Per Claes Sven Edvard Engdahl (25 February 1909 – 4 May 1994) was a leading Swedish far-right politician. He was a leader of Sveriges Fascistiska Kamporganisation (SFKO or Sweden's Fascist Action Organization), during the 1930s. He led and was involved in various other fascist movements in Sweden and Europe after World War II, though he never had electoral success.
He influenced the founding of far-right group Bevara Sverige Svenskt, which eventually became the modern political party the Sweden Democrats. He has gained posthumous notoriety due to his connections to IKEA founder Ingvar Kamprad.
Early and personal life
Per Claes Sven Edvard Engdahl[1] was born in Jönköping on 25 February 1909.[1][2][3] He was the son of Major Sven Edvard Engdahl and Karin Håkansson.[1] He came from a conservative family with a strong military tradition.[4] Engdahl attended Uppsala University, where he studied philosophy.[4] He obtained a Bachelor's degree in 1930 and a PhD in 1935.[1]
In 1935, Engdahl published a collection of poetry titled "Stormsvept". It was reportedly well-received by major Swedish newspapers.[5] According to the biographical dictionary Svenska män och kvinnor, he was considered to have been one of the most acclaimed writers and speakers in the country until 1941, when he became a leading promoter of Nazi propaganda in Sweden.[1] In 1937, Engdahl married Stina Elna Sofia Berglund.[1] Near the end of his life, he lost most of his eyesight.[3]
Fascism
Engdahl began his political career while still a student in Uppsala, advocating a fascist-influenced policy of his own creation which he called nysvenskhet ('new Swedishness'). An attempt was made in 1932 to incorporate his group into the newly formed Nationalsocialistiska folkpartiet of Sven Olov Lindholm (a pro-Nazi party) although Engdahl resisted their overtures.[6]
As an ideology, nysvenskhet supported a strong Swedish nationalism, corporatism, anti-Semitism and anti-communism as well as a cult of personality around Engdahl himself. It placed an emphasis on racial nationalism, advocated the Madagascar Plan, and called for the replacement of the existing Swedish parliament with a corporatist body elected on an occupational franchise.[7] The policy overtly rejected Nazism, instead looking more towards Benito Mussolini for inspiration while also seeking to unify all groups against democracy, whether they were fascist or not.[8] He wrote the first published Swedish biography on Mussolini.[9]
However, he is also known to have praised Hitler in comments such as: "Today [23 April 1944], we can only salute Adolf Hitler as God's chosen savior of Europe" [10] Nonetheless Engdahl also frequently claimed that he followed neither man, arguing that his ideology was purely Swedish in nature, and as such he claimed his inspirations to be Sven Hedin, Adrian Molin and Rudolf Kjellén.[7]
Engdahl founded his own group, Riksförbundet Det nya Sverige, in 1937. Before long he merged this group into the pro-Nazi National League of Sweden, becoming deputy leader of this organisation. Adopting a policy which he described as nysvenskhet ('new Swedishness') he split from this group in 1941 to lead his own Nysvenska Rörelsen which continued to strongly support the Nazis.
Before the end of the war his supporters had united in the Svensk Opposition (Swedish Opposition) which also included the supporters of Birger Furugård.[11] The group advocated Swedish entry into World War II on the Axis side and went public with this aim in 1942,[12] but in fact the country stayed neutral.
