WHEN, as often happened, he was labelled an old Nazi, Per Engdahl, leader from the early Thirties of the 'New Swedish Movement', angrily used to protest that the label was incorrect.
No Nazi he - but he certainly was a Fascist, a believer in corporatism, and a long-time admirer of Il Duce, Benito Mussolini, whose posthumous triumph in the latest Italian elections Engdahl must have savoured, before he died on 4 May (his death was only made public in Sweden two weeks later, after the funeral).
Engdahl also vehemently disclaimed all plans and hopes he might have entertained to become the Swedish counterpart of Vidkun Quisling, had Nazi Germany occupied his native land during the Second World War. On the contrary, Engdahl used to say, if Sweden had been invaded, he would have emulated the example of Andreas Hofer, the Tyrolean peasant who led the rebellion against Napoleon in 1809; and so he often told his German friends during frequent visits from neutral Sweden during the war.
The Allied victory in 1945 left Engdahl and his minuscule Fascist movement high and dry in a country where there had been a considerable number of Nazi and Fascist sympathisers until the turning-point of the war with El Alamein and Stalingrad. (more...)
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