Nazism in Sweden has been more or less fragmented and unable to form a mass movement since its beginning in the early 1920s. Several hundred parties, groups, and associations existed from the movement's founding through the present. At most, purely Nazi parties in Sweden have collected around 27,000 votes in democratic parliamentary elections. The high point came in the municipal elections of 1934 when the Nazi parties were victorious in over one hundred electoral contests. As early as January 22, 1932, the Swedish Nazis had their first public meeting with Birger Furugård addressing an audience of 6000 at the Haymarket in Stockholm.
Like their German counterparts, the Swedish Nazis were strongly anti-semitic and as early as May, 1945 became early adopters of Holocaust denial. The Swedish Nazi groups persisted after the war until they were officially dissolved in 1950. During this post-war period, they were more or less completely inactive politically. In 1956, a new Swedish Nazi party, the Nordic Reich Party (NRP), was formed by Göran Assar Oredsson and Vera Oredsson (previously married to Nazi leader Sven-Olov Lindholm). This party brought together the heritage of the older Nazi generations in the 1980s when Swedish neo-Nazism began growing stronger, and they managed to gather some small groups of the new generation of Nazi skinheads. A Swedish white supremacist movement arose during this period, especially among some former criminal motorcycle gang members and younger white power skinhead youths.
Particularly in the 1990s, there was a plethora of neo-Nazi organizations, most infamous being the militant network Vitt Ariskt Motstånd ("VAM") which translates to White Aryan Resistance but was not associated with the US organization bearing the same name. VAM promoted the idea about a race war and gathered young skinheads and neo-Nazi activists in several cities, and their members committed several serious crimes, including arsons, armed bank robberies, weapons and arms thefts against desolate Swedish army and police headquarters, and series of brutal assaults and beatings. Other groups such as the Riksfronten and the party National Socialist Front (NSF) was also founded.
Similar to the movement during WWII, there was tendencies toward fragmentation, disagreements and infighting, which accelerated after the Malexander murders, a 1999 bank robbery and murder of two policemen by a group of militant neo-nazi criminals whose aim was to form a revolutionary underground Nazi organization. It also evolved as a variety of explicitly racist organizations which drew from other sources. The Swedish Resistance Movement was also formed by former VAM leaders. Short-term attempts to create an umbrella organization were discontinued after some time. In the 2000s, the National Socialist Front remained the largest Swedish Nazi organization, gaining around 1400 votes in the parliamentary elections of 2006. It was officially shut down in November 2008, and replaced by (or renamed to) the Party of the Swedes. The largest demonstrations was the annual "Salem march" (Salemmarschen) every December from 2001 to 2011. The first demonstrations attracted 2000 participants, but this number dwindled for each year. The magazine Expo, co-founded by Stieg Larsson, campaigns against "modern" Swedish Nazism and right-wing extremism.
The early Nazi movement in Sweden had its roots in various anti-semitic organizations formed in the late 1800s.
In the 1920s, Barthold Lundén published the anti-semitic populist newspaper Vidi, which was inspired by Mauritz Rydgren's earlier attempts to establish an anti-semitic broadsheet in the early 1900s. Vidi ran several campaigns against both Jews and homosexuals. In 1923 Lundén also founded the Swedish Antisemitic Union (Svenska Antisemitiska Föreningen) which remained active until 1931. Many of the drivers of Swedish Nazism emerged from this environment.
The earliest Nazi associations include the National Socialist Freedom League (SNFf) from 1924 to 1926, which preceded the Swedish National Socialist Farmers' and Workers' Party (SNBA). Leaders included the brothers Sigurd, Gunnar, and Birger Furugård.
In 1926, Konrad Hallgren founded the Swedish Fascist People's Party (SFFP) and its paramilitary wing the Sveriges Fascistiska Kamporganisation (SKFO), or the Swedish Fascist Combat Organization. In 1930, Stig Bille lead a splinter group called the New Swedish People's League (NSFF) to split from the primary nazi organizations. On April 1, 1930, the SNBA and SNFP merged as the New Swedish National Socialist League (NNF, later NSFF). The NNF adopted the new name Swedish National Socialist Party (SNSP) one year later led by Sigurd Furugård. This political organization first participated in a general election in 1931, when it garnered 279 votes in the Stockholm City Council Elections.
Furugård's disputes with Sven Olov Lindholm, editor of the party's newspaper, led to the expulsion of Lindholm and his followers on January 13, 1933. These individuals formed the National Socialist Workers' Party (SNAP, later NSAP). The two parties were commonly referred to by their leaders as "Furugårdists" or "Lindholmists".[6] On October 5, 1933, ten followers of Furugård stormed Lindholm's headquarters and stole cash and membership lists and were only stopped by police intervention. The fight between the two parties continued with periodic violence through the parliamentary elections of 1936 where the split caused the parties to fail miserably. Furugård was so discouraged he closed down operations of his SNSP. The NSAP saw further disappointments and a split of the left wing of the party.
