German-speaking emigration to Sweden 1933–1945

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The German-speaking emigration to Sweden 1933-1945 was due to the location of Sweden on the European periphery initially low quantitative importance, but it was after the German invasion of Denmark and Norway increasingly stronger on 9 April 1940th Emigration received a further boost in 1942 when local and German-speaking people of Jewish faith fled Norway and in 1943 when they were rescued from Denmark via the Øresund .

Between 1933 and 1945 there was room for around 5,000 German-speaking refugees in Sweden, around two thirds of whom, according to Einhart Lorenz, were victims of the Nuremberg Race Laws .

"Sweden for Sweden"

Refugees of the Jewish faith were mostly viewed by the Swedish administration as economic refugees and not as politically persecuted, and their entry was extremely cautious. Under the motto "Sweden to Sweden", action was taken against the feared "foreign infiltration" of the "Swedish race" and a "J-Pass" was introduced. Politically organized emigrants had to reckon with fewer reprisals, but their political work was much more restricted than in neighboring Norway . From 1940 onwards, many communists and left-wing socialists were interned in camps, and some refugees who came from Norway were turned away or even handed over to the German authorities. Only after the turn of the war with the Battle of Stalingrad did the German-speaking emigrants become more liberal.

Willy Brandt , Bruno Kreisky , Herbert Wehner , Nelly Sachs and Peter Weiss are among the best-known German-speaking refugees who found exile in Sweden despite all adversities . As remigrants, some of them brought elements of the “social democratic Swedish model” with them to Germany and Austria.

Since 1934 there was the Kristinehov boarding school in Sweden, a country school in Västraby in the south of Sweden. The school was intended to offer Jewish children and young people from Germany who were no longer allowed to attend a regular school there the opportunity to continue and finish their schooling. In addition, the preparation for emigration to Palestine was a training goal.

See also

literature

  • Einhart Lorenz, Sweden , in: Claus-Dieter Krohn (ed.), Handbuch der Deutschensprachigen Emigration 1933–1945 , special edition, 2nd, unchanged edition, Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2008, ISBN 978-3-534-21999-5 . Pp. 371-375.
  • Einhart Lorenz (ed.): A very gloomy chapter? Hitler refugees in Northern European exile 1933 to 1950 , Hamburg: Results-Verlag, 1998, ISBN 3-87916-044-9
  • Helmut Müssener: Exile in Sweden. Political and cultural emigration after 1933 , Munich: Hanser, 1974, ISBN 3-446-11850-0

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Cf. Einhart Lorenz, Sweden , in: Claus-Dieter Krohn (ed.), Handbuch der Deutschensprachigen Emigration 1933–1945 , special edition, 2nd, unchanged edition, Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2008, pp. 371–375, here p 371.
  2. ↑ Cf. Einhart Lorenz, Sweden , in: Claus-Dieter Krohn (ed.), Handbuch der Deutschensprachigen Emigration 1933–1945 , special edition, 2nd, unchanged edition, Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2008, pp. 371–375, here p 372.
  3. ↑ See Einhart Lorenz, Sweden , in: Claus-Dieter Krohn (ed.), Handbuch der Deutschensprachigen Emigration 1933–1945 , special edition, 2nd, unchanged edition, Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2008, pp. 371–375.