Russia smears Pippi Longstocking author as Nazi in propaganda posters
Russia has launched a poster campaign in Moscow featuring ostensibly pro-Nazi quotes from the Swedish writer Astrid Lindgren, the film-maker Ingmar Bergman, and the Ikea founder Ingvar Kamprad. "We are against Nazism, but they are not," the poster reads.
Oscar Jonsson, a researcher at the Swedish Defence University, tweeted out a picture of photograph of a Moscow bus stop carrying the propaganda poster, which has the word 'they' written in the colours of the Swedish flag.
https://twitter.com/OAJonsson/status/1521381865936072710
Another poster accuses King Gustaf V of being a Nazi.
Jonsson told The Local he was certain that the posters were genuine, but suspected that they were intended for Swedish consumption, as at least one of them had been placed outside the Swedish Embassy in Moscow.
"They're more of a provocation to Sweden than something for the Russian people," he said.
Mikael Östlund, communication chief at Sweden's Psychological Defence Agency, argued the opposite case, that the posters were primarily designed to justify the war in Ukraine to Russia's own population.
"Accusing western countries of Nazism is a part of the justification for their own war," he said. "This is probably directed towards its own population. This has been one of the justifications for the war in Ukraine as well."
Others even suggested they might even be a preparation for military action .
"Are there any limits to these guys? Or are they preparing a 'denazifying' operation against Sweden as well?" tweeted Sweden's former prime minister Carl Bildt.
The Swedish foreign ministry said it was aware of the posters, but refused to comment.
"We have no intention of engaging in a public polemic with the Russian organisation 'Our Victory', which is reportedly behind these posters," a spokesperson told TT. "In Russia, smears about 'Nazism' have been used repeatedly against countries and individuals who are critical of Russia's actions."
At a press conference in Germany, Sweden's prime minister called the campaign "completely unacceptable".
"But it is important to say already right now that Sweden could become the target of an influence campaign by foreign powers," she said. "It's important that all Swedes, and not least those of you in journalism, recognise that there is a risk that foreign powers will try to influence the Swedish debate climate."
https://twitter.com/ChrChristensen/status/1521424410040803328
The poster leads with a quote from the Second World War diaries of the writer Astrid Lindgren, who created the character Pippi Longstocking.
This is from a passage where Lindgren, a German speaker, expresses her fears that Russia might invade Sweden, saying a Russian occupation would be worse than a German one.
"And so I think I'd rather say 'Heil Hitler' my whole life than get the Russians on top of us. You can hardly think of anything so awful," Lindgren writes.
It's worth pointing out that Lindgren was a committed anti-Nazi, who also wrote in her diary that Hitler was ‘a little, unknown German artisan’ who had become ‘his people’s nemesis and cultural destroyer’.
The second quote, a heavily-edited extract from Ingmar Bergman's memoir, The Magic Lantern, describes how he attended a Hitler rally when he was a 16-year-old exchange student living with a family in Germany, and then received a photograph of Hitler from his exchange partner as a birthday present, which was hung over his bed.
"I had never seen anything like this eruption of immense energy," Bergman writes of his attendance at the rally. "I shouted like everyone else, held out my arm like everyone else, howled like everyone else, and loved it like everyone else."
In his book, Bergman goes on to write that when he first saw pictures from Nazi concentration camps, he at first could not believe them.
"When all the evidence from the concentration camps actually hit me, my mind could not at first accept what my eyes were registering. Like so many others, I said the pictures were prearranged propaganda lies," he writes.
"When the truth finally conquered my resistance, I was overcome with despair, and my self contempt, already a severe burden, accelerated beyond the borders of endurance."
The final quote comes from the memoirs of IKEA founder Ingvar Kamprad, in which he concedes, "I was a Nazi! I admired Hitler!".
Although Kamprad was an enthusiastic involvement in Sweden's Nazi youth movement during World War II, he later described this as the “greatest mistake of my life.”
But in an interview for a book by the Swedish journalist Elisabeth Åsbrink, published in 2011, Kamprad refused to disown his youthful support for the Swedish fascist leader Per Engdahl.
“He told me: ‘He (Engdahl) was a great human being and I will maintain that as long as I live’,” Åsbrink told AFP.
As late as 1950, Kamprad sent a wedding invitation to the fascist leader describing how he was proud to belong to the same circle as him.
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Oscar Jonsson, a researcher at the Swedish Defence University, tweeted out a picture of photograph of a Moscow bus stop carrying the propaganda poster, which has the word 'they' written in the colours of the Swedish flag.
https://twitter.com/OAJonsson/status/1521381865936072710
Another poster accuses King Gustaf V of being a Nazi.
Jonsson told The Local he was certain that the posters were genuine, but suspected that they were intended for Swedish consumption, as at least one of them had been placed outside the Swedish Embassy in Moscow.
"They're more of a provocation to Sweden than something for the Russian people," he said.
Mikael Östlund, communication chief at Sweden's Psychological Defence Agency, argued the opposite case, that the posters were primarily designed to justify the war in Ukraine to Russia's own population.
"Accusing western countries of Nazism is a part of the justification for their own war," he said. "This is probably directed towards its own population. This has been one of the justifications for the war in Ukraine as well."
Others even suggested they might even be a preparation for military action .
"Are there any limits to these guys? Or are they preparing a 'denazifying' operation against Sweden as well?" tweeted Sweden's former prime minister Carl Bildt.
The Swedish foreign ministry said it was aware of the posters, but refused to comment.
"We have no intention of engaging in a public polemic with the Russian organisation 'Our Victory', which is reportedly behind these posters," a spokesperson told TT. "In Russia, smears about 'Nazism' have been used repeatedly against countries and individuals who are critical of Russia's actions."
At a press conference in Germany, Sweden's prime minister called the campaign "completely unacceptable".
"But it is important to say already right now that Sweden could become the target of an influence campaign by foreign powers," she said. "It's important that all Swedes, and not least those of you in journalism, recognise that there is a risk that foreign powers will try to influence the Swedish debate climate."
https://twitter.com/ChrChristensen/status/1521424410040803328
The poster leads with a quote from the Second World War diaries of the writer Astrid Lindgren, who created the character Pippi Longstocking.
This is from a passage where Lindgren, a German speaker, expresses her fears that Russia might invade Sweden, saying a Russian occupation would be worse than a German one.
"And so I think I'd rather say 'Heil Hitler' my whole life than get the Russians on top of us. You can hardly think of anything so awful," Lindgren writes.
It's worth pointing out that Lindgren was a committed anti-Nazi, who also wrote in her diary that Hitler was ‘a little, unknown German artisan’ who had become ‘his people’s nemesis and cultural destroyer’.
The second quote, a heavily-edited extract from Ingmar Bergman's memoir, The Magic Lantern, describes how he attended a Hitler rally when he was a 16-year-old exchange student living with a family in Germany, and then received a photograph of Hitler from his exchange partner as a birthday present, which was hung over his bed.
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