Sweden neutral? Flamest from General Discussion resumes here!

[Toad]

Was Sweden "neutral" in WW2? Are they without sin to the point that they can throw stones?   What about the Swiss and other "neutrals"?

Co-Opting Nazi Germany: Neutrality in Europe During World War II

Read it all for objectivity, then make your comments. If there's errors, point them out.

Here's a slice to whet your appetite though. Remember this isn't the whole story.. it's just to get ya interested.  

However, when it came to trade with the Nazi regime, the Swedes, for a period of time, accommodated themselves to the Reich to an even greater extent than the Swiss did.

The Swedish economy was, for a number of years, almost fully integrated into the Nazis' New Order; the country supplied Germany with high-grade iron ore (30 percent of that used by the German armaments industry), as well as ball bearings, foodstuffs, wood, and many other raw materials. In matters of finance, the Swedes cooperated with Germany by providing credit, which allowed the delivery of vast quantities of military equipment to the Wehrmacht.

Moreover, after the war, the Swedish central bank, the Riksbank, "examined gold it had received from the Nazis in payment for exports and returned about 13 tons that presumably had been stolen [from] Belgium and the Netherlands."24

The Swedes believed, at least for the first years of the war, that cooperation with Germany was necessary to preserve a precarious neutrality. But after 1943 the Swedish government, heeding Allied warnings about neutrals doing business with Germany, detached the country from the German "political and commercial web," and gradually established closer ties with the Allies.25

There is no doubt that for several years Sweden put its considerable economic resources at the disposal of the Reich; but its behavior in the latter stages of the war removed much of the stigma of collaboration.

Now where did I put that nomex flight suit?  

[Pongo]

I posted about this a few weeks ago when some swede was posting holier then thow about Dresden...
When they are selling Iron for panther tanks for the gold from Jewish teeth they should take a good long look at them selves and how "neutral" they were.
All they were was a source of munitions material that could not be bombed by the allies. They were apperently more affraid of Adolf or more in line with his political agenda then they where with the allies.
Some counties are not as adept at looking at thier pasts as other though.

[Vector]

And the main reason Germans conquered Norway was to ensure the deliveries of ore from Sweden to Germany via railroads during winter times. In summer times waterways were used.

Allied knew that Sweden was most important ore supplier to Germany and planned to capture main mines in Sweden. They only needed an excuse to land their feet on Swedish ground. Finland was the answer (or so they thought); allied offered material help to Finland who was fighting against Russians. All they needed was the official request from Mannerheim and they thought they would have permission to use Swedish ground to deliver equipments to Finland (and capture mines in Sweden). But their plan was scrapped due the Mannerheim who refused to ask help from allies. Churchill was amazed.
Regardless of numerous allies request to Sweden to pass their troops via their ground, Sweden refused every time. However, at the very same time Germans were allowed to use Swedish ground to supply their troops in northern norway, Germans had permanent authorization from Sweden.

Neutral Sweden? Yeah right!

No offence swedish ppl

[Hangtime]

Wonder how long 'swiss neutrality' woulda lasted in a europe controlled by the soviets after WWII?

[Dowding]

If Allied blood hadn't been shed for 6 years then I really doubt the veneer of neutrality (because that's all it was) would have been in tact.

I was under the impression Switzerland sold arms to both sides during the war.

[Oldman731]

Originally posted by Pongo
When they are selling Iron for panther tanks for the gold from Jewish teeth they should take a good long look at them selves and how "neutral" they were.
All they were was a source of munitions material that could not be bombed by the allies.

*sigh*  And they have such pretty girls....

- oldman

[AKSWulfe]

I dunno Dowding, but the Swiss definitely shot down a couple of American B-17s.
-SW

[Toad]

What, no Swedes for the rebuttal?

Never really thought about 1/3 of the armor in the Blitzkreig being made of fine Swedish iron ore....

[fd ski]

No idea on validity of the information, but I found it on the internet, so it MUST be true

Trading With The Enemy

This article reveals the trade between U.S. corporations and the Nazi regime during World War 2: how U.S. companies made big bucks by arming both the Allies and the Nazis.
They say that the winners write the history books.

New information on the business activities of certain banks and multinational companies during World War II makes one wonder who was fighting whom - and why?

Studying government documents obtained through the FOIA, Charles Higham entered a most alarming world. He discovered to his utter dismay and growing contempt the secret negotiations, trades, sales, and financial dealings that had gone on before, during and after the war between corporate leaders of the United States and the firms of Nazi Germany.

 

His book, "Trading With The Enemy", is filled with stories of secret trading and funding for anti-war sentiment, among other traitorous activities. In his preface, the author asks some extremely poignant questions which we should be asking ourselves in relation to the US-Soviet Union connection.

