Nordic Fascism
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Nordic Fascism Investigating the Political Project Behind Bollhusmötet Master’s thesis (45 credits) Author’s name: Erik Blohmé Name of supervisor: Heléne Lööw Semester: Spring 2021 Date of Submission: May 17, 2021 HISTORISKA INSTITUTIONEN Abstract This thesis investigates the political project behind the infamous tennis hall meeting, commonly referred to as Bollhusmötet, that took place in February of 1939 in Uppsala, Sweden. Gathering in the local tennis hall, the members of the Uppsala Student Union decided to send a resolution to the Swedish king protesting the reception of Jewish refugees into Sweden in the wake of the 1938 November Pogrom. The protest was widely influential, spurring similar resolutions at other universities and arguably influencing Swedish refugee policy on a national level. The event itself was orchestrated by a group of nationalist students as part of a political project aiming to establish a Nordic power bloc with Sweden as the central power. This political milieu rejected the geopolitics of both England and Germany to promote a specific form of Nordic fascism. Antisemitism was a central part of their ideology, both regarding short- and long-term goals, and antisemitism was also the ultimate motive behind the tennis hall meeting. The architects of these events joined the mainstream conservative milieu in 1940 as part of a strategy to abolish the Swedish political system from within and restructure the Swedish state according to a fascist model bearing many similarities to national socialism. Keywords: Bollhusmötet, Heimdal, Den Svenska Linjen, Arvid Fredborg, fascism, antisemitism, national socialism, Nazism. Acknowledgments I would like to express my gratitude to Heléne Lööw who has supervised this thesis with patience, honesty, and great care. I would also like to thank Lars M. Andersson who has been a great help through discussions, reading recommendations, and advice. This thesis would not exist without their guidance and working together to craft it has been a very rewarding experience. Finally, I would like to extend my thanks to my classmates, whose support, humor and advice have lightened the load of research and writing considerably. 1 "On the stretcher, this I can tell you now already, you will always find him lying face down, and even if you turn him over five times, he will still be facing the wrong way." Thomas Mann, Doctor Faustus 2 Table of Contents Abstract ............................................................................................................................ 1 Acknowledgments ............................................................................................................ 1 Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 5 Mes congratulations ........................................................................................................................... 5 Relevance today: Recent debate about the tennis hall meeting ..................................................... 8 Research aim and questions ............................................................................................................. 11 Material and method .......................................................................................................12 Material .............................................................................................................................................. 12 Fredborg’s archival material about Bollhusmötet ...................................................................................................... 13 Heimdal’s Yearly Review 1939 and The Swedish Line.............................................................................................. 14 Destination: Berlin ......................................................................................................................................................... 15 Method ............................................................................................................................................... 15 Theoretical perspectives ..................................................................................................17 Ideology ............................................................................................................................................. 17 Doublespeak ...................................................................................................................................... 19 Historical background ................................................................................................... 20 Sweden’s political landscape 1933 – 1940 ........................................................................................ 20 Antisemitism ..................................................................................................................................... 22 Antisemitism and modernity ........................................................................................................................................ 24 Antisemitism in Sweden ................................................................................................................................................ 25 Propagandistic vs. peripheral antisemitism ................................................................................................................. 27 Race biology and eugenics .............................................................................................................. 28 Fascism, Nazism, and the far-right ................................................................................................ 30 Fascism ........................................................................................................................................................................... 30 Nazism ............................................................................................................................................................................ 32 Far/Extreme Right ........................................................................................................................................................ 34 The National Movement............................................................................................................................................... 35 The question of loyalty to Germany ............................................................................................................................ 35 Conservatism .................................................................................................................................... 36 The conservative movement ........................................................................................................................................ 38 The National Youth League of Sweden ...................................................................................................................... 40 The Fredborg circle examined ....................................................................................... 42 Who was Arvid Fredborg? ............................................................................................................... 42 Who were Arvid Fredborg’s friends? .......................................................................................................................... 46 The tennis hall meeting ................................................................................................................... 50 Lead-up to the tennis hall meeting .............................................................................................................................. 50 Bollhusmötet .................................................................................................................................................................. 55 The arguments examined .............................................................................................................................................. 56 The race arguments interpreted ................................................................................................................................... 59 The job scarcity arguments interpreted ....................................................................................................................... 62 The aftermath ................................................................................................................................................................. 63 Heimdal’s Yearly Review 1939 ........................................................................................................ 64 The Heimdal association ............................................................................................................................................... 64 Heimdal’s Yearly Review 1939 examined ................................................................................................................... 65 3 Heimdal’s Yearly Review 1939 interpreted ................................................................................................................. 71 The Swedish Line ............................................................................................................................. 76 The origins of The Swedish Line ................................................................................................................................