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Astrid Lindgren heirs sue publisher for millions

Astrid Lindgren's heirs are taking Swedish publisher Bonnier to court for misrepresenting the beloved children author's works and in the process swindling them out of millions of kronor.

Published: 7 December 2010 15:58 CET

Astrid Lindgren heirs sue publisher for millions

Ulla Monta; Tina Buckman-Swedish Institute/www.imagebank.sweden.se

In a couple of weeks, Stockholm district court will settle the protracted case, which has been ongoing since 2006.

“It is very, very sad that this has to go to court,” Rasmus Ramstad, CEO of Bonnier-owned film company SF on Tuesday.

Attempts to resolve the dispute it outside the courtroom have been fruitless.

“We have tried, but it could not be done,” said Ramstad.

Nils Nyman, Lindgren’s grandson and CEO of the family business Saltkråkan, which owns the rights to the works, said that it is important “to put his foot down.”

“Astrid Lindgren herself was very careful that no one pick at her work. Our task is to ensure that her work is not misrepresented or exploited in ways that do not conform to Astrid’s desires,” said Nyman.

The origins of the row stem from SF’s release of a double CD called “Christmas in Astrid’s World,” with sound clips from the films about Pippi Longstocking, Emil of Lönneberga and Lindgren’s other well known and beloved characters.

However, the CD also contains music and lyrics that have no connection to Lindgren, and the writer, who died in 2002, never approved the product, said Nyman.

The dispute also involves royalty payments for more than 20 other CDs. According to Saltkråkan lawyer Håkan Sjöström, SF owes the company several million kronor.

“We believe that compensation is regulated by existing contracts and we pay in accordance with the agreements,” said Ramstad.

Sjöström believes it is “inconceivable” that SF, with annual turnover exceeding 800 million kronor ($117 million), would refuse to pay royalties.

Ramstad declined to discuss the financial claims.

“It is now up to the court to make a decision, so I really have no comment,” he said.

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Russia smears Pippi Longstocking author as Nazi in propaganda posters

Oscar Jonsson, a researcher at the Swedish Defence University, tweeted out a picture of photograph of a Moscow bus stop carrying the propaganda poster, which has the word ‘they’ written in the colours of the Swedish flag.

Latest plot twist from Moscow "We are against nazism, but they are not" with signs of Astrid Lindgren, Ingemar Bergman, Ingvar Kamprad (IKEA). pic.twitter.com/Sr1z5iIRQx

— Oscar Jonsson (@OAJonsson) May 3, 2022

Another poster accuses King Gustaf V of being a Nazi.

Jonsson told The Local he was certain that the posters were genuine, but suspected that they were intended for Swedish consumption, as at least one of them had been placed outside the Swedish Embassy in Moscow.

“They’re more of a provocation to Sweden than something for the Russian people,” he said.

Mikael Östlund, communication chief at Sweden’s Psychological Defence Agency, argued the opposite case, that the posters were primarily designed to justify the war in Ukraine to Russia’s own population.

“Accusing western countries of Nazism is a part of the justification for their own war,” he said. “This is probably directed towards its own population. This has been one of the justifications for the war in Ukraine as well.”

Others even suggested they might even be a preparation for military action .

“Are there any limits to these guys? Or are they preparing a ‘denazifying’ operation against Sweden as well?” tweeted Sweden’s former prime minister Carl Bildt.

The Swedish foreign ministry said it was aware of the posters, but refused to comment.

“We have no intention of engaging in a public polemic with the Russian organisation ‘Our Victory’, which is reportedly behind these posters,” a spokesperson told TT. “In Russia, smears about ‘Nazism’ have been used repeatedly against countries and individuals who are critical of Russia’s actions.”

At a press conference in Germany, Sweden’s prime minister called the campaign “completely unacceptable”.

“But it is important to say already right now that Sweden could become the target of an influence campaign by foreign powers,” she said. “It’s important that all Swedes, and not least those of you in journalism, recognise that there is a risk that foreign powers will try to influence the Swedish debate climate.”

Anti-Swedish propaganda posters being put up in Russia portraying Swedish icons like Astrid Lindgren (Pippi Longstocking), Ingmar Bergman & IKEA founder Ingvar Kamprad as Nazi supporters. (Kamprad was member of neo-Nazi groups in youth, but other two clearly ridiculous.) pic.twitter.com/RJgjBBO02P

— Christian Christensen (@ChrChristensen) May 3, 2022

The poster leads with a quote from the Second World War diaries of the writer Astrid Lindgren, who created the character Pippi Longstocking.

This is from a passage where Lindgren, a German speaker, expresses her fears that Russia might invade Sweden, saying a Russian occupation would be worse than a German one.

“And so I think I’d rather say ‘Heil Hitler’ my whole life than get the Russians on top of us. You can hardly think of anything so awful,” Lindgren writes.

It’s worth pointing out that Lindgren was a committed anti-Nazi, who also wrote in her diary that Hitler was ‘a little, unknown German artisan’ who had become ‘his people’s nemesis and cultural destroyer’.

The second quote, a heavily-edited extract from Ingmar Bergman’s memoir, The Magic Lantern, describes how he attended a Hitler rally when he was a 16-year-old exchange student living with a family in Germany, and then received a photograph of Hitler from his exchange partner as a birthday present, which was hung over his bed.

“I had never seen anything like this eruption of immense energy,” Bergman writes of his attendance at the rally. “I shouted like everyone else, held out my arm like everyone else, howled like everyone else, and loved it like everyone else.”

In his book, Bergman goes on to write that when he first saw pictures from Nazi concentration camps, he at first could not believe them.

“When all the evidence from the concentration camps actually hit me, my mind could not at first accept what my eyes were registering. Like so many others, I said the pictures were prearranged propaganda lies,” he writes.

“When the truth finally conquered my resistance, I was overcome with despair, and my self contempt, already a severe burden, accelerated beyond the borders of endurance.”

The final quote comes from the memoirs of IKEA founder Ingvar Kamprad, in which he concedes, “I was a Nazi! I admired Hitler!”.

Although Kamprad was an enthusiastic involvement in Sweden’s Nazi youth movement during World War II, he later described this as the “greatest mistake of my life.”

But in an interview for a book by the Swedish journalist Elisabeth Åsbrink, published in 2011, Kamprad refused to disown his youthful support for the Swedish fascist leader Per Engdahl.

“He told me: ‘He (Engdahl) was a great human being and I will maintain that as long as I live’,” Åsbrink told AFP.

As late as 1950, Kamprad sent a wedding invitation to the fascist leader describing how he was proud to belong to the same circle as him.

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