Per Albin Hansson declared Sweden
neutral on 1 September 1939. When, in September 1939, Germany attacked
Poland and both
France and Britain declared war on Nazi Germany, Sweden declared itself a
neutral country in regard to this escalating situation. An example illustrating this situation may be the failed Allied attempt to release Polish submarines (
ORP Ryś,
ORP Żbik,
ORP Sęp) which were
interned after they reached Swedish ports (requiring repairs of battle damage, unable to break the German blockade and sail to Britain). On the outbreak of the
Winter War between Finland and the Soviet Union in November 1939, Sweden declared itself to be "
non-belligerent" in regard to this particular conflict, actively siding with Finland. This allowed Sweden to aid Finland economically, and with armaments. Sweden and Finland also jointly laid minefields in the
Sea of Åland to deter Soviet
submarines from entering the
Gulf of Bothnia.
Foreign trade Sweden was not directly attacked during World War II. It was, however, subject to
British and
German naval blockades and accidental bombings from the
Soviets on some cities (e.g.
Strängnäs), which led to problems with the supply of food and
fuels. When Germany invaded Denmark and Norway in April 1940, coupled with a German blockade of the
North Sea, every shipment had to be negotiated with both British and German authorities, which drastically reduced the volume of trade. Between 1938 and 1944, the Swedish import of
petroleum products and
coal decreased by 88% and 53% respectively, which led to severe shortages. Other critical items were
natural rubber,
alloy metals and food. This situation led to extensive
rationing of fuels and food in Sweden and substitutes were developed and produced.
Wood gas was used as a fuel for motor vehicles and
shale oil as a substitute for
bunker oil. '', one of the high speed boats used as blockade runners for the
ball bearing trade At the beginning of the war, agreements had been signed between Sweden and the United Kingdom and Nazi Germany in order to sustain vital trade; but in spite of this, and the fact that Sweden had declared itself a
neutral country, Swedish shipping came under attack. Sweden's trade with Britain was cut by a total of 70%. Within the North Sea blockade, trade with Germany increased, until 37% of Sweden's exports were shipped to Germany. For very important goods such as
ball bearings from
SKF for the British aircraft industry, delivery was made by
blockade runners, using rebuilt
Motor Gun Boats, which could use winter darkness and high speed to penetrate the German blockade of the
Skagerrak straits between Norway and the northern tip of Denmark. Before the outbreak of the war, the Swedish Ministry of defence (
Royal Swedish Air Force Materiel Administration) had ordered some 300 combat aircraft from the
United States, primarily
Seversky P-35s and
P-66 Vanguards. In 1940, however, the US administration halted these exports. Only about 60 aircraft had been delivered. Sweden succeeded subsequently in buying 200 aircraft from
Italy, a fascist ally of Germany at the time; these aircraft were primarily
Fiat CR.42 Falcos,
Reggiane Re.2000s, and
Caproni Ca.313s.
Measures to protect against air raids Beginning in the autumn of 1938, efforts were made to protect cities and towns from air raids. In order to decrease the risk of large fires breaking out the attics of all buildings were cleared in the larger towns. After the outbreak of war all windows in towns were to be covered quickly in the event of an air raid. Historic buildings such as medieval churches were in many cases protected by moving valuable objects or covering external ornaments. The vast sculpture group
Saint George and the Dragon, located in Storkyrkan in Stockholm, was disassembled and evacuated to an underground space in April 1940.
Winter War Impact on domestic politics War broke out between Finland and the Soviet Union in November 1939. In Sweden, the Liberal, Conservative and Agrarian parties were concerned about a perceived threat from the Soviet Union. The Social Democrats were in the main equally concerned. Leading social democrats like
Rickard Sandler and
Torsten Nilsson played a prominent role in mustering support for Finland. The Communists were openly loyal to the Soviet Union and supported its
Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact with Germany. However, when Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, they swung around to a pro-Allied view.
