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NORWAY

Norway PM ‘hated Sweden’ for Nazi help

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.

Norway PM 'hated Sweden' for Nazi help

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.

The Local Norway

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WORLD WAR II

How France will mark VE day on May 8th

Saturday's commemoration of the date that marks the end of World War II in Europe will be happening under strict Covid-19 health rules, but there will be events in France.

How France will mark VE day on May 8th
French President Emmanuel Macron and some military will be attending this year's commemoration in Paris, as they did here, in 2019. Photo: Martin BUREAU / various sources / AFP

Why do we mark May 8th?

First a brief history. May 8th marks the formal acceptance by the Allies of Nazi Germany’s unconditional surrender of its armed forces in 1945.

Popularly known as VE Day (Victory in Europe Day), it marks the date when World War II ended in Europe.

Some fighting continued around the world, however. The United States dropped its atomic bombs on the Japanese cities Hiroshima and Nagasaki months later, in August, and all hostilities officially ceased on September 2nd 1945.

But in Europe, May 8th brought the end of the Nazi threat and a promise of brighter times ahead.

How is May 8th commemorated in France?

France is one of the few European countries that have made May 8th a public holiday and most people get the day off work when it falls on a weekday (this year it will be on a Saturday, so unfortunately no extra day off).

READ ALSO The French holiday calendar for 2021

In normal times, without Covid-19, May 8th is majestically marked with a large ceremony in Paris and smaller celebrations in towns and cities across the country.

Last year’s event, although it marked the 75-year-anniversary, was a small-scale one compared to other years, as France was still under its first nationwide, strict lockdown. 

President Emmanuel Macron did go ahead with the wreath-laying ceremony at the Champs-Elysées, keeping with the tradition for French heads of state. 

What’s on this year?

The 2021 commemorations will also be less grand than other years as several Covid-19 restrictions remain in place in France.

IN DETAIL: France’s new calendar for reopening after Covid restrictions

As last year, Macron will lay a wreath at the tomb of the Unknown Soldier at the Arc de Triomphe, which stands at the top of the Champs Elysées, in the presence of “a restricted number of public officials and military,” the French Defence Ministry said a press statement.

The ceremony will be closed to the public, though it will be possible to watch it live on television.

Regional authorities – the préfets – have permission to organise ceremonies in their areas, though “in a restricted format and while strictly respecting social distancing measures,” the statement read. These ceremonies will also be closed to the public.

Mayors can also lay wreath at war memorials in their communes, in ceremonies that, again, have to be in line with health rules and be closed to the public.

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