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You know that meme with the old man with the uncomfortable smile? That was basically sweden's relationship to germany at this time.

My grandma was a Finnish refugee for 3 years in Sweden, during the Finnish continuation war, as she was too young to stay in dangerous Finland with the rest of her family, cause Soviets could bomb cities at any time. Anyway tack sverige that you kept her safe and I exist :)

Should have started with 1937 how Sweden tried to get the coalition of neutral nations to increase military spending. Sweden 7 folded it's military budget.

My grandmothers brother, Einar, is one of the few who fled to Sweden with a pal of his in 1941. This was no easy task and it was close to end in disaster when they asked a farmer if they could stay the night at their place before crossing the border into Sweden. The farmer politely said yes and showed them their guest room on the second floor. After some time they noticed that the door was locked and they understood they were being betrayed. Einar and his friend broke the window, jumped out and ran for it into the dense forest, hearing the german trucks closing in in the distance. Unfortunately Einar never really explained how they crossed the border. Shame, cause that must have been a terrifying and interesting story in itself. Anyhow once in Sweden, he started working as a car mechanic. The shop owner who hired him felt sorry for him, being by himself during the evenings invited him after some time had passed into his house to eat dinner with his family. The shop owner also had a sister who often attended the dinners and after a while Einar and the shop owners sister, Karin, got engaged. Life went on and my grandmother did not know if Einar was dead or alive, understanding he had tried to flee into Sweden. But after the war in 1945 Einar came back to Norway with a swedish wife and their first child. Back in Norway he helped the police finding norwegians who had helped the nazis in killing and torturing other norwegians. My grandmother married a Swedish man and both she and Einar with his family ended up settling down in Sweden. Einar and Karin lived a long and peaceful life together raising four children, he died back in 2015 and Karin just passed away this autumn, 99 years old. My grandmother is still alive and tells all kinds of stories about when the Germans came. With them living close to the port in Trondheim and my great grandparents owning a bakery, being tormented by the nazis was a daily occurrence. They even threw bread to russian POWs building a new railroad track when the Germans weren't looking. I can't imagine what they went through during their early stages of life.

6:13 - Ericsson is still one of the largest companies in Sweden. Sony Ericsson was only a merger of the mobile phone parts of each company. The big part of their business is telecommunications equipment.

Honestly history can be cooler than Game of Thrones, it's just about how the educator presents it!

we learned this in school from a retired Swedish veteran: Germany had the intention of invading Sweden later on despite the “cooperation”. The German warships were approaching Gotland in Östersjön. We had many canons at the coast of Gotland but only 1/3 were real. The general ordered them to fire a shot at a German warship(but a few degrees to the side just to warn them). It landed where they wanted, and the German fleet decided to retreat. That fake canon trick was sneaky and impressive! xD

In my view, Sweden's greatest contribution to the 'humanitarian attempts' made during WWII was Raoul Wallenberg; Swedish diplomat who saved thousands of Hungarian jews - memorial plaques and statues of him are still scattered around Budapest and with good reason. The greatest heroes in history did not necessarily have the loudest voices.

Close to where i live in Skåne, there used to be a secret military base during WW2, It was called Krigsflygplats nr 2. A Me 410 was shot down there in 1944 after trying to strafe the AA battery that had fired warning shots at it. The plane chrashed on a road that led out of a nearby village, when the site was inspected they found some unexpected items in the wreckage. They found a swedish military canteen (snuskburk) and a Swedish army bicycle. It turns out that a poor conscript soldier got straight crushed by that plane while hurrying back to base after the sirens went off. He got bullseyed hard enough that no remains were found.

Finland didn't get independence from Sweden though, it was part of the Russian Empire. Norway was in a PU with Sweden until 1905 - did you confuse the two countries?

When the winter war broke out, 2 months after the start of ww2, Sweden was in a tight spot. The overwhelming majority of swedes (like 95%) wanted to go to war aginst the Ussr to help Finland. So the swedish goverment fell into a sort of crisis and from that crisis a "samlings regering" emerged. This new goverment hade one job and that was to keep Sweden out of the war no matter what. Sweden and its politcians did not like to bow down towards hitler but they hade no choice.

