As Norwegian fighters battled the Nazis in Narvik, Sweden let Hitler’s army use its rail network to transport much larger numbers of troops than previously realized to the strategically important port, a new book reveals.

Narvik-based journalist Espen Eidum spent three years combing through the Norwegian, Swedish and German archives in his bid to discover how the Nazis had managed to get troops and supplies to the front lines in Narvik in 1940, enabling them to turn a losing battle into a decisive victory.

The results of his research prove damning for Sweden, Norway's nominally neutral neighbour.

“The Germans used the Swedish rail network on a large scale during the fighting,” Eidum told Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet following the release of his book Blodsporet, ‘The Blood Track’.

“The operation was much more extensive than historians have previously realized,” he added.

In his book, Eidum documents how the Swedish authorities in October 1940 – four months after the German victory – sought to convince Norwegian delegates in London and Stockholm that Sweden had not allowed the Nazis to transport soldiers and weapons through its territory.

The truth, however, was very different, Eidum found.

According to the book, the German foreign ministry had earlier summoned the Swedish ambassador in Berlin to inform him that Adolf Hitler had personally requested for the Nazis to be permitted to send three trains with 30 to 40 sealed carriages through Sweden to the far north of Norway.

Hitler’s representatives told the Swedes that the Germans had a number of wounded soldiers at the front and urgently needed to send in medical officers and food. The Germans also made no secret of the fact that winning the battle in Narvik was a matter of some pride for the Nazi leader.

Once Sweden gave the go-ahead, however, the Germans took the opportunity to send combat soldiers, disguised as medical staff, to the Narvik front. For every actual medical officer, the trains carried 17 ground troops, according to Eidum’s calculations.

A report sent by a Swedish representative in Berlin, who watched the officers board the train, left little doubt that the Swedes knew the trains were being used for troop movements.

What’s more, Eidum’s research indicates that the trains were also loaded with heavy artillery, anti-aircraft guns, ammunition, engineering equipment, communications equipment and clothing.

Once Norway had lost Narvik, the Swedes then paved the way for the Nazis to continue sending trains to the occupied port town, a crucial hub for the transportation of iron ore.

From 1940 to August 1943, German trains rolled across Sweden’s northernmost borders before moving on to Oslo, Trondheim and Narvik. Norwegian prisoners were also sent by train to concentration camps in Germany when the rail cooperation was at its highest ebb, the book claims.

In what Eidum says was a particularly lucrative three-year period for Swedish rail operator SJ, hundreds of thousands of Nazi soldiers were allowed to pass through Sweden as they made their way to the Eastern Front in the USSR.

Eidum also includes in his book a venomous letter from Norway’s wartime prime minister, Johan Nygaardsvold (Labour Party), sent on New Year’s Eve 1940 to his Stockholm-based party colleague Anders Frihagen.

Seething with rage, Nygaardsvold asked his government’s Stockholm representative to convey his anger to the Swedish prime minister, Social Democrat Per Albin Hansson.

“If YOU can arrange a private conversation with Per Albin Hansson you can give him my greetings and tell him there are two things I want to experience, and those are: that the Germans get hunted out of Norway and, secondly, that I get to live long enough to give him and his entire government a proper dressing down – maybe even his entire party.”

Nygaardsvold further noted that there “is nothing, nothing, nothing I hate with such passion and wild abandon as Sweden – and it is his (Hansson’s) fault.”

The recipient of the letter never showed it to the Swedish prime minister.

http://www.thelocal.se/41252/20120605/


I am not sure what to make of this, is it a tabloid piece or genuine?

I have no idea Monty, but I do know that trains full of Jewish people enroute to extermination camps were allowed through Switzerland, another so called neutral country.

I think there is some truth to it. I found this at Wkipedia:

The extent of these transports was kept secret, although spreading rumors soon forced prime minister Per Albin Hansson to admit their existence. Officially the trains transported wounded soldiers and soldiers on leave (permittent-tåg), which would still have been in violation of Sweden's proclaimed neutrality.
In all, close to 100,000 railroad cars had transported 1,004,158 military personnel on leave to Germany and 1,037,158 to Norway through Sweden by the time the transit agreement was disbanded on 15 August 1943.

source is : Carl-Axel Wangel (red.): Sveriges militära beredskap 1939-1945. Köping 1982, Militärhistoriska förlaget. ISBN 91-85266-20-5 page 498

The German attack on Denmark and Norway, 9.4.1940 created acute problems for Sweden, which was inadequately equipped and now found themselves surrounded by the Soviet Union on one side and Germany to the other. The closure of the sea made ​​the country dependent on imports from Germany and countries that were subject to German control. Fearing an attack from Germany brought the government a cautious stance.

A strong German pressure im 1940-41 forced the government to concessions in the form of a demand to the press to avoid giving bad publicity to Hitler and Germany, which was widely observed, and the export of iron ore to Germany and permission of troop transports by train through Sweden to and from Norway, the so-called "permittenttrafik". After opening the attack on the Soviet Union in June 1941 Germany demanded that a division was to be transported through Sweden to Finland. After some time the government agreed. Approximately two million German soldiers passed through neutral Sweden during World War II.

Originally Posted by BritinAfrica

I have no idea Monty, but I do know that trains full of Jewish people enroute to extermination camps were allowed through Switzerland, another so called neutral country.

I think it raises an interesting question about the level of support Switzerland provided.

I can accept the transfer of troops between two territories under their control but to allow troops through your territory while your one side is still fighting for its independence almost seems like an act of war and to allow prisoners to be shipped through a "neutral" country to almost certain death is even worse in my opinion.

Originally Posted by MontyB

I am not sure what to make of this, is it a tabloid piece or genuine?

It's been quite a lot of discussions around this in the news here, and it (unfortunately) seems like it may be genuine....


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...=feeds-newsxml

http://www.thelocal.no/page/view/nor...-for-nazi-help

I don't know about the Swedish reaction to this book, I am not residing in Sweden and I don't follow what happens there any longer. This traffic of German troops has been known for a long time and discussed, this is not, however, the only questionable thing Sweden did during the war and shortly after it. The last months of the war, several soldiers, Germans and Balts (civilians and soldiers) fled over the Baltic Sea; especially the Balts would pay dearly for that mistake. Stalin wanted them back so he got them back.