Arvid Lindman

Arvid Lindman

Arvid Lindman (left) in the courtyard of Stockholm Palace after swearing in his second cabinet with Ministers Ernst Trygger (Foreign Affairs), Claes Lindskog (Education) and Sven Lübeck (Health and Social Affairs) in 1928.

Salomon Arvid Achates Lindman (* 19th September 1862 in Uppsala , † 9. December 1936 at London Croydon ) was a Swedish Rear Admiral , politicians of the Conservatives and Prime Minister of Sweden .

Professional career

The son of a factory director began a career as a naval officer from 1882 to 1892, the climax of which he reached in 1907 when he was appointed Rear Admiral of the Reserve .

After retiring from the naval service, he became managing director of the wood and steel industry group AB Iggesunds Bruk in Hälsingland in 1892 . He then worked in the same position in the AB Strömbacka Bruks group from 1903 to 1923 . At the same time he became general director of the state telephone company Televerket in 1904 and held this office until 1907.

Political career

MP and Minister

In July 1902, he initially turned down Erik Gustaf Boström's offer to join his cabinet as finance minister.

In 1905, however, he was elected to the First Chamber of the Reichstag . He then joined Christian Lundeberg's cabinet as Minister of the Navy in August 1905 . He only held this office until Lundeberg resigned on November 8, 1905.

Prime Minister from 1906 to 1911

After the resignation of the government of Karl Staaff because of the unresolved question of the right to vote , he was appointed by King Oskar II on May 29, 1906 as his successor as Prime Minister . From 1907 he also headed the War Ministry.

Lindman, who formed a moderately conservative government, tried, like his predecessors Lundeberg and Staaff, to find a solution to the electoral law problem. In an electoral reform in 1907, universal male suffrage (with certain restrictions) was finally introduced for the Second Chamber of Parliament, and the First Chamber was also partially democratized. Class antagonisms remained high, however, and the general strike of 1909 deepened the rift between social democrats and liberals on the one hand and conservatives on the other.

Lindman's government pushed through several reforms in industry, schools, and social policy. At the same time, he tried to find a solution to the defense issue by appointing a defense committee, expanding the navy and strengthening Sweden internationally through agreements with the North Sea and Baltic Sea countries.

However, through the electoral reform implemented by his government, liberals and social democrats won the majority in the 1911 Reichstag election . For this reason, Lindman resigned on October 7, 1911.

Opposition leader and foreign minister

He was then a member of the Second Chamber of the Reichstag. Here he was from 1912 to 1935 parliamentary group leader of the Allmänna Valmansförbundet (General Association of Electors). As such, he proposed Gustav V both Hjalmar Hammarskjöld and Carl Swartz as Prime Minister to prevent the appointment of Ernst Trygger , the much more conservative leader of the right-wing parliamentary group in the First Chamber.

Under Swartz, Lindman served as foreign minister from March to October 1917 .

After another reform of the electoral law in the years 1918 to 1921, which finally brought women's suffrage , he began to modernize the General Electoral Union and its election campaigns. To do this, he not only used planes to reach election campaign sites, but also election posters .

In 1921, Lindman, together with other leading politicians such as Prime Minister Hjalmar Branting, signed a bill for the establishment of the State Institute for Racial Biology .

Prime Minister from 1928 to 1930

After the hard-fought election campaign of 1928 , which resulted in losses for the Social Democrats and gains for the Conservatives, King Gustav V appointed him Prime Minister on October 1, 1928. However, he was only able to form a minority cabinet, as liberals and free-minded people refused to participate in government. During his government he made particular efforts to end the numerous strikes and lockouts at the time of the emerging world economic crisis . On June 6, 1930, he had to resign as prime minister after liberals and social democrats had rejected his plans to increase the grain tax.

death

Lindman died in a plane crash on December 9, 1936 when a Douglas DC-2 crashed in thick fog at Croydon Airport immediately after take-off .

literature

• Ivar Andersson: Arvid Lindman och hans tid . Norstedt, Stockholm 1956.
• Not Edwardsson: Arvid Lindman. En state minister och hans tid . Timbro, Stockholm 2010, ISBN 978-91-7566-763-8
• Leiff Lewin: Arvid Lindman . Bonnier, Stockholm 2010. ISBN 978-91-0-011974-4
• Lindman, Salomon Arvid Achates . In: Herman Hofberg, Frithiof Heurlin, Viktor Millqvist, Olof Rubenson (eds.): Svenskt biografiskt handlexikon . 2nd Edition. tape 2 : L – Z, including supplement . Albert Bonniers Verlag, Stockholm 1906, p. 809 (Swedish, runeberg.org ).
• Lindman, Salomon Arvid Achates . In: Theodor Westrin (Ed.): Nordisk familjebok konversationslexikon och realencyklopedi . 2nd Edition. tape 16 : Lee – Luvua . Nordisk familjeboks förlag, Stockholm 1912, Sp. 640-643 (Swedish, runeberg.org ).

Web links

Commons : Arvid Lindman  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Arvid Lindman och svensk telefoni (biography)
• Biographies of the Prime Ministers
• Short party history. Website of the Moderate Rally Party
• Members of the Swedish Governments from 1900 to 1925
• Members of the Swedish Governments from 1925 to 1946

Individual evidence

1. ^ Karl N Alvar Nilsson: Kris i Folkhemmet. Svensk politisk historia 1900–2011 . ( Memento of April 2, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 1.5 MB) p. 12.
2. ^ Benny Jacobsson: Nytt ljus över rasbiologin . ( Memento from May 27, 2009 in the Internet Archive )