I have spoken with train conductors from my hometown of Boden, the man drove iron from Kiruna and further north to supply german forces, the iron supplies were sabotaged (not always, but a lot of the times) unofficially by Swedish people & few soldiers. Few people know of this, I am very haply to have taken information from the older people, and their stories needs to live on, the unknown truth of what Sweden did is known mostly by the elders who were partaking in the ops, not by the history books sadly

You have a problem with your information about why Sweden let through German troops. The Swedish government knew through the interception that you mentioned what would happen if they stopped the sale of iron ore and steel to Germany. After Arne Beurling had cracked the German code, the Swedish intelligence service continued to listen and through it the Swedes had heard that there were plans to take Sweden if they were not allowed to buy ore and steel and to get permission to send troops through the country.

I feel like one thing you overlooked to mention was that Sweden had great need for German coal and food stuffs. Being surrounded by Nazi occupied, or anti Soviet nations, Sweden did not have many options to turn to for things they needed.

As one swedish historian once put it: In WW2 Sweden was neutral... on the winning side.

I feel like you missed out on Raoul Wallenberg and Folke Bernadotte. Part of the swedish secret police (C-byrån) were also directly involved in helping the norweigian armed resistance. On the other hand we also ran internment camps where we inprisoned comunists for fear of them commiting terror attacks. Otherwise a pretty balanced take 👍🏻

my grandfather, flee Norway to go and live in Sweden. Him and his three buddies, were part of the resistence, when their bunker was discovered and assulted by the nazis, him and two of his three buddies were able to run for the hills, getting away from the german soldiers. They had no weapons or equipement, took a week long journey towards Sweden with nothing more than a compass. Long story short, after encounters with wild animals, and all sorts of people good and bad, they finally made it to Sweden, where they all stayed until 1945. Once the war was over, they went back, only to find out that their friend was captured and brutally tortured by the nazis, in order to get info about them - but he didn't betrayed his friends... It's a bit of a sad end, but the positive is that they continued to live long and prosperous lives, even though they were seconds from death.

My great great grandfather (my mothers mothers dad) was a part of the norwegian military policeforce in Sweden. He also sacreficed his home, to let the ressistance live there. I great to hear that others hav heard about them. The are often forgotten.

I live in the town where we recieved the majority of the danish jews. We got a stone tablet from the danes as thanks for helping them. My town was prepared with underground bunkers, had massive artillery aimed at german radio stations, spied on german ships, made tank traps and bunkers along important choke points. To avoid having the Germans attack the town they had massive military parades on the main streets of the town where the Germans could see them from Denmark. This stayed a tradition for many years.

Thank you for shining lighjt on our stance in the WWII. IT's important that this is explained since it doesn't get explained in regular history books or anything like that. I am officially subscribed to your channel. This was really interesting to watch. Thank you!

Love this series! Can you do an episode on Egypt's involvement in WW2? It's often overlooked but super interesting

As a Swede, let me thank you for making this video. I stand by Swedish Neutrality during the war and providing a safe haven for people fleeing the war, as if not than I would not be here. My Grandfather was a finnish child sent over to avoid the war who sadly passed away last year.

I'm smiling. you did a really good and accurate video with good pronunciation of Småland :) bra jobbat

Your pronunciation of småland and södermanland was basically exactly how you say it. The video was also great

good video.. sometimes countries like switzerland and sweden get ridiculed for being "neutral", when in fact, most countries were neutral during WW2 -- "until they were not", for whatever reason. something you didnt touch on, I think, was the geographical reasons, such a vast country, surrounded by waterunless you enter it from the frozen north, there was never a clear strategical benefit with how the war played out.

Good stuff but quite generic. In addition, Sweden fought its own naval war with Russia in 1943 as the soviets got tired of German smuggling. During the cause of the war, the very much armed neutrality of Swedish defense forces killed more than 3000 German uniformed personnel, mostly due to sea mines. There was also an infamous Civil War battle like series of maneuvers as the Swedish navy tried its best to protect allied shipping in Swedish waters while the nazi infiltrated customsservice/coast guard tried to assist the Germans in tracking and stopping them. Also worth noting is that Sweden was the only Scandinavian country to go through with a full mobilization in the face of the growing danger from Germany, disregarding fears of antagonizing or provoking the belligerent parties, contrary to the actions of its neighbors whos politicians doomed them respectively through inaction.