Defence of Finland When the Soviet Union attacked Finland in November 1939, many Swedes favored some sort of involvement in the conflict, both on a
humanitarian and on a military basis. Sweden's interest in Finland lay in the fact that Finland had been an integrated part of Sweden for more than six hundred years, with Sweden losing control of its eastern provinces in 1809. Despite several pleas from the Finnish government, the Swedish government declined to engage militarily with the
Red Army as it advanced during the
Winter War. However, Sweden declared itself "non-belligerent" rather than neutral during the conflict and as many as 8,000 Swedes voluntarily went to
Finland to fight. The Swedish government and public also sent food, clothing, medicine, weapons and ammunition to aid the Finns during this conflict. This military aid included: • 135,402 rifles, 347 machine guns, and 450 light machine guns with 50,013,300 rounds of small arms ammunition • 144 field guns, 100
anti-aircraft guns and 92
anti-tank guns with 301,846 shells • 300
naval mines and 500
depth charges • 17 fighter aircraft, five light bombers, one
DC-2 transport aircraft turned into a bomber, and three reconnaissance aircraft Twelve of Sweden's most modern fighter aircraft, British
Gloster Gladiators, were flown by volunteer Swedish pilots under Finnish insignia. These aircraft constituted one third of Sweden's fighter force at the time. In addition, Sweden received some 70,000 Finnish children who were sent to Sweden to find safety during the 1940s. In addition to the military aid sent to Finland, the Swedish government secretly facilitated the delivery of aircraft that Finland had purchased or received as donations from other countries. A total of 157 planes were assembled in volunteering Swedish factories, while Finnish pilots collected an additional 35 planes in Sweden after they were flown in from abroad. The
Royal Swedish Air Force Materiel Administration and the
Swedish Air Force provided logistical support for these operations, with discreet approval from the Swedish government to avoid provoking significant protests from the Soviet Union. On 21 February 1940, seven Soviet bombers accidentally
dropped around 150 bombs over Pajala in Norrbotten County. Six buildings caught fire and two people were injured. The event sparked further debate on whether Sweden should send aid to the Finns.
Possible Allied invasion . German industry was heavily dependent on Swedish
iron ore. The
Allies had intended to use the Soviet attack on Finland in November 1939 as cover for seizing the important Swedish iron ore deposits in the north, in addition to the Norwegian harbours through which this ore was shipped to Germany. The plan was to get Norwegian and Swedish permission to send an
expeditionary force to Finland across northern Norway and Sweden, ostensibly to help the Finns. But once in place, they were to proceed to take control of the harbours and the iron ore mines, occupying cities such as
Gävle and
Luleå and denying German access to the Swedish iron ore. In this way, an unsuspecting Norway and Sweden would be presented with a
fait accompli. Realizing this danger, however, and the consequent possibility of Allied or German occupation and of the war being waged on their territory, both the Swedes and the Norwegians refused to allow this proposal. Meanwhile, the Germans, having suspected an Allied threat, were making their own plans for an invasion of Norway in order to protect their strategic supply lines. The
Altmark Incident of 16 February 1940 convinced
Hitler that the Allies would not respect Norwegian neutrality, so he ordered plans for an invasion. Scandinavian reluctance to allow Allied troops onto their territory had halted the original Allied plan for using aid to Finland as a pretext for moving in troops, but on 12 March 1940, the Allies decided to try a "semi-peaceful" invasion nonetheless. Troops were to be landed in Norway, and proceed into Sweden to capture the Swedish iron ore mines. However, if serious military resistance was encountered, they were not to press the issue. The plan was abandoned with the ending of the Winter War on 13 March. The Germans were partly aware of these Allied intentions, as they had intercepted radio traffic showing that Allied transport groups were being readied. A few days later, they also intercepted messages confirming that the Allies had abandoned their plan and were to redeploy their forces. German plans for an invasion of Norway continued, since Hitler feared that the Allies were nonetheless intent upon launching their own invasion. 9 April was set as the date of
Operation Weserübung, the German attack on Norway. Hitler was correct about Allied intentions. The Allied plan had two parts,
Operation Wilfred and
Plan R 4. Operation Wilfred was to take place on 5 April (it was in fact delayed until 8 April) when Norwegian territorial waters were to be mined, violating Norwegian neutrality. This would force the ships carrying ore to Germany to travel outside the protection of Norwegian territorial waters and thus become legitimate targets for the
Royal Navy. It was hoped that this would provoke a German military reaction. As soon as the Germans reacted, under "Plan R 4", 18,000 Allied troops were to land in
Narvik, closing the rail link to Sweden. Other cities that the Allies hoped to capture were
Trondheim and
Bergen. The first ship carrying Allied troops was to start its journey a few hours after the mine-laying. On 8 April, a Royal Naval detachment led by mined Norwegian waters as a part of Operation Wilfred, but German troops were already on their way and "Plan R 4" was quickly made obsolete.