Post-war activity
After World War II, Engdahl revived Nysvenska Rörelsen, publishing a paper, Vägen Framåt ('The Way Forward'), that concerned itself with attacks on communism and capitalism.[13] Changes in the defamation laws in Sweden however meant that he largely had to eliminate the earlier strident anti-Semitic rhetoric from his writing.[7] Nonetheless his reputation for attacks on the Jews saw him barred from entry into both West Germany and Switzerland.[7] He was one of the contributors of a Nazi publication, Der Weg, which was published from 1947 in Buenos Aires, Argentina.[14]
Engdahl also became a leading figure in the Europeanneo-fascist scene, and was instrumental in setting up the European Social Movement (ESM) in 1951, hosting the meeting in his home base of Malmö.[15] His book Västerlandets Förnyelse, published the same year, was widely read in such circles and was adopted as the chief ideological document of the ESM in 1954.[7] Although this group proved unsuccessful, Engdahl continued to be active in such circles for many years.[16] He presented himself as an electoral candidate in Gothenburg in 1958 and, although unsuccessful, he captured enough votes to deny the Swedish Social Democratic Party the seat.[7]
Engdahl continued to be politically active until well into his old age and was a frequent contributor to the far-right journal Nation Europa.[7] He also served as part of the journal's five man editorial board alongside Hans Oehler, Paul van Tienen, Erik Laerum and Erich Kern.[17] As he aged, he became increasingly pro-European, in contrast to the growing Euroscepticism of younger members of Sweden's far-right. He also attracted the support of Holocaust deniers, an issue which historian Björn Kumm says Engdahl "wavered" on.[3] Journalist Elisabeth Åsbrink described Engdahl as a Holocaust denier,[18] noting his collaboration with Maurice Bardèche, an early formulator of Holocaust denial.,[19] Engdahl expressed support for Israel, viewing Israelis as "great enterprising pioneers of the desert".[3]
He died in Malmö on 4 May 1994, aged 85. His death was publicly announced in Sweden two weeks after his funeral.[3]
Legacy
Engdahl's connections to IKEA founder Ingvar Kamprad (pictured) have put his name in the news several times since his death.
Engdahl donated all of his documents to the Swedish National Archives.[20] His name once again became controversial after his death, when, on 21 October 1994, the newspaper Expressen published a story about information they found in his archived personal correspondence, revealing that Ingvar Kamprad, the founder of IKEA, had been a member of Engdahl's groups during the war.[20][21] Kamprad publicly acknowledged his youthful fascist involvement, called it "delusional", and had an IKEA employee search through Engdahl's archives to find other preserved correspondence between the two.[20]
In the decades following his death, Engdahl largely faded from Sweden's public consciousness.[18] However, he was again in the news in 2011, when a book by Elisabeth Åsbrink included details of a wedding invitation sent by Kamprad to Engdahl in 1950.[22] Åsbrink clarified that Kamprad was still friendly with Engdahl well into the 1950s, which was when the latter was most politically active.[23]
According to Åsbrink, Kamprad said to her in a 2010 interview that "Per Engdahl is a great man, and I will maintain that as long as I live" (Swedish: Per Engdahl är en stor människa, och det kommer jag att vidmakthålla så länge jag lever), although a spokesperson for Kamprad stated that he rejected fascist and Nazi-sympathizing ideas.[22][23] According to Åsbrink, Kamprad's alleged late appraisal of Engdahl went largely unnoticed, which she attributed to Engdahl being unknown to the public.[24] In 2023, some of his poetry was included in a book by literary professor Bibi Jonsson analyzing Swedish nationalist and Nazi poetry of the 1930s and 1940s.[5]
In 1979, Engdahl inspired the creation of the far-right organization Bevara Sverige Svenskt ("Keep Sweden Swedish"). This group was the predecessor to the modern party the Sweden Democrats.[25]
^Anders Widfeldt: "A fourth phase of the extreme right? Nordic immigration-critical parties in a comparative context". In: NORDEUROPAforum (2010:1/2), 7-31, link
^Kurt P. Tauber (December 1959). "German Nationalists and European Union". Political Science Quarterly. 74 (4): 568–571. doi:10.2307/2146424. JSTOR2146424.
^G. Macklin, Very Deeply Dyed in Black, London, 2007, p. 180
Hagtvet, Bernt (1980). "On the Fringe: Swedish Fascism 1920-1945". Who Were the Fascists: Social Roots of European Fascism. Oslo: Scandinavian University Press. ISBN978-82-00-05331-6.
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