Gunnar Strang

Gunnar Sträng, 1961.

Gunnar Georg Emanuel Sträng ( pronunciation : [ ˌgɵnːaɹ ˈstɹɛŋː ], born December 23, 1906 in Järfälla ; † March 7, 1992 in Stockholm ) was a Swedish politician and member of the Swedish Social Democrats . From 1955 to 1976 he was Minister of Finance in Sweden.

Adolescence

Gunnar Sträng grew up in Lövsta near Järfälla near Stockholm. He came from a humble background. His father worked in the garbage disposal and the young, inquisitive Gunnar could read interesting books there that were supposed to be burned. After graduating from elementary school in 1920, he also started collecting garbage, but was soon released due to a lack of work. At times he worked as a casual worker, u. a. with snow shovels in Stockholm, through. 1925-26 he completed a course in agriculture at the adult education center in Västerhaninge . After his exams he got a job as a farm worker.

labor union

In 1927 Gunnar Sträng became a member of the gardeners' union in Hässelby and in 1926 he became a board member and secretary there. On May 19, 1928, this union went on strike, in which Sträng actively participated as an agitator. In 1930, Sträng was elected ombudsman for the Lantarbetarförbundet agricultural workers' union . Now he cycled all over Sweden and recruited new members. In 1938 Gunnar Sträng got the post of second chairman of the Lantarbetarförbundet and on January 1, 1938 he became its first chairman.

minister

The Social Democratic Party had taken over government power in Sweden under Prime Minister Per Albin Hansson in autumn 1932 . He installed Gunnar Sträng in the government as an advisory minister for agricultural issues in 1945. A steep career began for Gunnar Sträng. In 1947 he became minister of the national budget, in 1948 minister of agriculture, in 1951 minister of social affairs and in 1955 he was finally minister of finance. He held this post for 21 years until the Social Democrats lost the election in 1976 after more than 40 years in power.

In 1946 he was elected to the Reichstag for the first time , to which he was a member until 1985.

Sträng and Lindgren

On March 10, 1976 Astrid Lindgren published a satirical fairy tale with the title Pomperipossa i Monismanien in the daily newspaper Expressen . In this polemical fairy tale, Lindgren ironicized the Swedish tax system with its extreme conditions, which in her case meant that she had to pay more tax on certain professional incomes than she earned, namely 102%.

When Sträng, who was a bit high-handed, had read this article, he said: Yes, telling fairy tales, Mrs. Lindgren can do that, but she cannot calculate, but nobody wants that from her. He shouldn't have said that, because the following day Astrid Lindgren countered in a radio interview: ... but I ask that from Gunnar Sträng ... because I have the figures from the tax office. Sträng can tell fairy tales, but apparently he can't count. We should switch jobs, him and me. That was spoken from the heart of the Swedes. Many assume that this event, in the middle of the election campaign, ultimately cost the Social Democrats their election victory.

Sträng's successor to the post of finance minister was the chairman of the Moderata Samlingspartiet Gösta Bohman (1911-1997), he lowered the marginal tax rate from a maximum of 102% to a good 80%.

Literature and Sources

• Not so L. Johansson: Gunnar Sträng - landsvägsagitatorn . Tidens förlag, Stockholm 1992, ISBN 91-550-3636-8 .
• Manne Ståhl: Sträng finance ministers . Bokförlaget Robert Larson, Stockholm 1970.