Why Didn't the Nazis Invade Sweden? DOCUMENTARY

Last chance to pre-order Hearts of Iron IV: Arms Against Tyranny and not get invaded! play.heartsofiron.com/KingsandGeneralsAAT

I'm from Finland and while people here like to joke about how neutral Sweden was during the war and how Sweden played all sides very well to keep them neutral, people don't fully understand how much they aided Finland in wars agains't The Soviets. They sent us thousands of troops to fight with us because they knew they'd rather have a small same minded country, with whom they share hundreds of years of history together, as a neighbor than having The Soviet Union. They helped Finland in all possible ways. Clothes, food, weapons, asylum etc. They even allowed us to send about 72 000 children there to safety. I read that about 15 000 of these children never returned back to Finland. My point is, while Sweden was always swinging between Axis and Allied countries they always sympathized Finns and were ready to help us. That's what good neighbors are about ☺

Swedish diplomacy during WWII was pretty much a case of juggling live chainsaws, on a tightrope, in a total shitstorm. No one’s clean and you die If you blink.

It seems to me that Sweden played the war perfectly, completing all quests and unlocking all achievments

A diplomatic adventure for the whole family.

Germany: Hey Sweden, why do you have 12 000 armed Norwegians? Sweden: Uhh... They're just policemen, that's it, not soldiers, just police force to keep us safe. Germany: Ok, but why do they have grenade launchers, anti-tank weapons and other military grate equipment? Sweden: visibly sweating Uhhh... For bears? Germany: Ok, sounds legit.

As much as some might like to criticize Sweden for supporting the axis in some capacity during the war, this brings up a lot of valid points about the allies and their "requests" for Sweden. Rarely, if ever, did they give a guarantee of protection or intervention in the case of German invasion in the case of swedish refusal of German demands/trade. And even if they did, those promises seemed very empty during the war. I mean look at basically every other nation that was invaded and occupied by the axis. Rarely was there a concerted effort stop the initial invasion, and allied planning in the early stages was just a step behind. Sweden made some difficult decisions to protect the interests of its people, and was tightroping constantly to protect its independence. Hard to blame them considering everything that was happening in their neighborhood and all of Europe at the time.

Please note! Raoul Wallenberg issued at least 80.000 protective passports, not 9000. Also, according to Israeli sources, RW saved at least 60.000 Jews and even celebrates RW birthday on the 31st of May every year. RW was killed in the Lubianka prison in Moscow on the 27th of July 1947 after Swedish Foreign Office and the Swedish Ambassador on several occasions officially assumed he was dead, hence making it clear to Stalin that Sweden had no interest in getting him back alive. This is very controversial in Sweden for obvious reasons. The reason for his arrest was that he had two mission, 1st saving as many Jews as possible but secondly, also reporting on the Soviet positions in Budapest, taking pictures with his Minox Riga camera. It is also well to note that RW was working in Stockholm before his departure to Hungary with the Americans and one of his Godfathers was brother to the second in command in the Swedish Military intelligence (Teddy Ternberg), the C-agency. C for the commander, Carl Petersen, not "Central" as mentioned in the video. Also newly emerged documents show that the Swedish involvement in Hungary was way more then what was previously known. One fact is that Sweden had regular spy transmissions from Budapest to the Hungarian resistance and also both partially funded as well as trained the Hungarian restiance. /Johan Ohgren Curator Swedish Spy Museum [email protected]

The Swedes were stuck between a rock and a hard place, but still managed to carry out any governments duty and protected its citizens. Geopolitics is a scary game when you are surrounded by enemies.

I would say that this is probably one of the better summaries I've seen of Sweden's challenges during WW2. The main reason for Sweden's success was clearly that they so quickly, after the invasion of Norway, managed to crack the German secret code for communication (geheimschreiber), followed by Sweden cracking the code of Soviet communication. Outstanding and unique achievement.

Both my grandparents immigrated to the US in 46' and I remember my grandma telling me how they were constantly worried about invasions and were putting up black up curtains every night in case an attack came (in Stockholm). She was born in 27' I believe so she experienced the war as a teen/young adult, wish a knew more about their stories at the time, my grandfather was much older (born in 12') but died before I was born.

Note that in 1939 Sweden (concerned about the Winter War in Finland) proposed a Nordic defense pact, which was rejected by Denmark and Norway - who were concerned about being "drawn in" to a conflict.

As a Swede, 1:35 brought a tear to my eye, simply beautiful.

To say that it was Sweden who transported the Danish Jews into safety is an big understatement, they housed and fed them once they arrived, but the transport was done by mostly Danish and some Swedish fishermen.

I remember my grandfather told me about this. He served in the swedish army during the war. Stationed on the border to Finland. Many nights they saw the bombs hitting Finland and they took in refuges from both Finland and Norway. This documentary was very good, but it missed a few things. Sweden helped Finland with food, clothes and material. As in 2/3 of all our arms. That's a lot. Also took in a huge amounts of refugues from Finland, expecially children. Both USSR and Germany bombed Sweden during the war, maybe by accident or not. Sweden also help norwegian fighters to carry out raids into Norway. So yeah, neutrality was just a word. They tried everything they could to maintain it and keep the country out of the war but still tried to do something for its fellow brothers.

I thank you for highlighting this difficult period and Sweden’s role in it. A piece of family history from my part - My great-granduncle, Wilhelm Odelberg, was amongst the Swedish volunteers for the Finnish cause during the Winter War. He was amongst the guests during my baptism not long after I was born and I hold his first name as my second name. I also do recall stories of night curfews, having to cover the Windows black during the Night and German trains rolling through Sweden from my grandparents.

I'm Swedish and my paternal grandfather went to Finland during the war, he was one of the Petsamo truck drivers. He survived the time in Finland, but rarely or never spoke of the horrors he had seen and experienced while driving in the Petsamo area. He had a gun, and no one in the family knows if he ever had to use it, it was hidden in a desk drawer when he came back home, and when asked about it "I'll get rid of that thing" was the answer he gave them, one day the gun was gone, probably disposed of in a forest somewhere. My grandfather passed away in 1968. I never met my grandfather as I was born in 1985, but dad has told me as much as he knows about my grandfather's time in Petsamo

Great video. When I was in grade school, we had a "class grandma", a retired teacher who assisted us and told us stories. She was Jewish, and told me how her family lived in fear every day during the war, and that they lived next to a railway transporting German soldiers. Every time they heard the train come they pulled down the blinders so they wouldn't be seen. She also told me the first time she tasted bananas was after the war, and also a lil deception the Swedish army did. Turns out that along many of the trainstations the Germans traveled through, the swedes posted guards. But not just any guards, but the tallest, toughest and most mean looking people they could find, most of which had to be close to 2meters tall. The idea was that every time the train stopped and the German soldiers "on leave" exited to have a smoke, they'd see these absolute giant Swedish soldiers, and that if these were the only Swedish soldiers they'd see, they'd think All Swedish soldiers would be like this. I miss her and her stories.

A major even for the Swedish military readiness was in February of 1942 where Sweden conducted a massive winter exercise in northern Sweden in weather colder than the Germans where experiencing around Moscow a month earlier. It was a subtle hint to Germany that Sweden's rearmament was bearing fruit and that Sweden was way better at winter warfare than they where.

Sweden threatened to blow up the mines if anyone attacked. That would have meant a major interruption in the flow of iron. It certainly had an impact on the decision-making process. Heard that German reconnaissance aircraft mistook hosiery for anti-aircraft guns. The large amount of AA guns deterred, at least for a while.