Occupation of Denmark and Norway On 9 April 1940, Germany launched
Operation Weserübung, an operation with the objective of simultaneously occupying
Denmark and
Norway, and to stage a ''
coup d'état'' in Norway. This move had several far-reaching consequences for Sweden. Sweden was in effect cut off from trade with the western world and therefore more dependent on German goodwill, ultimately leading to
permittenttrafik. But it also lessened the immediate risk that Sweden would become a theater of war between the
Axis and the Allies. When Germany invaded both Denmark and Norway on 9 April 1940, the 100,000 Swedish soldiers who had been deployed along the Finnish border in northern Sweden were in the process of being demobilized, owing to the end of the Winter War there. Before the outbreak of hostilities, Sweden had had no plans for defending Norway or any defence strategy against a German invasion from the direction of Norway. Moreover, an agreement from the
dissolution of the union between Norway and Sweden in 1905 stated that no fortification was allowed along this border. One of Germany's demands on Sweden, as Germany's invasion progressed, was that Sweden was not to mobilize. However, Sweden re-organized its system of mobilization to allow for personal order by letter to be made possible as an alternative to official proclamation, so that 320,000 men were able to be raised in a few weeks. This was called "The Organization" and was barely different from a full mobilization when completed. Sweden also started to build fortifications at the Norwegian border and along the coast of
Scania. During its invasion of Norway, Germany demanded access to the Swedish telephone and telegraph lines between Germany and Norway. Sweden allowed this, but tapped the lines. In the early summer of 1940, the Swedish mathematician
Arne Beurling succeeded in deciphering and discovering the source codes of the
Geheimfernschreiber cypher machine that Germany used, which afforded the Swedes advance knowledge of Germany's military intentions. Although the British Plan R 4 had not been able to be carried out, Allied troops were swiftly sent to Norway and were able to fight alongside the Norwegians unsuccessfully against the German invaders. However, the success of the German campaign against France and the occupation of the
Low Countries led to a British troop re-deployment and by 8 June 1940, British troops had been evacuated from Norway. In his book
Blodsporet ("The Blood Track"), Espen Eidum detailed how, at the request of Adolf Hitler, Nazi Germany sent three trains with 30 to 40 sealed carriages through Sweden to the battle of Narvik. These trains ostensibly transported medical personnel and food for the wounded German soldiers in Narvik. However, in reality there were 17 soldiers for every medical officer or orderly. Sweden knew that the trains were being used to transport troops because a Swedish representative in Berlin reported that he had watched them board. The trains also transported heavy artillery, anti-aircraft guns, ammunition, and communications and supply equipment.
Midsummer Crisis At the start of the German invasion of the Soviet Union in the early summer of 1941, codenamed
Operation Barbarossa, the Germans asked Sweden to allow the transportation of armed German troops, the
163rd Infantry Division, commanded by General
Erwin Engelbrecht, along with all its military equipment, through Swedish territory by train from Norway to the eastern front in Finland. Finland also insisted on the transfer of the division. The Swedish government granted this permission after two days of internal debate. In Sweden, the political deliberations surrounding this are known as the "Midsummer Crisis"; however, according to research by Carl-Gustaf Scott there never was a "crisis", he argues that "the crisis was created in historical hindsight in order to protect the political legacy of the
Social Democratic Party and its leader
Per Albin Hansson". Dick Harryson explains that there was a risk of the coalition government falling apart if the Social Democrats, for which
Per Albin Hansson was the leader, voted no to the transfer and the right wing parties voted yes.
Per Albin Hansson did not want a government in crisis and recommended to vote yes.
Ernst Wigforss convinced the Social Democrats to vote no with a large majority by stating that this was about choosing sides in the war.
Per Albin Hansson then asked for a second vote on how the Social Democrats would react to the right wing voting yes. The opinion was split, but the majority would rather accept the transfer than bring down the government. Since Sweden was not neutral in relation to Finland during the
Winter War but non-belligerent, it is debatable if the transfer constituted a violation of neutrality even if the transfer occurred after the Soviet Union attacked Finland starting the
Continuation War and Sweden was yet to take a stance in this conflict.
