My problem: "In my town they believe about USA and Nazi Germany"
Interest to say but Sweden was close to fight against Nazi Germany from Oslo from Norway Hitlers planes was Home Guard troops in southern Sweden but no war against Sweden and in Finland the finnish takes down Nazi to Germany after draw against Soviet. No win, no lose against Soviet. Finland was over 400.000 soldiers and Nazi have 125.000 soldier and Finland take Nazi to home land. They will not lose against USA or UK if they attack Soviet again. UK was on way to Finland I say to win against Finland but Finland not will this one. Or what's you know?
I guess they played both sides. I never knew that they allowed for this. A little know item indeed.
By the way I wanted to clarify on my earlier post I feel the Germans of old have a legacy they are stuck with.
However there are so few of them left and the new generation(s) has such a completely different attitude. Like I said I worked for Germans at Bosch and spent many weeks in Germany and it was my favorite European country to visit. I certainly hold no ill will towards the present day Germans. And they are such wonderful cooks!
I3BrigPvSk
The Viking
There were Swedish plans to attack the German forces in Norway in the last year of the war. These plans emerged in 1944. The plans were a three pronged offensive toward Narvik, Trondheim and Oslo.
When Nazi-Germany commenced Operation Barbarossa, the Germans demanded the Swedish government to allow German forces to be transferred through Sweden from Denmark and Norway. This is known in Sweden as the midsummer crisis. Germany was in 1941 the major power in Europe and it was occupying most of Europe. The Swedish government faced a dilemma, daring to say no and see what happens, or allow the transfer? The decision saved Sweden from being attacked, maybe the Germans couldn't afford to divert its forces when they were attacking Soviet Union. We will never know.
In the last months of the war, the Swedish Red Cross organized buses down to Germany and brought back concentration camp prisoners to Sweden, many of those were in a bad shape. They received medical treatment and it saved thousands of them. This is known as "the White Buses"
Another rescue operation occurred in Budapest, when Raul Wallenberg saved about 60 000 Jews. Raul Wallenberg was captured by the Soviets in 1945 and was never seen again.
When Nazi-Germany commenced Operation Barbarossa, the Germans demanded the Swedish government to allow German forces to be transferred through Sweden from Denmark and Norway. This is known in Sweden as the midsummer crisis. Germany was in 1941 the major power in Europe and it was occupying most of Europe. The Swedish government faced a dilemma, daring to say no and see what happens, or allow the transfer? The decision saved Sweden from being attacked, maybe the Germans couldn't afford to divert its forces when they were attacking Soviet Union. We will never know.
In the last months of the war, the Swedish Red Cross organized buses down to Germany and brought back concentration camp prisoners to Sweden, many of those were in a bad shape. They received medical treatment and it saved thousands of them. This is known as "the White Buses"
Another rescue operation occurred in Budapest, when Raul Wallenberg saved about 60 000 Jews. Raul Wallenberg was captured by the Soviets in 1945 and was never seen again.
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I guess it takes a Swede to know the bottom line about Sweden in WW2. Sounds like Sweden had good intentions but didn't want to irk Germany militarily "can you blame her". I had heard about their red cross work and the saving of Hungarian Jews.
Kesse81
Banned
From what I've read, it was a plan put forth by the U.S.
In the autumn of 1943, the US defense staff raised the proposal that Sweden should participate in an operation with the allies against Norway, especially in order to take Narvik and Trondheim, but the Swedish forces were judged to have too little offensive capability.
I know there were plans for Swedish soldiers to fight along with the Danish and Norwegian forces which was set up in sweden.
I3BrigPvSk
The Viking
In 1944 and 1945 the offensive capabilities had been improved meanwhile the quality of the German forces in Norway had been depleted. The movement of Swedish forces along the Norwegian/Swedish forces prevented the German OKW to deploy these forces elsewhere. The Germans planned to use their V1 and V2 against Sweden if the Swedish forces had crossed the border into Norway.
There is one episode just after the war which is shameful. Sweden had a lot of refugees from the Baltic states. Many of them were soldiers, Stalin wanted them back so the Swedish government extradited them to Soviet Union, many of them ended up in the Gulags and not many of them survived.
These must have been the Baltic Germans who made up a minority in the Baltic states. Hitler despised the Baltic peoples who were sort of lumped in with the Slavs as sub-human. However great prosecution came to the Germans that lived outside of Germany during the later months of the war and the period following the war. the Germanic peoples in Poland, Czechoslovakia, the Baltic states were much oppressed. Many were forced from their homes or even killed. The movement of people to the new German borders was one of the largest movement of refugees in history
I3BrigPvSk
The Viking
Many of them were Estonians and Latvians. They viewed the Germans as liberators after being occupied by the Soviets and many of them volunteered to fight the Soviets. The German attitude toward Estonians and Latvians was pretty good quite similar as how the Germans viewed the Finns. Lithuania was rather different, but contained more ethnic Germans.
Linguistically, Estonia and Latvia are pretty close to Finland. Culturally they were more like Sweden. (these two countries belonged to Sweden once)
Now I have read and seen on documentaries, I.e.: "Blood on the Snow" that Hitler despised the Baltic peoples. Yes they like the Ukrainians and Cossacks volunteered to fight for the Waffen SS's foreign legions. However after the veneer of liberation was removed, they then realized that they had a new tyrant to deal with. At least that's how I understood the situation to be. I do know a certain amount of Balts were deprived food stocks during the later parts of the war by Germany. Of course they did this to quite a few nations: Holland, Greece, etc.
I3BrigPvSk
The Viking
Estonia and Latvia created SS divisions, Lithuania never did, they were more viewed as the Poles, is it possible Hitler referred to the Lithuanians and not the other two?
The Estonians and the Latvians participated gladly in the holocaust.....both countries were pretty much without any unwanted after the war.
I3BrigPvSk
The Viking
Sweden had and still has good relations with Germany. Prior the war the German industries needed the raw materials from Sweden and during the war the relations were pretty good. There were many in Sweden supporting the German cause when the economic elite in Sweden could see the benefits of what was going on in Germany in the 1930s. Hitler was quite disappointed with the low response in Sweden to Operation Barbarossa, Russia was and still is our arch enemy. Especially after losing Finland to them in the war of 1809. Anyway, the higher echelon in the military, industry and some politicians were pro-Germany and even Nazis. Herman Goering's first wife was Swedish and if that has any significance for the Swedish-German relations, is hard to say. Historians do not agree in this matter
I3BrigPvSk
The Viking
I'm sorry my fellow Swede, I don't comprehend what you are saying.
I would appreciate a discussion about the Holocaust. This is a matter we all need to discuss. What the Nazis did (not the Germans) need to be discussed and we all need to learn (I don't have much faith in the learning part, but we can leave that)
The scientific approach is to study the steps toward "the final solution"and not what happened after the Wannsee conference. The body count is journalism and not science. Does it matter if they killed one million or six million, the method of doing so is equally disgusting.
I would appreciate a discussion about the Holocaust. This is a matter we all need to discuss. What the Nazis did (not the Germans) need to be discussed and we all need to learn (I don't have much faith in the learning part, but we can leave that)
The scientific approach is to study the steps toward "the final solution"and not what happened after the Wannsee conference. The body count is journalism and not science. Does it matter if they killed one million or six million, the method of doing so is equally disgusting.