SWEDEN: Order to be Disobeyed

Stolid Premier Per Albin Hansson looked anxiously over clean, quiet Stockholm, at Sweden's six-thousand-mile-long frontier, and beyond. Across the war-torn Baltic, Red Armies had lifted the siege of Leningrad (see p. 33) and threatened to push on into starving, freezing Finland. To the south, British and U.S. bombs fell regularly on German cities. Westward, across the Skagerrak, German sappers and soldiers from Trondheim to Narvik threw up fortifications against the Allied attack they feared.

Many threatening things Per Albin saw as he prepared his speech to the Riksdag. For more than three years he had kept his country neutral while war...

Want the full story?

Subscribe Now

Subscribe
Subscribe

Learn more about the benefits of being a TIME subscriber

If you are already a subscriber sign up — registration is free!