Description
There is an ongoing debate about whether Swedish companies and businessmen were able to profit economically at the expense of Jews during the Second World War. Nazi Germany pressured Swedish firms to cooperate exclusively with so-called Aryan, i.e., non-Jewish, companies and to replace their Jewish employees with Aryans, in a process known as Aryanization.
A government inquiry from 1999 concluded that there is no evidence suggesting that "Swedish entrepreneurs deliberately sought to profit from Aryanization" (SOU 1999:20, p. 258). In stark contrast, Göran Blomberg and Sven Nordlund have argued the opposite. Nordlund (2009) maintains that "some individual Swedish businessmen seized the opportunity to gain advantages, participated in the plundering of Jewish assets, and ensured that Jews lost their employment in both subsidiaries and non-Jewish Swedish firms" (2006, p. 71). He argues that further research is needed to determine whether Jews were affected more broadly or whether this applied only to isolated cases.
Researchers have shown that responses to Jews during the war ranged from support to explicit antisemitism. There was a tradition of antisemitism in Sweden, particularly in the economic sphere. Several campaigns against Jewish businesses were conducted with the aim of reducing the Jewish share in the economy during the 1930s and the Second World War.
In addition, the Nazi seizure of power in 1933 placed increased pressure on Swedish companies during the war years. Sweden was economically dependent on Germany in the area of trade. Germany also launched a campaign to demand so-called Aryan certificates—documents which Swedish authorities came to issue. The overall objective—from both Swedish antisemites and Nazi actors—was to undermine the economic position of Jews.
The overarching question of this project is whether economic antisemitism increased in Sweden during the Second World War, that is, whether Jews were economically affected. To answer this, the project investigates three sub-questions:
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What antisemitic campaigns and boycotts were conducted in the commercial sector in Stockholm, Malmö, and Gothenburg—i.e., the cities where most Jewish businesses were located?
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How did these campaigns and boycotts affect Jewish businesses economically—did their turnover or profits decline?
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Were Jews affected in their personal finances, and how did their declared income develop in comparison to general price trends?
Financiers
