Censorship Over Sweden

Sweden has had a free press for 174 years, guaranteed by one of the most liberal constitutions in the world. The Free Press Statute of 1812, Magna Charta of Swedish journalism, is one of the four basic laws of Sweden. It gives every citizen the right to publish what he pleases, makes censorship of any kind illegal.

Ever since the rise of Adolf Hitler, Germany has been throwing knives at Sweden's press, bludgeoning at Swedish officials to make them muzzle the newspapers. Prince Viktor zu Wied, German Minister in Stockholm, calls almost daily at the Swedish Foreign Office to complain about news stories, editorials, advertisements (even in remote provincial papers) that might offend delicate Nazi sensibilities.

Even before the outbreak of war last September, a steady stream of circulars came to the press from Sweden's nervous Government, begging publishers not to print stories that Germany might choose to consider un-neutral and use as a pretext for aggression. Most newsmen complied by restraining themselves: persecution of the Jews in Poland and Austria was soft-pedaled, concentration camps were ignored. For at least two years no cartoon of Hitler, Goering, Goebbels, or any other Nazi bigwig has appeared in a Swedish paper.

Even the mildest criticism of Nazi policies is usually balanced by a dig at the Allies, to safeguard Swedish neutrality.

Westman Law. Three days before last Christmas, Sweden's new conservative Cabinet set up a committee for the pur pose of "devising appropriate measures to prevent misuse of press freedom." Minister of Justice Karl Gustaf Westman (already feared in Sweden because of his Nazi leanings) dug up an obsolete press law providing for criminal action against editors who publish "offensive writings" about a foreign State.

First editor indicted under Westman's forgotten law was a notable Swedish Socialist, journalist, poet: Senator Ture Nerman. In his weekly Trots Allt, after the bombing of Hitler's beer hall in Munich, he wrote an editorial on "Hitler's Hell Machine." Senator Nerman was found guilty, sentenced to three months in jail. Then followed a wave of arrests and convictions for "offensive writings."

Under the same law, Minister Westman confiscated onetime Nazi Hermann Rauschning's new book, The Voice of Destruction (see p. 8g), two hours after it came from the press. Exclaimed Publisher Johan Hansson, who had carefully expurgated the Swedish text before it appeared: "What a strange kind of democracy we now have in this country!" As last month ended, Minister Westman had permission from the Cabinet to draft a new and drastic law defining responsibilities of the press.

Individualist. One Swedish journalist who has stubbornly resisted regimentation by Nazi imperialists is Torgny Segerstedt, editor-owner of Goeteborg's famed Handels-Och Sjoefartstidning (Trade and Shipping Gazette). So proud of its liberal tradition is the Gazette that it has been called Sweden's Manchester Guardian. Segerstedt's column, I Dag (Today), is masterful journalism. He has a rare faculty for clothing deadly sarcasm (about Hitler, Stalin, various native enemies of democracy) in words so innocent that even Minister Westman cannot dub them "offensive." Sample: "What cannot be hidden is the opinion the Swedish people have of the powers which are struggling to dominate them. . . . They cannot be made to believe that we must huddle together like quiet mice, hoping the cat will go easy on us."

A savage campaign of abuse has been launched against Segerstedt in such Nazi journals as the Hamburg Fremdenblatt. Before Christmas, when Germany and Sweden were on the eve of a long-awaited trade pact, it was an open secret that one Swedish concession demanded by the Nazis was that Torgny Segerstedt be silenced. Rumor said that, for every hostile story in the Gazette, Nazi negotiators threatened to have a Swedish ship sunk without warning.

Fear of German reprisals drove a group of Goeteborg shipowners to issue a public protest against Editor Segerstedt. In an effort to bridle his tongue, they invited the Government to indict him. Newsmen in Sweden were taking bets last week on how long Editor Segerstedt and Sweden's press would last before censorship got them under. Segerstedt wrote each day's column as if it might be his farewell to Swedish journalism. Said he, one day last week: "We haven't much more prestige to lose in Britain, France and the U. S. In these countries we are increasingly regarded as a small German dependency."

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