"I do apologize for the Crusades!"

Originally posted by Temujin Originally posted by Styrbiorn It's quite a difference between "get rich and cooperate" and give in to threats in order to survive though...    Sweden did completely symphatize with nazi ideology.

Not the Swedish citizens?Or? 

Originally posted by Jorsalfar Not the Swedish citizens?Or?

 

this question is hard to answer because we never know how much citizens of a country actually believed in the racist teachings and which not, but apparently there were some rascist laws in Sweden at that time...

http://web.telia.com/~u58906120/deu/

Originally posted by Temujin oh how much i hate this statement...I hope you realize that eaxtly this way of thinking has let to the rise of eliteism and Naziism in Germany.

Oh how much I hate this practice of chopping sentences in half when quoting��.Firstly, I quite clearly and intentionally did not speak about Germany as nation, contributing to global culture, but about its people, which is a slight but important difference, and secondly, I did not imply, that any of their contributions were in any way superior or indeed inferior to any others. What I quite simply meant, and I don�t think that�s terribly difficult to understand, that I am rather mystified that my people on the one hand had indeed contributed to the processes of enlightenment and cultural progress and seemingly had adopted at least some of their findings, and then on the other hand allowed for the Nazis to happen. That Kant, Hegel, Marx etc., who did their bit for enlightenment ( in want of a better word) were German is coincidal, but they were Germans, as were Hitler, Himmler, Eichmann and all the other Nazis, and all the others who collaborated and looked on. Even if I were proud of  the above philosophers as being German and my fellow German countrymen, as Temujin seems to imply, the Nazis would have made me even prouder, when they burnt their books.

I am not saying that states that guarantee human rights to its people or practice religious and ethnic tolerance are in any way morally or racially superior to states that do not, as people and societies have the right to undergo their own development, but I think that, on the whole, human rights and tolerance are indeed advancements.

The question therefore is, why a nation that already had acknowledged the value of human rights and tolerance, then suddenly regresses into a state of barbarism and revoked all advancements made. That�s what puzzles me.

 

well just look at other great cultural nations like Iran or China, and what opressive regimes they have nowadays...

Didn't see the "Auf Schwedisch" link. Try a real source if you want to learn something. Do you take all your knowledge from school projects?


"Ignorance"? Your statement that Sweden sympathized with the Nazis and 'there were camps' is simply nonsense. This is quite off topic though.

Originally posted by Temujin but of course, there was never a Holocaust...

WTF are you implying?

Originally posted by Styrbiorn WTF are you implying?

well, didn't you knew that in 1915 nothign happened to Armenians?

But he is right.
Sweden did have concentration camps and sterilization programs. And Sweden allowed German troops to move through the country (until 1943), even though it was a violation of neutrality.
Why do many people always want to deny things that their country did in the past, and feel personally offended when it is mentioned?

Originally posted by MixcoatlToltecahtecuhtli But he is right. Sweden did have concentration camps and sterilization programs. And Sweden allowed German troops to move through the country (until 1943), even though it was a violation of neutrality. Why do many people always want to deny things that their country did in the past, and feel personally offended when it is mentioned?

But he isn't. He claimed Sweden completely sympathized with Nazi ideology. That is nonsense, and close to slander. As for the troop transports (with one exception, this was 'soldiers on leave', without equipment) Timeline, Sweden did not have a choice, the Germans basicly threatened with war would they not be allowed. They were utterly impopular among the population who saw it as a betrayal towards the Norwegians. This and the ore transports were lessened and finally stopped in 43/44 when it was clear the Germans had no ability to invade Sweden. Sweden was trapped between two evils, the arch-enemy Russia/Soviet and Germany and did what it had to to stay out of the war. Early, pre-war, the Germans were seen as a counter against the True Evil, Russia&communism, and because of that had quite a support at least in the upper ranks. Later this would change though.


As for the allegation of sympathy, Sweden did everything it could to put spokes in the German wheels. Ball bearings were smuggled to the British and kept their aviation industry running, a brigade of Norwegian resistance forces were trained by the Swedes with air capacity provided by the American 8th Air Army, the Americans were allowed to have special forces bases in Sweden and allied bombers were inofficially allowed to fly over Swedish territory, whereas the Germans were shot at. Also, the Jews of Denmark were all put to safety in Sweden, and diplomats did their best to hand out Swedish passports to all Jews down in Europe that they could. This way a hundred thousand people were saved from the camps. The army assembeled to invade and liberate Denmark in the late phases of the war, but of certain circumstances it never came to that.


The sterilization program which until very recently have been kept secret by the social democrats is indeed a very black chapter in our history, but had nothing at all to do with the Nazis or the war, so keep that out of this discussion.


The reason I feel offended should be easily understood, Sweden did what it could to avoid a German or Russian invasion, but did not support either one of them. There is much I dislike about the bootlicking government (among other things it kept its knowledge of the concentration camps secret from the public - the Swedes broke the German codes immidiately and listened to their communication from start till end) of the war, but to accuse the people of being Nazi sympathizers and whatnot I simply do not appreciate, to put it mildly.

And affcourse Germany wouldnt be able to fight so long without buying raw materials from Sweden. Like it or not but Sweden made great buissnes on WW2. From Nazi Germany to Sweden was going real stream of gold that Nazists stole from Jews and all the occupied countries, and from Sweden to germany the stream of iron. But as Wespasian said: pecunia non olet

Not true. In exchange of the ore, Sweden received the necessary coke and coal to keep the country running. The main reason that Sweden emerged "rich" was that it was saved from the devastation the war caused. There has been some investigations of Nazi gold though, but as far as I know that mostly ended up in Swiss banks. Sure, the ore was very important to the Germans up to mid-war, after that they had plenty of other reasources (and the Swedish ore did stop to come).quite accurate wiki link



edit: forgot those "concentration" camps. During the war the S�PO -- during the war called Hestapo by the people - collected information about who where syndicalists, communists, nazis and the like, in order to intern the groups in case of a war (for example, not good to have a bunch of nazis running around in a war against Germany, that was their thinking). Hardly constitutional, but many rules were sadly ignored in these times. Now, in 1939 about 300 of the Stalin-supporting communists were drafted into the army and put in a work platoon and stationed in Northern Sweden on the sole reason of their political opinions. It was planned to "recruit" about 3000 people to keep them too busy from whatever they might've done to support the enemies. It never happened though, in 1941 the plans were abandoned. This is what you call concentration camps...


Edited by Styrbiorn