Brit hired Swedish Nazis for Auschwitz raid: report

A Swedish right-wing extremist group agreed to help a wealthy UK-based collector and Nazi sympathizer acquire the “Arbeit Macht Frei” sign from the Auschwitz concentration camp in exchange for "huge money", according to a British newspaper.

• Sweden's help sought in Auschwitz theft probe (30 Dec 09)
• Police doubt Swedish ties to Auschwitz theft (24 Dec 09)
• Swedish collector behind Auschwitz theft: reports (22 Dec 09)

“The collector wanted it as a trophy - and used his neo-Nazi contacts to put word out he was prepared to pay huge money for it,” a source based in Sweden told the Sunday Mirror newspaper.

Last week, Polish justice officials sought assistance in the investigation from their Swedish counterparts in order to follow up on suspicions that the heist was masterminded by someone outside of Poland.

Five men are currently being held in Poland in connection with the December 18th theft of the iconic, five metre long sign, which translates from German to “Work sets you free”.

According to the Mirror, the suspects in Poland were merely “bit-part players” in a larger international plot which would have also benefited pro-Nazi groups in Sweden.

“Arrangements had been made to hide the sign in a cellar in Stockholm, waiting for the British man to collect. The plan was to use the British guy's money to fund neo-Nazi hate attacks in Sweden,” the source told the newspaper.

A rumoured Swedish connection surfaced around the time the sign was recovered three days after its removal from the front gate of the Auschwitz concentration camp, with Swedish tabloid Aftonbladet reporting that an extremist group was plotting a politically-motivated attack against the Swedish parliament, the foreign ministry, and the prime minister's residence.

While Swedish intelligence agency Säpo confirmed it was investigating a far-right attack, the agency refused to say whether there was a connection between the Swedish plot and the theft of the “Arbeit Macht Frei” sign.

When it was recovered, the sign had been cut into three pieces, with the letter "i" from "Frei" abandoned at the camp, a Polish state-run museum and memorial since 1947.

The sign has long symbolized the horror of the camp, created by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland in 1940 and run until Soviet troops liberated it in 1945.