Great video as always u pump them out.

sony-ericsson may actually be more well known than ericsson by itself but i am still somewhat unhappy with that statement as the sony-ericsson mobile phone joint venture was dissolved in 2012 while ericsson is alive and well being one of the last remaining mayor telecoms equipment manufacturers alongside nokia, huawei and zte

Both my grandparents from my mom's side of the family was alive during WW2. My grandpa was 15 and my grandma was 10 when WW2 broke out. They have told me stories about how it was during WW2 and they both lived very close to Denmark (20 min boat ride across the water). They told me that they could see from the harbor of their city when Germany bombed Denmark. It was very horrible for them to witness that. My grandpa was drafted after a few years and was joined into the tank battalion and was very lucky that he didn't had to join the war. My grandma had a friend whom fled from Denmark either before or during Germany attacked Denmark which I really don't remember. She told me that have to cover their windows at night so they don't get bombed and they have to use coupons to buy food which they have saved to this day. My grandpa passed away in 2014 at the age of 90. My grandma is still alive at the age of 92.

Very interesting. Thanks for sharing.

Man that NordVPN transition was brilliant. Great video dude!!

My norweigan great-grandmother fled to Sweden during the German occupation and her future husband, my great-grandfather was stationed at the norweigan border, often having eyes on the germans also guarding the border on the other side.

The British had before the war an agreement with Sweden that the trade of iron ore should not exceed 10.000 tons a year and Sweden had kept that agreement but it was the US when the entered the war that wanted Sweden to cut down the trade of iron ore severely, but Sweden was still need ore coal and coke from Germany to heat houses and feed the industries for war production.

My great grandparents where 2 of ~60k that fled from Norway into Sweden. They used to tell stories of the nazi invation and how they fled over the border with help from swedes. With my grandfather as a newborn in one arm and a suitcase of clothes in the other, they managed to get over into värmland. My big brother wrote an essay of this "adventure" in school and it always brings me to tears thinking about it.

That has to be one of the best leading lines into a sponsor I've seen on here! :D "If you're looking to invade Norway"...Genius.

Very interesting. I think that to preserve their country the Swedes had no choice but to pursue the policies they did, giving just enough to the Nazis to keep them happy whilst helping the allies wherever they could, and increasingly so from 1943. I would have done the same.

I have a paradoxical request for you. Can you go through the history of Poland, during its entire partitions?

Happy to see a very fair and informative video on this topic, and I very much appreciate you described Finland as "Axis-aligned" instead of a member of the Axis, as much debate is surrounding Finland's position in the war - and you also mentioned the very rarely talked about mountaineer training of Norwegians that would cross the border when the time was right. Also, mentioning 1:00 I have family that was shot in the Ådalen Shooting of 1931, and both grandfathers were conscripted. Glad to see the political division in Sweden also mentioned.

As an adopted Swede, I really appreciated being able to learn about the country in this video. Thank you

My grandmother was one of the children evacuated by train from Finland to Sweden.

To those who criticize Sweden's approach to the war (which, of course, they have every right to, and I get it), I would like to ask this: what was the alternative? Putting up a complete resistance against Germany would have amounted to Sweden being completely taken over, to the death of potentially thousands of Swedes. Perhaps the most important point is this: Sweden's neutrality allowed for greater diplomatic strength. It was able to negotiate with the Germans on behalf of people who would have otherwise been killed in or outside of concentration camps, jews and non-jews alike.

Love this little series, maybe take a look at Siam next!

we was chillin

Thanks! Very interesting. The home guard still remains very active to this day, fulfilling both military defence duties as well as functioning as support for the civilian community when needed, such as in search and rescue, forest fires etc. One of our mottos can be translated to "Everywhere. Always". The other neighbouring countries also have their home guards as well.

