National Socialist Workers' Party (Sweden)

Nationalsocialistiska Arbetarepartiet (English: National Socialist Workers' Party, NSAP) was a Swedish political party that initially espoused Nazism before adopting a more indigenous form of fascism. It was also widely infamous under the name Svensk socialistisk samling (SSS, i.e "Swedish Socialist Gathering"), which was generally among the public called "Lindholmarna" ("the Lindholm'ers", after the leader's name).

National Socialist Workers' Party
Swedish Socialist Union

Nationalsocialistiska Arbetarepartiet
Svensk socialistisk samling
AbbreviationNSAP
SSS
ChairmanSven Olov Lindholm
Founded15 January 1933 (1933-01-15)
DissolvedJune 1950
Preceded bySwedish National Socialist Party
Succeeded byNordic Realm Party
NewspaperDen Svenske Nationalsocialisten
Youth wingNordisk ungdom[1][2]
Labour wingNational Socialist Industrial Workers' Union
IdeologyNazism
 • Swedish nationalism
 • Pan-Nordism
 • Antisemitism
 • Anti-capitalism
 • Anti-communism
Political positionFar-right
Party flag

The party was revealed after WWII to have had well-organized plans, containing death lists of local Jews to be rounded up and deported and also plans for the construction of two Swedish concentration camps, in case of a Nazi German invasion of Sweden. Lindholm himself had planned to take the role as a "Swedish Quisling" if such an invasion had happened.

The Nazi-friendly Swedish king Gustav V had friendly ties to the SSS/NSAP during the war.[3][4][5][6][7][8]

History

The party was formed in 1933 by Sven Olov Lindholm after he left the Swedish National Socialist Party, following a series of clashes over policy and personality.[9] The NSAP initially acted as a simple mirror of the National Socialist German Workers Party, with the party newspaper Den Svenske Nationalsocialisten[10] repeating what was being said in Nazi Germany and the Nordisk ungdom (Nordic Youth) group serving as a replica of the Hitler Youth (albeit on a smaller scale).[11] The swastika was also initially used as the party emblem.

The party continued to move away from the Hitler model, and largely abandoned its ties to Germany in favour of a more Swedish model. In 1938, it ceased to use the swastika and replaced it with the cogwheel and hammer symbol. By the end of the year the party had changed its name to Svensk Socialistisk Samling (Swedish Socialist Gathering) and had largely dropped all but passing reference to the Nazis. Nonetheless, the party declined dramatically during the Second World War and was formally dissolved in 1950, 5 years after WWII.[12][13] Some members of NSAP/SSS joined the Waffen-SS during the war as part of the few hundred Swedish SS volunteers. Those who returned home afterwards rarely mentioned the war in public out of fear of being investigated or accused of war crimes.[14]

In 1943, the party's national congress in Uppsala caused the Easter Riots to break out.

The party was one of the earliest to claim that no Holocaust happened, in May 1945 in Den Svenske Folksocialisten.[15]

Swedish Holocaust plans

It was discovered some years after WWII, when incomplete lists from the SSS/NSAP containing the names of nearly one thousand Jews was found, that the party had hoped for, and planned well for, a Nazi German invasion of Sweden.

Local party branches had helped gather well-documented information about hundreds of local Jews' businesses, names, families, their children's schools, workplaces, etc, and collected these documents to the party's main branch. These lists are today often referred to as death lists by historians and experts, since the movement was known for their fanatic hatred of Jews.

The party would, in case of such an invasion, first have strived to set up a "Swedish Quisling puppet regime" (an idea that has been compared to i.e the Norwegian one under Nasjonal Samling) with Lindholm as leader. It has been revealed their plans involved the construction of at least two Swedish concentration camps (to be located in Sjöbo and Stora Karlsö) for Jews; they had the locations and maps for these ready, and then would have rounded up the thousands of Jews in Sweden along with political opponents and so on, for deportations to the camps and/or to Nazi German death camps.[16][17][18]

Electoral results

Riksdag
Election year # of overall votes % of overall vote # of overall seats won +/- Notes
1936 17,483 0.6 (#8)
0 / 349
1944 4,204 0.1 (#7)
0 / 349
  • Poster of the SSS in Lidingö (Branch no. 93) and NU - Vanguard Lidingö, announcing a meeting. Gunnar Prawitz speaks on 'Capitalist Democracy or Nordic People's State' and Sgt. Sten Lundberg on 'Nordic Youth, Vanguard of the Future'.

References
  1. Olsson, Kenth (23 August 2013). "Nazistiskt upplopp i Kristianstad - Kristianstadsbladet". Kristianstadsbladet. Retrieved 17 September 2019.
  2. "Ons aanbod SS Items" (in Dutch). Bezetting 40/45. Retrieved 17 September 2019.
  3. Gustaf V och andra Världskriget. Carlsson, Erik. 2007. ISBN 9789185057887
  4. Operation Norrsken: Om Stasi och Sverige under kalla kriget, av Christoph Andersson
  5. https://www.svd.se/karaktarsmord-pa-doda-svenskar
  6. https://www.expressen.se/nyheter/forintelsen-var-pa-vag-till-sverige/
  7. https://www.dn.se/kultur-noje/johan-schuck-registret-over-svenska-judar-ar-en-del-av-sds-morka-historia/
  8. https://www.aftonbladet.se/debatt/a/G1rM9m/glom-inte-den-svenska-forintelsen
  9. Anders Widfeldt (2015). Extreme Right Parties in Scandinavia. Routledge. p. 65. ISBN 978-0-415-26589-8.
  10. Eva F. Dahlgren. Fallet Sigrid Gillner (in Swedish). p. 227. ISBN 978-91-85865-11-6.
  11. Karl Arne Blom (2018) [1991]. Lilla Marlene. ISBN 9788711707104.
  12. Historisk tidskrift (in Swedish). Svenska historiska föreningen. 1992. p. 540.
  13. Henrik Ekberg (1991). Führerns trogna följeslagare: den finländska nazismen 1932-1944 (in Swedish). Schildt. p. 17. ISBN 978-951-50-0522-9.
  14. Hitlers svenska SS-soldater. Bosse Schön. Fischer & Co. 2016. ISBN 9789188243171
  15. Heléne Lööw, Nazismen i Sverige 1924 - 1979, ISBN 91-7324-684-0, p. 108.
  16. https://www.expressen.se/nyheter/forintelsen-var-pa-vag-till-sverige/
  17. https://www.dn.se/kultur-noje/johan-schuck-registret-over-svenska-judar-ar-en-del-av-sds-morka-historia/
  18. https://www.aftonbladet.se/debatt/a/G1rM9m/glom-inte-den-svenska-forintelsen
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