Sweden and the war Remark

“Sweden and the War” wipe the story in detailed fog, but avoid the difficult questions

The story never speaks in itself; At least the stories that want to give the appearance to do that exactly. “Sweden and the War” – SVT’s lush colored collage about how Sweden went through the shocking second world years 1939-1945 and whose fifth and final episodes are now shown in the days – is one.

A lot happens on the screen, apparently clear. A bit mixed with big. Crime pieces about mobilized men who sink somewhere in Sweden and are small alternated with testimonials about how warmland children were both fascinated and traumatized by tanging the war. Moreover, over-pedagogical public service providers on Hitler’s path to power and punching in North Africa and Stalingrad.

The approach is undoubtedly Effective, both aesthetic and emotional. The colored narrow films of taverns, train stations, beaches and harbor quays – taken from thousands of family skins – are often hypnotic in a way that dissolves both time and space. The careful beats in countless letters and diaries of both well -known and unknown Sweden add extra lifeline.

The advantage of the method, taken from the historian and the author Henrik Bergrens Excellent book trilogy “The Land Outside” is that the past becomes wise. When the most varied shards are merged chronologically without printed facts, it becomes possible to imagine what the Swedish people had to deal with and then.

It becomes understandable that the starting disaster on the continent remote and difficult to take seriously. Suddenly the contours of the too many forgotten fishermen and sailors who fell victim to mines and torpedoes can be seen on the Kosterhavet.

At the same time, the story is swept In a detailed fog that makes it difficult to see large movements and important to distinguish from unimportant. In -thieving concept it is made more difficult by a rapsodic accounting racing: Per Albin Hansson Tram travels that. Sven Hedins Hubitability for Hitler. Strictness and closed boundaries. Letter censorship and detention camp. Ture Nerman And the Tuesday club. Sand bags for the dramaten. Sami who helps Norwegian refugees over the mountain.

The lack of order and interpretation is most clearly in the burning issue of the actions of Sweden during the Second World War, must be considered responsible small states of realism or reprehensible racing.

Certainly, the answer is reported when the king and the government of Norway asked for the Swedish sanctuary in the introduction of the German occupation. The transport of German soldiers also through Sweden; Both to and to Norway and to Finland and the continuation war against the Soviet Union.

It’s ready too It is clear that Sweden could be much more accommodating than the required need. The fact that Senior Swedish army brought study visits to overcoming German troops in France or that Germany was invited to participate in Finnkampen In 1940, anything but flattering parts of the Swedish other war war.

At the same time, SVT really wants to emphasize countless people who have acted differently. The volunteers in the Finnish Winter War, the refugees who were received and the Norwegian opponents who were offered protection on the right on the right.

The space the good The examples are dedicated to create an underlying morally constructive story. A corrective for the remission policy that was practiced until the Allies were unambiguously taken over on the battlefield and the full extent of the Nazi Germany destruction became more and more clear. This and not the collision of the collection alloy is the actual Sweden, at least suggested.

There are good points that the petition is not clear. So it reminds that history is rarely as black and white as we want, but also that it is always the result of the active choices of people.

At the same time, viewers are over Fairly lonely and without tools to evaluate the details and context of the drama. That the source -critical problems (tendency, time factor and representative) that are always connected to the use of diaries and other personal testimonies, cannot be discussed, but a more extensive and concrete contextualization was needed:

How is the willingness of Sweden compared to the neighboring countries of 1939? How much iron ore was actually exported to Germany and what was it used for? What did the election result look like for the Swedish Nazi parties during the war years and how many were members of different German -friendly associations? Is the Swedish refugee policy separated from the person taken by other neutral countries?

These kinds of questions had made it easier for viewers to understand and relate the past. Because the answers are also available in the historian Class Åmark Standard works “living next to evil”, where he summarizes his own and others extensive research into Sweden during the Second World War, an opportunity for people who form in -Depth, is unnecessarily lost. It is primarily a shame because the approach of Nazi Germany has been a central element in the Swedish cultural war for a few years.

SD representatives and Other parts of the outer law offer no chance of many targeted references to the Racial Biological Institute, J-Stamps and Permitte traffic to paint by Social Democrats of Albin Hansson as the real Nazis. The simple attempt to put their own extreme political heritage into perspective has in turn ensured that some left -wing intellectuals were converted into the reflexive defenders of the Reflexive. It is interesting and ironic when the public critical discussion about the distinction of Sweden was initiated from the left in the nineties of Maria-Pia Boëthius With the book “Honor and Conscience”.

By being aesthetically elegant, emotionally fascinating and annoying faint, “Sweden and the war” do not affect much more than the existing and opposing views. It is just as contemporary as a little desirable way to portray the story.

Cool performing arts and crying critics

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