Price of Neutrality

Of Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Europe's traditional "Northern Neutrals," only Sweden has managed to maintain even the appearance of neutrality in World War II. Last week from Stockholm came some details of the price Hitler puts on neutrality:

> At the beginning of the Russian war, the Swedish Government gave the Nazis permission to transport one division of troops through Sweden from Norway to Finland. The "one division" rolled over the Swedish railways for weeks in hundreds of trains crammed with soldiers and arms.

> Proud of her tradition as a sanctuary for political exiles, Sweden has been forced to arrest German Communist Deputy Ernst Wollweber,* hold him for extradition to Germany.

> Nazi fliers forced down in Sweden are no longer interned as international law provides--they are free to go home.

> With the cooperation of the Swedish Government, Gestapo agents have conducted raids on the homes of Swedish Communists and Left Social Democrats.

> The Swedish Government has had to send 28,000 tons of wheat, 7,800 tons of flour, 2,000 tons of oats, 4,000 tons of butter, 12,000 tons of potatoes, 5,000 tons of sugar, much iron and steel to the German armies on the Eastern Front.

> Some "Finnish diplomats" in Stockholm speak no word of Finnish, talk Swedish with heavy German accents.

> Open recruiting for the Nazi Party has brought into camp Swedish Army and Navy officers, judges, university students, many noblemen and noblewomen, Explorer Sven Hedin.

* Wollweber was one of the ringleaders in the mutiny of the German Imperial Navy after World War I. Later, according to Jan Valtin's Out of the Night, he was a potent force in the underground organization of the Comintern.

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