Days Erlander

Days Erlander (1952)

Erlander with Nikita Khrushchev , June 1964

Grave of Days Erlander (2011)

Days Erlander, sculpture by Herman Reijers (1988)

Days Fritiof Erlander ^{? / i} ([ ˌtɑːgə ɛɹˈlanːdəɹ ]; bornJune 13, 1901inRansäter,Munkfors municipality; †June 21, 1985inStockholm) was aSwedish politicianandPrime Ministerfrom 1946 to 1969.

Life

Tage Erlander grew up in a liberal and religious family, but turned to the Social Democrats while studying in Lund . Between 1928 and 1938 he worked as an editor for the Swedish encyclopedia Svensk uppslagsbok . In 1930 he was elected to the Lund City Council and in 1932 to the Reichstag . In 1938 he became State Secretary in the Ministry of Social Affairs and in 1944 Minister without portfolio; the following year he took over the Ministry of Education. After the sudden death of Per Albin Hanssons in 1946, Tage Erlander was elected party leader of the Social Democratic Labor Party and took over the office of Prime Minister. The Erlander, who was initially controversial in its own ranks, gradually consolidated its position and achieved extraordinary popularity. In the last Reichstag election under his party leadership, the Social Democrats won over 50 percent of the vote.

His reign was marked by the expansion of the welfare state and work on constitutional reform. Erlander coined the term “strong society” and saw the expansion of the public sector as necessary and valuable. During his reign, the Swedish welfare state made great strides and the “Swedish model” also attracted attention abroad. In doing so, however, he also demanded personal responsibility and summarized this in the sentence: "The point of the welfare state is to help people and not to take responsibility away from them."

In October 1969 he handed over his office to the Minister of Education Olof Palme , whom he had hired as secretary in 1953 and who had become one of his most important employees. After retiring from politics, he lived in Bommersvik with his wife Aina .

Fonts (selection)

• Memoirs 1901–1939. New Society, Bonn-Bad Godesberg 1974.
• 1960 talet. Samtal with Arvid Lagercrantz. Tidens, Stockholm 1982.

literature

• Olof Ruin: Days of Erlander. Serving the Welfare State, 1946-1969. Translated from Swedish into English by Michael F. Metcalf. University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh 1990, ISBN 0-8229-3631-3 ( preview) .

Web links

Commons : Tage Erlander  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature from and about days Erlander in the catalog of the German National Library
• Tage Erlander in nndb (English)
• Erlander days in the Munzinger archive ( beginning of article freely accessible)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Torch in hand. In: Der Spiegel , October 6, 1969.