I wrote this chapter before I wrote Chapter 18 up, that's why this one's out so soon after the last one.
Chapter 19 – A Northern Affair
Scandinavian Campaign (Part 6)
May – June 1940
Since Operation Silver was launched in March 1940, a state of war had existed between Sweden and the Anglo-French Allies, by now referred to as the “Lapland War”. As RAF bombing raids launched from Norwegian bases beginning to strike Sweden in targets such as Kiruna and Luleå, the Swedes had accepted German offers of military aid and the Luftwaffe began to deploy to Swedish airfields. Nonetheless, this was a war that no one had wanted. The British wanted to be able to walk across Lapland to reach and aid Finland in the Winter War and naively expected the Swedes to acquiesce, whilst the Swedes for their part just wanted to be left alone by everyone and stay out of the war entirely. As it turned out though, the British invasion of the north of Sweden and air raids had forced the situation into all-out war, a situation both sides found almost impossible to pull out of.
However, an attempt to do such was made in early June 1940. On 5th June, after the evacuation of British troops from Dunkirk, the British government reached out to Stockholm through their embassy in neutral Finland offering to negotiate an end to the Lapland War.
When the offer of negotiations reached Prime Minister Hansson, he was unsure of how to react. His inner democrat jumped at the offer, detesting the alliance of convenience with the Nazis. But his inner realist was also aware that Sweden couldn’t afford to antagonise Berlin lest they decide to attack Sweden. Even if the Germans didn’t attack, a cutting of trade with Germany would be disastrous for the Swedish economy. When the cabinet was called that evening to discuss the British offer, it was decided that the offer would be taken up but in secret to avoid raising German suspicions given their prior agreements [1].
To maintain secrecy, contact with the British would be initiated through unofficial mediums, namely Sweden’s former ambassador to the League of Nations, Karl Ivan Westman. Westman also happened to be the brother of Justice Minister Karl Gustaf Westman. On the 7th, Westman met discreetly with Britain’s ambassador to Finland, Sir Gordon Vereker, and informed him that the Swedish government would be willing to negotiate, but the matter had to be kept secret. It was arranged that negotiations would take place in the city of Kornsjø, near the Swedish-Norwegian border. The first meeting was set to take place on the 10th, just as the Italians declared war on France and the United Kingdom.
The delegations met in Kornsjø at 11:00 with the 3-man British delegation headed by Sir Alexander Cadogan, the Permanent-Under Secretary of State, and also included Vereker and Harold Balfour, the Under-Secretary of State for Air. Representing France was Robert Coulondre, former French ambassador to Germany prior to September 1939. Representing the Swedes were Westman, Erik Boheman, the State Secretary for Foreign Affairs, and Björn Prytz, Sweden’s former envoy to the United Kingdom prior to the March invasion.
Sir Alexander Cadogan, Permanent Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs
Harold Balfour, Under-Secretary of State for Air
Karl Ivan Westman, Swedish diplomat and namesake of the “Westman Affair”
Erik Bohemann, Swedish State Secretary for Foreign Affairs
The Swedish delegation made the first proposal. They requested an immediate end to military hostilities, a return to the status-quo antebellum, the ability to trade freely through the ice-free port of Narvik and financial reparations to pay for damages caused by the invasion and bombing raids.
The Anglo-French responded by stating that they wouldn’t allow Iron Ore or any other “war-making material” to leave through Narvik unless the Swedish government confirmed it wouldn’t be going to either Germany or the Soviet Union. Their logic for this was that if they returned to the status-quo antebellum, Sweden’s new neutrality would be pro-Axis as a legacy of the invasion. The Allies also demanded a withdrawal of all German troops from Swedish territory and a severing of all Swedish trade with both Germany and the Soviets. In return for complying with their conditions, the Brits offered to buy Swedish Ore instead and to protect Sweden in the event of any German or Soviet attack.
The Swedes were wary about accepting all of Britain’s conditions. Accepting the trade terms would effectively make Sweden a British economic puppet, assuming the Germans would accept Stockholm’s return to neutrality. Secondly, the Swedish delegation and government back in Stockholm didn’t view Britain’s promise to defend Sweden as worth anything, given their prior promises to Poland and failures on the Western Front [2].
That evening, Prime Minister Hansson received a telegram from Kornsjø notifying him that negotiations had failed to reach an agreement and would continue tomorrow.
The next day came and still negotiations fell through, around the issue of the Iron Ore trade with the British and French demanding Sweden cease shipments to Germany and the Swedes refusing to agree. Unfortunately, the issue of negotiations was going to be solved, just not how anyone wanted it to.
