Order to be Disobeyed

Stolid Premier Per Albin Hansson looked anxiously over clean, quiet Stockholm, at Sweden's six-thousand-mile-long frontier, and beyond. Across the war-torn Baltic, Red Armies had lifted the siege of Leningrad (see p. 33) and threatened to push on into starving, freezing Finland. To the south, British and U.S. bombs fell regularly on German cities. Westward, across the Skagerrak, German sappers and soldiers from Trondheim to Narvik threw up fortifications against the Allied attack they feared.

Many threatening things Per Albin saw as he prepared his speech to the Riksdag. For more than three years he had kept his country neutral while war raged on every side. Sweden's trade had been perforce with Germany and satellite Finland: her iron flowed steadily and uninterruptedly into German munitions plants. And neutrality had paid. Compared with the rest of Europe, Sweden had done well. Living standards fell only 15% by 1941, then leveled off. Military expenditures increased, but not to the point of taking the bread from Swedish mouths. While Norwegians across the mountains starved and bled, Swedes worked by day and spent the cold nights in their own warm houses with their families. Per Albin could see his country's gratitude. Neutrality had been very much worth while, but how Iong could it last?

One abrupt end loomed menacingly over the horizon. If the Russians pushed into Finland--to root out the bases from which Nazi planes and U-boats were sinking ships bringing aid to Russia--or if the Allies landed in northern Norway, Germany might be able to defend her northern outposts only if Sweden allowed the shipment of reinforcements and supplies across Swedish territory. If Stockholm agreed, it would be a flagrant violation of her neutrality. If she refused, she could expect a German attack.

Per Albin saw the dangers. An advocate of moderation in all things, he made up his mind that now there was no room for moderation. When he raised his bushy brows to address the Riksdag last week no trace of the middle-of-the-road Social Democrat was left. Sweden would fight to the last man if attacked, said he. "Every order . . . that defense is to cease will be false."

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