White Aryan Resistance but was not associated with the US organization bearing the same name. VAM promoted the idea about a race war and gathered young skinheads and neo-Nazi activists in several cities, and their members committed several serious crimes, including arsons, armed bank robberies, weapons and arms thefts against desolate Swedish army and police headquarters, and series of brutal assaults and beatings. Other groups such as the Riksfronten and the party National Socialist Front (NSF) was also founded.
Similar to the movement during WWII, there was tendencies toward fragmentation, disagreements and infighting, which accelerated after the Malexander murders, a 1999 bank robbery and murder of two policemen by a group of militant neo-nazi criminals whose aim was to form a revolutionary underground Nazi organization. It also evolved as a variety of explicitly racist organizations which drew from other sources. The Swedish Resistance Movement was also formed by former VAM leaders. Short-term attempts to create an umbrella organization were discontinued after some time. In the 2000s, the National Socialist Front remained the largest Swedish Nazi organization, gaining around 1400 votes in the parliamentary elections of 2006. It was officially shut down in November 2008, and replaced by (or renamed to) the Party of the Swedes. The largest demonstrations was the annual "Salem march" (Salemmarschen) every December from 2001 to 2011. The first demonstrations attracted 2000 participants, but this number dwindled for each year. The magazine Expo, co-founded by Stieg Larsson, campaigns against "modern" Swedish Nazism and right-wing extremism.
Forerunners The early Nazi movement in Sweden had its roots in various antisemitic organizations formed in the late 1800s.
In the 1920s, Barthold Lundén published the antisemitic populist newspaper Vidi, which was inspired by Mauritz Rydgren's earlier attempts to establish an antisemitic broadsheet in the early 1900s. Vidi ran several campaigns against both Jews and homosexuals. In 1923 Lundén also founded the Swedish Antisemitic Union (Svenska Antisemitiska Föreningen) which remained active until 1931. Many of the drivers of Swedish Nazism emerged from this environment.
First period
The earliest Nazi associations include the National Socialist Freedom League (SNFf) from 1924 to 1926, which preceded the Swedish National Socialist Farmers' and Workers' Party (SNBA). Leaders included the brothers Sigurd, Gunnar, and Birger Furugård.
In 1926, Konrad Hallgren founded the Swedish Fascist People's Party (SFFP) and its paramilitary wing the Sveriges Fascistiska Kamporganisation (SKFO), or the Swedish Fascist Combat Organization. In 1930, Stig Bille lead a splinter group called the New Swedish People's League (NSFF) to split from the primary nazi organizations. On April 1, 1930, the SNBA and SNFP merged as the New Swedish National Socialist League (NNF, later NSFF). The NNF adopted the new name Swedish National Socialist Party (SNSP) one year later led by Sigurd Furugård. This political organization first participated in a general election in 1931, when it garnered 279 votes in the Stockholm City Council Elections.Lööw (2004), p. 16
Furugård's disputes with Sven Olov Lindholm, editor of the party's newspaper, led to the expulsion of Lindholm and his followers on January 13, 1933. These individuals formed the National Socialist Workers' Party (SNAP, later NSAP). The two parties were commonly referred to by their leaders as "Furugårdists" or "Lindholmists". On October 5, 1933, ten followers of Furugård stormed Lindholm's headquarters and stole cash and membership lists and were only stopped by police intervention. The fight between the two parties continued with periodic violence through the parliamentary elections of 1936 where the split caused the parties to fail miserably. Furugård was so discouraged he closed down operations of his SNSP. The NSAP saw further disappointments and a split of the left wing of the party.
As time went on, Per Engdahl (1909–1994) became a prominent figure in the Swedish Nazi movement. After his studies at Uppsala University, Engdahl joined the SKFO in 1928 but left for Bille's new NSFF. In 1930 he founded his own group, the National Association for the New Sweden (RDNS), which merged with Elmo Lindholm's National League of Sweden (SNF) in 1937.
The many divisions in the Nazi movement caused a power struggle. One attempt to bring unity was the National Socialist Bloc (NSB) formed in 1933 under the leadership of colonel Martin Ekström, but that short-lived effort brought little success. The NSB did, however, manage to unify a number of small cult-like groups such as the Swedish National Socialist Coalition and the National Socialist League, but it failed when it was unable to attract the SNSP or NSAP. The members were mostly from the upper class, and many were officers in the military. Two founders included Colonel Archibald Douglas and general major Rickman von der Lancken.
