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But Sweden has to keep an eye on her Nazis. In 1933 political uniforms were banned, owners of firearms ordered to register. Swedes became sufficiently conscious of the Nazi penetration to organize a private boycott of German goods. In 1935 anti-German Foreign Minister Rickard Sandler got an act passed to end foreign control, through dummy corporations, of Swedish industries. It was aimed at Krupp's one-third ownership of the Bofors works. (Just before the act went through, Krupp sold out to a Swedish group headed by Tycoon Axel Wenner-Gren.) Junkers had to give up a manufacturing affiliate in Sweden, but Germans remained on the directorates of other big Swedish firms, and the German investment in Sweden's metal-working industry alone was estimated at $3,500,000.
In 1935 Rudolf Hess visited Stockholm, ostensibly to enroll support for Hitler's war plans against Russia. For several years Hermann Göring was a regular guest at Castle Rockelstad for Nazi powwows with his first wife's brother, Count Eric von Rosen. In 1936 Swedish police arrested eleven Nazi agitators, ousted three. In retaliation Germany kicked three Swedish businessmen out of Germany.
By 1937 Nazi penetration into Sweden was well advanced. In Boden one Friedrich Heinz was found giving "German lessons" to officers and soldiers of the garrison. A Swedish manufacturer exposed a German plan to get detailed drawings of Swedish factories by having manufacturers send them to a German air-raid expert for advice on how to build shelters. German "tourists" swarmed over Sweden, especially around the mining districts. Six "philosophy students" were arrested studying the terrain around the fortress at Boden, strongest in northern Europe. Two German agents were nabbed for espionage at Eskilstuna ("Sheffield of Sweden"), another at the gold-mining town of Boliden. A German journalist and photographer named Viese was found to have supplied a Berlin picture agency with 60 detailed photographs of Swedish mining centres and harbors. In 1938 police unmasked a huge Nazi spy network, but no details were published.
Since the war began spying has multiplied. Last month Stockholm police arrested four German-born Swedish citizens for forwarding information about Narvik iron shipments to Germany. Three of them were sentenced to hard labor.
At latest reports Sweden's Hitler, Sven Lindholm, was going about his regular business as a sergeant in the Army. A sporty-looking character who somewhat resembles an intelligent football player, he makes no secret of the fact that he considers himself the personal representative of Göring in Sweden. More than once he has stood for an hour straight-arming before the Stockholm statue of the great Gustavus Adolf us (who overran Germany in 1630-32) while comrades paraded behind him. Once he was asked at a public meeting what he would do if Germany invaded. "I will not be provoked," said Sergeant Lindholm.
By last week, too, Sweden realized into what other and higher places Naziism had penetrated. Items:
> Torsten Kreuger, brother of the late gross match king, owns two important Stockholm dailies, Aftonbladet and Tidningen. Torsten Kreuger hates all those who helped to strip him of Ivar's properties, believes the House of Morgan is a hive of Jewry, means to get even.