1943 onward From late 1942 and into 1943, Germany began to meet with a series of military reverses after its losses at the
Second Battle of El Alamein, the
Battle of Stalingrad and elsewhere. Germany was forced into a more defensive position as the Allied forces achieved success on the battlefield. It was becoming increasingly apparent to Sweden that Germany was unlikely to win the war. Prior to 1943, Sweden's policy of neutrality had been largely under the close scrutiny of Germany. After August and September 1943, however, Sweden was increasingly able to resist German demands and to soften its stance to Allied pressure. However, despite Germany's new, defensive posture, Sweden's constant fear was that the unexpected would happen, an attitude that continued until the very end of the war. With Germany's weakening position came stronger demands from the Allies. They pushed for Sweden to abandon its trade with Germany and to stop all
German troop movements over Swedish soil. Sweden accepted payments from the Allies to compensate for this loss of income through reduced trade with Germany, but continued to sell steel and machine parts to Nazi Germany at inflated ''smugglers' rates''.
Training of Norwegian and Danish troops was a Norwegian
military academy during World War II (photograph taken in 2007). During the war, more than 50,000 Norwegians fled to Sweden. These refugees were sent to camps at
Öreryd in
Småland and
Kjesäter in
Södermanland. From the summer of 1943 onward, the military training of Norwegian troops was carried out in Sweden, in cooperation with the
Swedish government and the Norwegian
government-in-exile in
London. To prevent protests from
Nazi Germany, this training was ostensibly for the Norwegian police. From the start, the recruits only had light
infantry weapons, but later they were able to train with
artillery.
Military exercises were held in
Dalarna in December 1944 and in
Hälsingland in spring 1945. Eight thousand men took part in this latter exercise. In all, around 15,000 men were trained and organized into ten
battalions and at the end of the war, eight of these battalions, about 13,500 men, were ready for action. They entered Norway on 8 May 1945. The number of Danish refugees had been much lower than the 50,000 Norwegians, but a
brigade of about 3,600 Danish men was also trained and they were transferred to
Denmark on 5 May 1945.
The Bäckebo rocket On 13 June 1944, a
V-2 rocket under test by the Germans (test rocket V-89, serial number 4089) from
Peenemünde crashed in Sweden after the rocket had flown into cumulus clouds which had strayed into the controller's line of sight. It was supposed to crash in the sea outside
Bornholm in occupied Denmark. V-89 contained a FuG 230
Straßburg radio control receiver unit, normally commanded by a remote FuG 203
Kehl joystick-equipped radio control transmitter set that had also been meant for use with the
Wasserfall anti-aircraft missile (
code named Burgund), The ground controller appeared to have no trouble manoeuvring the rocket until it disappeared into the high cloud layer.
Peenemünde guidance and control expert
Ernst Steinhoff explained that the excited operator applied a set of planned corrections (such as that for the Earth's rotation) in the opposite direction from the way he had been instructed. The rocket subsequently exploded in an air burst (
a common V-2 malfunction) and the valuable wreckage was exchanged with Britain by the Swedes for
Supermarine Spitfires. On 31 July 1944, experts at the
Royal Aircraft Establishment at
Farnborough in Hampshire, England, began an attempt to reconstruct the missile. U.S. military scientists subsequently received some of the recovered parts from the British. The American rocket pioneer
Robert H. Goddard examined those components as part of his work aiding the U.S. military, and Goddard is reported to have inferred that his brainchild had been turned into a weapon.
Soviet bombings of Sweden The Soviet Union dropped more than a hundred bombs on Swedish cities and villages during World War II, though no one was killed in these strikes. The first time on 14 January 1940, when Soviet aircraft attacked Swedish airspace and dropped about 10 bombs in northern Sweden, close to the port of
Luleå. On their return flight, the three
DB-3 aircraft ran out of fuel and were forced to land in Finland, where they were captured by Finnish troops. On 21 February, seven Soviet bomber planes appeared in the village
Pajala, 10 kilometres from the border to Finland. Pajala was hit by more than 130 bombs, causing damage to local buildings. A bomb hit the local school gym, where the
Norrland Dragoon Regiment were stationed at the time, but did not detonate. There were two injuries during the bombing of Pajala. On 22 February,
Stockholm was bombed by four Soviet bombers, a 100 kg bomb destroying a newly opened theatre, injuring two Swedish soldiers. Sweden concluded that this instance was by mistake, but the Soviet Union refused to acknowledge the involvement of its bombers in the raid when requested to clarify. Though the event remains unclear, a theory developed that it was a deliberate attack in response to Sweden rejecting Soviet appeals for Vasily Sidorenko, who had been arrested for espionage, to be released. == Humanitarian effort ==