Hi Hilbert! Another impressive video from you! btw, do you have any plan to make history content about "Dutch Golden Ages? or something related about it" We're planning to make that content, and willing to know is there any sources (in English), you can recommend for us?

Thanks for including the fate of germany's baltic conscripts, even if it was a short segment :)

Thanks Hilbert for talking about what Sweden did during WW2. Greetings from Sweden 🇸🇪

There were those who were very dissatisfied with the Swedish governments trade with Germany. I grew up in the 70's in a small village about 40 km west of Stockholm. For some reason I started talking to an old man who had lived there his whole life and he told me of the shipments that went on rail through the outskirt of the village (I'm guessing mostly iron ore). But there was one shipment that never reached the port. One train set was loaded with Graphite (?) and some group blew that in the air... They found other routes for the rest of their shipments after that...

I have family members who still have locked files on what they did during the war.... Odd thing is we dont know what they did, one was railway worker and the other was a papermill worker and we have few more. The railway worker would always chuckle and say, amazing how often we had to repair the track or the German train, nothing held during the war.

that was actually a great pronunciation of Småland and Södermanland! Great video btw

You might have missed Folke Bernadotte, Count of Wisborg. He is one of and the diplomat that negotiated and organised the “White Buses”, a rescue of inmates from German concentration camps to Sweden, mainly Norwegian and Danish, but includes many others. He later became a member in 5e UN but was killed in Israel in an assassination plot by Zionists. One of the members was a future PM.

Sweden also helped the British with inteligence of where Tirpitz was located aswell as allowing the RAF too fly in over Sweden as they approached her morage on several occations. Sweden was playing both sides to remain neutral, cus while we had some numbers and equipment. The equipment was mostly dated weaponry, what Germany paid Sweden for the Iron ore was in Nazi gold, weapons and military equipment in turn for the more stable supply of Iron ore. So in the years where Sweden did bow to Germany it was mostly due to ous not being able to sustain or win a war with Germany especially when Sweden has some PTSD about Russia.

i'm suprised how well you pronounced småland and södermanland

such an awesome channel

Good vid! Merry X-mas from Sweden

Hilbert, can you do a video on the Central American and Caribbean countries during the Second World War? For example, independent countries like Guatemala, Panama, or the Dominican Republic, as well as colonial territories at the time like Jamaica, Puerto Rico, or the Dutch West Indies

Hi History With Hilbert! You forgot to mention that Finland received a lot of ammunition and munitions from Sweden for free. And large billions of low-interest loans from Sweden. God jul, Skål Tom.

This is perfect. I’m writing my essay about this. Dankjewel!

Excellent as always Hilbert. You give voice, too Wikipedia. An excellent realisation video. When you're ready. 'Lebensraum'

I find it interesting how we nords have waged war upon ourself for millenia but still we see each other as brothers. We would do nothing but help each other in crisis, there's no real hate between us. Which is kinda rare with neighboring nations

Ah yes, gotta love Winston Churchill conveniently "forgetting" about all the intelligence and details on Nazi movements sent our way by the Swedes. We only ever knew about Operation Barbarossa beforehand because Sweden discovered this and informed the Allies. He may have been the man we needed for a war like this, but he was also a stubborn and bullheaded fool.

Awesome video! Thank you! Do Greece next please

one of my old teachers' grandfather was in the second labor war he fought for finland and he survived

A very good video! One thing I think could be added is the story of a Swedish diplomat in Hungary, Raoul Wallenberg.

Apart from the volunteers, Sweden also helped a lot financially etc. Approximately 2,000,000,000 SEK (US$ ~312,658,890) of financial aid - twice the size of the Finnish defense budget at the time 50,013,300 rounds of small arms ammunition 135,402 rifles 450 light machine guns 347 machine guns 301,846 artillery shells 144 field guns 92 anti-armor guns 100 anti-aircraft guns 300 sea mines 500 depth charges 83 motorcycles 83 cars 350 trucks 13 tractors 17 fighter aircraft 5 light bombers 1 transport aircraft 3 reconnaissance aircraft Also lots of clothes and other material sent to Finland, collected by regular people all across Sweden.

Kudos for actually making (a very good) effort to pronounce Swedish words/names!!!

