Sweden has had a free press for 174 years, guaranteed by one of the most liberal constitutions in the world. The Free Press Statute of 1812, Magna Charta of Swedish journalism, is one of the four basic laws of Sweden. It gives every citizen the right to publish what he pleases, makes censorship of any kind illegal.
Ever since the rise of Adolf Hitler, Germany has been throwing knives at Sweden's press, bludgeoning at Swedish officials to make them muzzle the newspapers. Prince Viktor zu Wied, German Minister in Stockholm, calls almost daily at the Swedish Foreign Office to complain about news stories, editorials, advertisements (even in remote provincial papers) that might offend delicate Nazi sensibilities.
Even before the outbreak of war last September, a steady stream of circulars came to the press from Sweden's nervous Government, begging publishers not to print stories that Germany might choose to consider un-neutral and use as a pretext for aggression. Most newsmen complied by restraining themselves: persecution of the Jews in Poland and Austria was soft-pedaled, concentration camps were ignored. For at least two years no cartoon of Hitler, Göring, Goebbels, or any other Nazi bigwig has appeared in a Swedish paper.
Even the mildest criticism of Nazi policies is usually balanced by a dig at the Allies, to safeguard Swedish neutrality.
Westman Law. Three days before last Christmas, Sweden's new conservative Cabinet set up a committee for the pur pose of "devising appropriate measures to prevent misuse of press freedom." Minister of Justice Karl Gustaf Westman (already feared in Sweden because of his Nazi leanings) dug up an obsolete press law providing for criminal action against editors who publish "offensive writings" about a foreign State.
First editor indicted under Westman's forgotten law was a notable Swedish Socialist, journalist, poet: Senator Ture Nerman. In his weekly Trots Allt, after the bombing of Hitler's beer hall in Munich, he wrote an editorial on "Hitler's Hell Machine." Senator Nerman was found guilty, sentenced to three months in jail. Then followed a wave of arrests and convictions for "offensive writings."
Under the same law, Minister Westman confiscated onetime Nazi Hermann Rauschning's new book, The Voice of Destruction (see p. 8g), two hours after it came from the press. Exclaimed Publisher Johan Hansson, who had carefully expurgated the Swedish text before it appeared: "What a strange kind of democracy we now have in this country!" As last month ended, Minister Westman had permission from the Cabinet to draft a new and drastic law defining responsibilities of the press.