... if the average American knew about this?
What would have happened if millions of American and British people, struggling with coupons and lines at the gas stations, had learned that in 1942 Standard Oil of New Jersey managers shipped the enemy's fuel through neutral Switzerland and that the enemy was shipping Allied fuel? Suppose the public had discovered that the Chase Bank in Nazi-occupied Paris after Pearl Harbour was doing millions of dollars worth of business with the enemy with the full knowledge of the head office in Manhattan? Or that Ford trucks were being built for the German occupation troops in France? Or that Col. Sosthenes Behn, the head of the international American telephone conglomerate ITT, flew from New York to Madrid to Berne during the war to help improve Hitler's communications Systems and the robot bombs that devastated London? Or that ITT built the Focke-Wulfs that dropped bombs on British and American troops? Or that crucial ball-bearings were shipped to Nazi-associated customers in Latin America with the collusion of the vice chairman of the US War Production Board, in partnership with (high Nazi official) Goering's cousin in Philadelphia when American forces were desperately short of them? Or that such arrangements were known about in Washington and either sanctioned or deliberately ignored?

Some of it was `business as usual' and some transactions' purposes were traitorous, i.e., favouring Hitler and Nazism. An organisation that combined these motives was the BIS (Bank for International Settlements, created in 1930 of the world's central banks and inspired by Hjalmar Schacht, Nazi Minister of Economics who had powerful Wall Street connections.

BIS was created to retain channels of communication and collusion between the world's financial leaders during international conflicts. Its ostensible purpose was to provide the Allies with reparations to be paid by Germany for World War 1. However, it soon became an instrument to funnel money from America and Britain to Hitler's war machine. In May of 1944 during BIS's annual meeting, while young Americans were dying on the Italian beach-heads, the financial fraternity was deciding what to do with the $378 million in gold that the Nazi government had looted from the national banks of Austria, Holland, and Belgium.

Some other examples of traitorous activity by U.S. companies:
1) While General Motors (GM) was equipping the USAF in 1943, the German GM group was developing and assembling motors for the Messerschmidt 262, the first jet fighter in the world (GM went unpunished after the war; in fact, they were awarded a $33 million tax exemption on profits for its destroyed factories in Germany and Austria by the US government).

2) SKF (Swedish Enskilda Bank) was the colossal ball-bearings trust. Goering's cousin, Hugo von Rosen, and William Batt, Vice Chairman of the War Production Board, were directors of SKF in America throughout the war. Ball-bearings were essential -- tanks, trucks, planes, armored cars, U-boats, railroads, ITT's communication devices, guns, and bombsights would have been powerless without them. Therefore, ball-bearings were among the most powerful weapons of "the fraternity"`s (the name Higham continually uses to refer to the men who were overseeing the game of banking on war) sophisticated form of wartime neutrality. SKF not only controlled ball-bearings but, since its inception in 1907, it controlled iron ore mines, steel and blast furnaces, foundries, factories and plants in US, Germany, France, and Britain. The largest share of its production was allocated to Germany: 60 per cent.

The all-important Curtiss-Wright Aviation Corporation was unable for 15 months after Pearl Harbour to secure sufficient ball-bearings from SKF, and came close to closing down. Worn ball-bearings caused crashes that cost American lives. Large numbers of planes were grounded because of the lag in supply. Batt would do nothing; the inventories at the plant in Philadelphia were doctored to appear that only a few million bearings were ground out, when in fact much more had been produced. And sometimes Goering's cousin, von Rosen, would manufacture incomplete bearings for Americans that were useless. Investigations were being implemented, accountancy files and correspondence were burned, Watergates upon Watergates trying to ascertain who were the traitors in the War Production Board. In the end, Batt and von Rosen went without punishment. The secret promises with other members of the fraternity were kept. The SKF plants in Sweden and Germany would not be broken down or removed.

[Tac]

Yer looking at it with different eyes.


If I was small, my military a pack of holiday excursionists in comparison to that of my neighbors, if I was SMACK in the middle of them and all the sudden the toejam hits the fan...

would you take sides? I wouldnt. I would do my darn best to stay out of it because that means staying alive. If I were to support the axis, that makes me a target to the allies. supporting the allies is unthinkable since im already surrounded by the axis.

If the axis told me they needed weapons or food and were willing to pay for it... welp, I cant say no, to do otherwise might have their army rolling over me, they really dont need an excuse to do so.

IMO, the Swiss were very smart in doing what they did.

Then the Swedes (gawd them namings become confusing!). Hostile russia bashing the fins and quite probably would roll over the swedish lands after they conquered the fins... the only powerful military capable of withstanding russia was germany, which also happens to be damn close to sweden. The allies were too far and were being soundly routed off the european mainland. The economy of europe is gone bonkers because of the war. Sweden is sitting on vital war material raw resources, its either sell them or be conquered by them. Tough choice.