As time went on, Per Engdahl (1909–1994) became a prominent figure in the Swedish Nazi movement. After his studies at Uppsala University, Engdahl joined the SKFO in 1928 but left for Bille's new NSFF. In 1930 he founded his own group, the National Association for the New Sweden (RDNS), which merged with Elmo Lindholm's National League of Sweden (SNF) in 1937.
The many divisions in the Nazi movement caused a power struggle. One attempt to bring unity was the National Socialist Bloc (NSB) formed in 1933 under the leadership of colonel Martin Ekström, but that short-lived effort brought little success. The NSB did, however, manage to unify a number of small cult-like groups such as the Swedish National Socialist Coalition and the National Socialist League, but it failed when it was unable to attract the SNSP or NSAP. The members were mostly from the upper class, and many were officers in the military. Two founders included Colonel Archibald Douglas and general major Rickman von der Lancken.
The Rightist Party's (now the Moderate Party) youth league had been impressed by Hitler's successes in Germany, and it decided to adopt paramilitary practices on Hitler's model. The youth league broke with the Rightist Party and formed the SNU (Swedish national youth league), later renamed the National League of Sweden (SNF). Three right-wing politicians who joined the SNF were elected to parliament in 1932. One of these was major Alf Meyerhöffer. All the seats were lost in the 1936 election.
In 1938, parts of the Swedish Nazi movement broke with Hitler. Lindholm's NSAP changed its name to the Swedish Socialist Coalition (SSS) and replaced its swastika with a bundle of wheat (Vasakärven). Other Swedish Nazis, however, maintained their loyalty to Hitler and the Germans and viewed Lindholm as a traitor.
After the war, the SO renamed itself the New Swedish Movement (NSR, Nysvenska Rörelsen) and in public attempted to distance itself from Nazi Germany and its own history. In private, it helped smuggle and conceal Nazi collaborators, soldiers, and Waffen-SS volunteers from the refugee camps and allied powers. The regular party activities continued unabated after the war, but the conditions deteriorated. The NSR was refused permission to rent premises in Göteborg including the Hvitfeldtska gymnasiet and the Folkets Hus. Per Engdahl remained a central figure in European National Socialist and fascist circles. The NSR cultivated ties to similar organizations, primarily in Denmark and Norway, and it established an employment office in Malmö for the Danes and Norwegians who collaborated with the wartime occupation forces and fled to Sweden. On May 21, 1951, it hosted 60 delegates for the first "pan-European congress" of Nazis.
The NSR experienced a resurgence during the 1950s. Endahl lectured throughout Europe and made ties with fascists in other countries. The national membership of the party rose successfully. In 1950 a member of the Riksdag, James Dickson of the Rightist Party (now the Moderate Party), took part in a NSR meeting. This success came to a halt in 1960 with the so-called "Swastika epidemic," where the painting of swastikas spread like wildfire in many countries. Rabbi Nussbaum in America argued that the painting of swastikas was led by Per Engdahl from Malmö. Engdahl denied this and claimed the NSR was the victim of a conspiracy by the World Jewish Congress and that it was Jews themselves who were behind the swastikas. From the middle of the 1960s, the NSR membership and contributions dropped, and the party languished (with the exception of a few high-profile events) until the end of the 1980s when it managed to recruit new members. As early as 1991/92 it ceased operation, and the last issue of its magazine Vägen Framåt (The Way Forward) was published in 1992.
In addition to the NSR, the Nordic Reich Party (NRP, Nordiska Rikspartiet) was formed in 1956 and became particularly active in the postwar years. It had a paramilitary faction called the National Action Group (RAG, Riksaktiongruppen), and several of its members were convicted of assaults and threats. In the late 1980s one of the RAG activists was selected as chair of the newly formed Sweden Democrats.
Because of Sweden's wartime neutrality, the nation never experienced the outright bans on Nazism and propaganda of the former Axis powers. National Socialist parties are still allowed to campaign for office. A law in 1950 prohibiting incitement against ethnic groups was passed in response to the anti-semitic activities of Einar Åberg (the Lagen om hets mot folkgrupp). The next major legislation did not occur until 1994 when an amendment was passed making racist motivations for crimes aggravating circumstances. In 1996 the Swedish supreme court ruled the display of a swastika could be considered incitement. Also, the government won a case against Tomas Lindvist, a major producer of neo-Nazi music. The government set up a commission in 1997 to investigate the transfer of Nazi gold and diamonds to Sweden and the involvement of Swedish companies in the Holocaust.