I can tell you took inspiration from "Europa the last battle" documentary. With the music🎶 3:00

My mother mother emigrated to the United States in the early 50's. She had three older brothers who served in the Swedish army during WWII. The oldest Nils-Eric wanted to volunteer to fight in Finland but my grandmother forbid it. She remembers her father had to give up either tobacco or coffee during the war and he chose to keep coffee. Her family was from Dalsland near the Norwegian border where they had a farm but they also had a business in Goteborg. While at the farm she says she saw Norwegians coming and going across the border.

You missed a very important thing! Sweden, being such a cold country and needing to fuel industries and trains, were in great need of German coal. Trading iron ore to Germany was only in part because of German pressure. We could not do without their coal and so we _had_ to trade our iron for it.

Your pronunciation of Småland and Södermanland was amazing.

Much is correct as far as I know, but I found one error: Ericsson has NOT merged with Sony. Only the mobile units. Ericsson is still an independent company. There are many misunderstandings when a company splits to two parts, most notably the automobile divisions of Volvo and SAAB (the latter which was an important part of Sweden's preparations for war by building military aircrafts, which has always been the main part of the company - Swedish Aeroplanes AB - and they built hundreds of SAAB 17 planes during the war). I must give you a big plus for an almost correct pronounciation of the word "Rädda". :) And the part about the training of norwegian soldiers in Sweden, as well as welcoming norwegian refugees, is definitely valid. I have actually visited one of the routes refugees took, including finding remains of the swedish border station where they were welcomed by swedish troops.

Ah, if only germans had NordVPN, things could've been going differently...

The picture shown between 0:50 and 01:15 is important for another reason. That socialist demonstration that is shown there ended up in the military opening fire, killing 4 demonstrants and 1 bystander, shortly after the picture is taken. This event is known as "skotten i ådalen" or "the shootings in the ådal" which is the place it took place. As a swede watching i had to point that out!

I like how the new intro gets straight into the point, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say I missed the random WW2 fact that is outlandish, yet definitely happened.

My grandmas sister was adopted from Finland during the winter war. One of the sweetest and most kind women I have ever known.

Germany was too afraid to attack Sweden because they had *defensive furniture* from IKEA 😳

You are literally surrounded by an aggressive neighbor that you despise. You do the best you can as the Swedes did to protect the nation and your people. As to trade, the routes to trade were blocked by the Germans as well. You have to feed the refugees you took in, the best way to do this was to use the money from the country they fled.

Informative and objective. Well done Hilbert!

I once met a Dane whose brother had been killed in the Nazi invasion. Grief is undying. There are tank traps in a park in Stochkolm.

Regarding primarily Estonia (likely the samt with other occupied countries by USSR) it's not completely true that the USSR demanded former SS troops be handed back: they demanded ALL people from Estonia back, claiming they were Soviet subjects (maybe even citizens), to which the Swedish government complied to, forcing some Estonians back into Soviet ships in Stockholm harbor. My own grandfather, who fled the war from Estonia, feared this and fled to Canada, causing a national crisis that led to it's more modern immigrant law systems. Source: Lynda Mannik, voyage of the SS walnut, 1948.

Operation Sepalu? Sefalu? And the involvement of Sapmi people in the resistance, they had special rules for crossing the Norwegian-Swedish border.

Sony actually just bought the commercial cellphone division of Ericsson back in the 2000s, the rest of Ericsson is still a big player in telecommunications equipment and related services. They just don't make conusmer products anymore, but instead are more focused on the network side of things. They have been a major player in the swedish defense industry through the years, making radars for fighter aircraft etc. That part of the company was later sold to SAAB.