As the sun rose on the morning of the 12th of June, horror and confusion struck the faces of the Swedish government as the radical right-wing newspaper Vägen Framåt’s [3] front page read with “Sellout to the British Invaders!” and went into further detail regarding the talks in Kornsjø. And just to rub it in, they’d somehow managed to take a picture of Westman and Cadogan shaking hands outside the train station in Kornsjø where the talks were taking place. It turns out that one of the workers at the station, known to the Germans have had some pro-Nazi sympathies, had been compromised by the Abwehr. Now effectively working for German intelligence, the station worker had collected numerous intelligence pieces for his Abwehr masters, including the infamous photo; giving the talks and surrounding crisis its name, the “Westman Affair.” The perpetrator himself would not be discovered until his death in 2005 when his diaries were discovered by his grandson, causing a minor diplomatic incident and a scandal inside Sweden.
But right now, everyone in the government was panicking tremendously. Who had leaked the talks to the press? Was it German intelligence? Did the German government know? Did Göring know? Would the Germans attack Sweden in retaliation? What was to happen to Sweden? Its democracy? Its people? Was it all going to end? Some of these questions were of course catastrophising, but in the context of events in early-to-mid June 1940, the panic was understandable.
As it turned out, the Germans had been aware of the talks the whole time; at the same time as Prime Minister Hansson and his cabinet were digesting the news of the leaks, the Swedish envoy in Berlin, Arvid Richert, was receiving a berating from Göring and Ribbentrop for alleged “betrayal of prior agreements” and threatened that unless talks were stopped immediately, the consequences for Sweden would be severe. Richet was then released by his interrogators back the Swedish embassy to relay his “talks” with the German government back to his home country. At the same time, Richert advised in a separate telegram that it would be the best thing for Sweden if the talks were dropped and German demands accepted, believing Sweden still lacked the military strength to fight off a German attack, especially since there were now German forces inside Swedish territory.
Arvid Richert, Swedish Envoy to Germany
Simultaneously, the German ambassador in Stockholm, Viktor zu Wied, delivered an ultimatum to Hansson; end the talks with the Allies immediately and refrain from further hinderances to “the common resistance to unwarranted British aggression” or there would be “severe consequences for the Swedish nation and the Swedish people.” Hansson couldn’t believe what the world had come to. He hated the fact that Sweden had been dragged into this war, he hated whoever had leaked the talks to the papers and he despised this ultimatum in his hand. He wanted to reject it and proceed regardless, his inner democrat despising the idea of further collaboration with the Nazis (and by extension, the Soviets). However, he also feared what the Germans meant by “severe consequences,” especially with the German army blitzing its way through France. Could they do the same to Sweden?
Viktor zu Wied, Swedish Ambassador to Germany (picture c. 1900)
He figured he could only summon an emergency cabinet meeting to resolve the matter. Foreign Minister Günther was pessimistic, believing Germany’s military might (especially aerial) to be far superior to that of Sweden’s, having also read Richert’s correspondence which stated something similar. Defence Minister Skold was cautious, arguing that Sweden needed more time to build up its forces, and needed to continue weapons imports from Germany to do this. Justice Minister Karl Gustaf Westman stayed silent, knowing that his brother’s role in the talks essentially meant his career was over now.
Karl Gustaf Westman, Swedish Minister of Justice
Also during this time, King Gustaf V stepped in. The King, although no admirer of Nazism, desired to avoid conflict with Germany, with some sources going as far as to say he threatened to abdicate if the German demands were not accepted [4].
Gustaf V, King of Sweden
By the in the evening of that day, a decision had been made. Surrounded by chaos and with most of those around him pessimistic about Sweden's defensive capabilities against the Germans, Hansson went against his own better instincts and notified the German government through Richert that their demands would be accepted, and the talks would cease. With that single decision, Sweden had effectively surrendered itself to German influence and was now beholden to events increasingly outside its control.
The end of the “Westman Affair” did not mean the end of Prime Minister Hansson, but Justice Minister Westman was right about his career being over. On the 14th, he resigned to be replaced by Thorwald Bergquist, Westman's predecessor who had served in that office in 1936 in Hansson's first government [5]. The crisis was over, but its impacts on the war had been monumental.
Thorwald Bergquist, new Minister for Justice of Sweden
Footnotes
- [1] Referring to TTLs “Hansson-Ribbentrop Agreement” in Chapter 13.
- [2] Given that they’re negotiating behind Berlin’s back, the Swedes are in a risky enough situation as it is. Stockholm is understandably sceptical of Britain’s ability to uphold any promise to defend them given the ongoing debacle in France going on at the same time. Convincing Berlin that returning to neutrality doesn’t mean switching sides would be very difficult, if even impossible.
- [3] The newspaper associated with the fascist “New Swedish Movement” that ran from 1932 to 1992 in OTL.
- [4] A similar controversy surrounding King Gustaf existed in OTL during the Midsummer crisis of 1941.
- [5] In OTL, Bergquist was brought back to serve as Justice Minister from 1943 after Westman's resignation.
Sources
Wikipedia
List of newspapers in Sweden - Wikipedia
Swedish Wikipedia
Arvid Richert - Wikipedia
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