"5. Berggren, Henrik. "Suppressing the memory of recent events". DN: Dagens Nyheter (Sweden)(October 21, 1997). Note: Sweden was a rich post-war country partly due to its wartime actions. In this interview, author-journalist, Maria-Pia Bo‰thius, tells of transit shipments of German troops through Sweden to Norway and Finland, iron ore exports to Germany, Swedish censorship, and other examples showing that Swedish neutrality amounted to support for the Germans/.
Filed in Library at B8."
On your key point as well as reference numbers 1, 2, 5 and 9, please check your facts. The Swedes are by NO means the Swiss. I don't want to whitewash the Swiss during WWII; however I can assure you that lots of Swiss were patrolling their borders with heavy guns for a full 5 years. Though the Swiss were not as much of a safe heaven as many would have liked, they were at least a refuge for lots and lots of persecuted people from all over Europe and quite to the displeasure of the Germans.
I don't want to diminish the fact that they played some unsavory diplomatic games but on the whole Switzerland's conduct in the war was significantly better than one could expect from a country with a population at the time of about four million completely surrounded by either Germany, Austria, Italy or an occupied France.
EDIT. Please also note that neutrality in the Swiss case, means military neutrality and not economic neutrality. It is also important to note that neutrality means one negotiates with all parties to one's advantage. It has proven to be an excellent means of survival for the past 500 years for a small country surounded by powerful foes. |