Thanks

Apart from the 8 000+ Swedish volunteer soldiers, you should have mentioned the enormous amount of armaments Sweden gave to Finland during the Winter War. Finns often have the misconception that Sweden did nothing to help them. Edit: "The Swedish government and public also sent food, clothing, medicine, weapons and ammunition to aid the Finns during this conflict. The military aid included: - 135,402 rifles, 347 machine guns, 450 light machine guns with 50,013,300 rounds of small arms ammunition; - 144 field guns, 100 anti-aircraft guns and 92 anti-armour guns with 301,846 shells; - 300 sea mines and 500 depth charges; - 17 fighter aircraft, 5 light bombers, 1 DC-2 transport aircraft turned into bomber, and 3 reconnaissance aircraft, totally comprising 1/3 of the Swedish air force at the time." Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweden_and_the_Winter_War#Swedish_military's_position

From this, it seems to me that Sweden kept as far away from Nazi Germany as it dared... Which was sadly, still far too close for comfort. Acts like sheltering Norwegian and Danish Jews, tapping the phone lines the Nazis insisted upon, and raising the 'Totally not a Norwegian Army, we promise' all indicate that Sweden wanted no truck with Nazi Germany whatsoever. They just didn't have much of a choice. To indulge in Counterfactuals, it's a shame the Battle of Norway didn't leave the Allies able to hold Narvik and Northern Norway. There was a Railway line from Sweden to Narvik, and keeping it in Non-Axis hands could have given Sweden a vital lifeline to the outside world. As it was, with Norway, Finland and access out of the Baltic all under Axis control or Axis aligned, Sweden was utterly locked in.

Really good video! But so many forget to mention. Sweden had two choices, help Germany which we have always had good contact since the 16th century. Or help Russia, which has always been our greatest enemy for about 400 years. So it was a very difficult game that Sweden stood for. They did not like Hitler's ideas, but if we do not help Germany, the Russians are waiting to besiege Sweden. Very difficult decisions.

As a half Swede (other half being British), I enjoyed this video. Great work 👍🏻🇸🇪🇬🇧

I think you should have mentiond the White Buses.

Can you do a video about the planned British invasion of Norway and Sweden the week after the Germans?

3:45 Many thousand more volunteered, those 8000 are just the ones who actually made it to Finland before the war ended.

12:07 As a swede I can say that is the best pronunciation I have ever heard!

Ericsson is not known for its merge with Sony. This merge ended more than 10 years ago. Ericsson is known for building mobile networks. It’s the world leading mobile network vendor.

With Hilberts Doco's it goes to show there is never a true Nuetrality. Eventually you will have to choose a side to protect your own backside

Good accurate video on Sweden during ww2 👍

Hello Hilbert. It reminds me of how clans used to try to make sure they had representatives who fought on each side. Oh well, boxy but good or is it the winner takes it all?

I have only one interesting detail to add. Known only to very few. In the very beginning When Germany mobilize to start on 9 April 1940 Operation Weserübung invade Denmark and also to futher north at the time also Neutrual Norway. Niether Neutrual Norway or Neutrual Sweden mobilized ! Both countries hold their breath hoping for not being the target. Of casue knowing that the odds was extreamly bad. But.... there was actually one small exception. One air force base in Sweden (a flygflottilj , is bigger than just a one base ) in the middle of sweden. Who´s commander was still away on easter holiday. His temporary stand-in commander got message during easter that Germany was mobilizing plenty of troops "pointing" north. Desperatly the stand-in try to get hold of his commander, or any one who could order full war mobilization (more than the one told in the film). But no reply. So when Germany starded moving north the stand-in desided. This silcence can not wait any longer. So he had the guts to order full war mobilization of his base and his entire Flyfglottilj. He was the only one in both countries who war mobilized (pre the fighting began). We all now know that Sweden won the chicken race lottery. And Norway lost. What happen then to the Stand-in ? Well he, in silence , for his action he got promoted to become the yungest commander ever of a Flygflottilj. The new F21 in the very north. With 4 airbases. So...how do I know this ? An Aviation historian told our family the story a few years ago. The stand-in was my grandfather. We had no clue about his actions. He was born as a humble poor farmers boy. And he never bragged about anything in his entire life. We have always been told about him from others. Wow, he had a lot to brag about. But never did.

How dependent was Sweden of German deliveries of coke for keeping the country running? I recall that German deliveries of coke and foodstuffs were important in the Finnish-German negotiations.

The last ferry from Helsingör to Sweden during the war was filled to the brim with Danish soldiers refusing to surrender to the Germans

nice video