What would you have done? Lemme ask you this, did sweden keep selling them the ore after the allied forces were liberating france?

[fd ski]

Meticulous research, including U.S. government records from the era, along with contemporaneous news stories from the New York Times and other papers is presented in the 1992 book entitled, “George Bush, The Unauthorized Biography” by Webster G. Tarpley & Anton Chaitkin, Published by The Executive Intelligence Review and located at http://www.tarpley.net/bushb.htm. The following is sourced entirely from Chapter II of this essential work. [Note: Although FTW does not always agree with conclusions reached by the Executive Intelligence Review, or its founder Lyndon La Rouche, we have never found a single flaw in any of their factual research. History is history, no matter who presents it. And this history is essential to understanding our era.]

George W. Bush’s grandfather, Prescott Bush, was the Managing Director of the investment bank Brown Brothers, Harriman from the 1920s through the 1940s. It was Brown Brothers, in conjunction with Averell Harriman, the Rockefeller family, Standard Oil, the DuPonts, the Morgans and the Fords who served as the principal funding arm in helping to finance Adolph Hitler’s rise to power starting in 1923. This included direct funding for the SS and SA channeled through a variety of German firms. Prescott Bush, through associations with the Hamburg-Amerika Steamship line, Nazi banker Fritz Thyssen (pronounced Tee-sen), Standard Oil of Germany, The German Steel Trust (founded by Dillon Read founder, Clarence Dillon), and I.G. Farben, used the Union Bank Corporation to funnel vast quantities of money to the Nazis and to manage their American interests. The profits from those investments came back to Bush allies on Wall Street. Thyssen is universally regarded as having been Hitler’s private banker and ultimate owner of the Union Bank Corporation.

Early support for Hitler came from Prescott Bush through the Hamburg-Amerika Steamship line -- also funded by Brown Bothers -- that funneled large sums of money and weapons to Hitler’s storm troopers in the 1920s.

According to Tarpley and Chaitkin, “In May 1933, just after the Hitler regime was consolidated, an agreement was reached in Berlin for the coordination of all Nazi commerce with the U.S.A. The Harriman International Company… was to head a syndicate of 150 firms and individuals, to conduct all exports from Hitler Germany to the United States.”

Furthermore, a 1942 U.S. government investigative report that surfaced during 1945 Senate hearings found that the Union Bank, with Prescott Bush on the board, was an “interlocking concern” with the German Steel Trust that had produced:

-        50.8% of Nazi Germany’s pig iron

-        41.4% of Nazi Germany’s universal plate

-        36% of Nazi Germany’s heavy plate

-        38.5% of Nazi Germany’s galvanized sheet

-        45.5% of Nazi Germany’s pipes and tubes

-        22.1% of Nazi Germany’s wire

-        35% of Nazi Germany’s explosives

The business relationships established by Bush in 1923 continued even after the war started until they became so offensive and overt as to warrant seizure by the U.S. government under the Trading with the Enemy Act in 1942.

In 1942, “Under the Trading with the Enemy Act, the government took over Union Banking Corporation, in which Bush was a director. The U.S. Alien Property Custodian seized Union Banking Corp.’s stock shares…

“… all of which shares are held for the benefit of… members of the Thyssen family, [and] is property of nationals… of a designated enemy country.”

“On October 28, the government issued orders seizing two Nazi front organizations run by the Bush-Harriman bank: the Holland-American Trading Corporation and the Seamless Steel Equipment Corporation.”

“Nazi interests in the Silesian-American Corporation, long managed by Prescott Bush and his father in law George Herbert Walker, were seized under the Trading with the Enemy Act on Nov. 17, 1942…” These seizures of Bush businesses were reported in a number of American papers including The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.

Prescott Bush went on to become an influential Republican Senator from Connecticut who went on to be a regular golfing partner of President Dwight Eisenhower. His attorneys were the lawyers John Foster and Allen Dulles, the later became the CIA Director under Eisenhower.

Shell we continue this dick measuring contest ?

[john9001]

i read it in a book , so it must be true

[Cabby44]

Quote:

" [Note: Although FTW does not always agree with conclusions reached by the Executive Intelligence Review, or its founder Lyndon La Rouche, ......."

LOL!!!  Fd-Ski, does the phrase "hook, line, and sinker" mean anything to you.???   Please, no more "facts".  My sides are hurting........

Cabby

[weazel]

How does it feel to know that your *heroic* Bush family was partially responsible for the deaths of millions of jews by Nazi Germany cabby?

You make me sick.

[john9001]

yes ..in 1923 we ALL knew hitler was a bad man