The Rightist Party's (now the Moderate Party) youth league had been impressed by Hitler's successes in Germany, and it decided to adopt paramilitary practices on Hitler's model. The youth league broke with the Rightist Party and formed the SNU (Swedish national youth league), later renamed the National League of Sweden (SNF). Three right-wing politicians who joined the SNF were elected to parliament in 1932. One of these was major Alf Meyerhöffer. All the seats were lost in the 1936 election.
In 1938, parts of the Swedish Nazi movement broke with Hitler. Lindholm's NSAP changed its name to the Swedish Socialist Coalition (SSS) and replaced its swastika with a bundle of wheat (Vasakärven). Other Swedish Nazis, however, maintained their loyalty to Hitler and the Germans and viewed Lindholm as a traitor.
Wartime Sweden maintained a position of ostensible neutrality during the Second World War; in spite of that, however, it acted as a major supplier of raw materials for Hitler's military, provided routes for the transportation of soldiers and materials including through Luleå, Gävle, Sundsvall and Härnösand, laundered the gold confiscated from Holocaust victims, and often failed to provide adequate asylum for refugees including the near-completely exterminated Norwegian Jews. Some Swedes even volunteered with the Waffen SS. As in other wartime neutral European countries such as Ireland and Switzerland, the neutrality policy draws continued debate.
In 1941, Engdahl once again broke with his organization to find his own party, the Swedish Opposition (SO). Its main concern was anti-communism. Engdahl opposed all communism in the building of Swedish society, and printed 60,000 copies of an anti-communist brochure. Although Engdahl's new party expressed its admiration for Hitler and Nazi Germany on many occasions, the SO was not a Nazi or fascist party in a formal sense. Engdahl highlighted the differences between his party and National Socialism, particularly on Swedes united as a blood group rather than led by a dictatorship. As the war continued, the SO's sympathy with Hitler continued. On April 20, 1944, Engdahl wrote on the occasion of Hitler's 55th birthday, "words are too poor to express what we owe this man, who is a symbol of the best of what the world has produced. We can only celebrate him as the god-sent rescuer of Europe."Lööw, (2004), 50
When the war broke out, the former Youth League received a boost. The SNF's activities increased and membership soared. Its vogue proved short-lived, and opposition increased. Demonstrators showed up to its meetings and fighting was common. After a meeting in Uppsala on May 4, 1945, the police were unable to hold the crowds apart and rioting broke out.Lööw, 2004, 67
Lindholm's SSS had already distanced itself from Nazi Germany when the war broke out. Lindholm visited Germany during his honeymoon in July/August 1939 meeting Heinrich Himmler among others. He maintained some contact with Himmler throughout the war. From the German perspective, the SSS was the most organized National Socialist party in Sweden, even though there were those in the party who disapproved of Lindholm's personal attitude toward Germany.Lööw (2004) 94-95 After the German occupation of Norway and Denmark as "Jew depending western powers" Germany fell in the party's esteem.
The SO and public sympathy influenced Sweden's response to the refugee crisis. Between 1933 and 1939, Sweden accepted only 3000 Jewish refugees and permitted 1000 more to use Sweden as a transit stop. As the war broke out, Sweden only absorbed political refugees and turned away Jews from occupied Norway at the border.See "The Holocaust in Norway" Sweden eventually accepted 900 Jews from Norway, but border controls and immigration contributed to the murder of over 700 Norwegian Jews at Auschwitz. In 1943, the policy changed, and Sweden provided asylum to 8000 Danish Jews.See "Rescue of the Danish Jews"
Postwar
In January 1946, under pressure by the Soviet Union, Sweden forcibly transferred to the Soviet Union over 146 Baltic Waffen-SS and 2,364 German soldiers who had been interned in Swedish prison camps. At least seven of the internees committed suicide at their camp in the village of Rinkaby, rather than allow themselves to be handed over to the Soviet Union.The Legionnaires: A Documentary Novel. Per Olov Enquist. Delacorte Press, 1973.