'Ikea founder was an active Nazi': report
Published: 24 Aug 11 08:31 CET | Print version
Updated: 24 Aug 11 17:07 CET
Online: http://www.thelocal.se/35732/20110824/
The Swedish security police tracked Ikea founder Ingvar Kamprad's membership of a Swedish Nazi movement in the 1940s, one of the revelations of the business leader's Nazi past revealed in a new book.
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The book also details how the 17-year-old Ingvar Kamprad's movements were of sufficient interest to the Swedish security police in 1943 that his involvement was mapped in a security police file, leading to further questions about his links to the Nazis.
Åsbrink claims in her book that the predecessor to the Security Service (Säpo), Allmänna Säkerhetstjänsten ('Public Security Service'), steamed open young Ingvar Kamprad's letters and were thus able to establish his role in recruiting new members.
"It is a little odd that Ingvar Kamprad has not himself come out with this information. He has said that he wants to tell, and to say sorry," Elisabeth Åsbrink told SVT's Aktuellt news programme on Tuesday.
Åsbrink's book establishes that Kamprad's links to the SSS and far-right leader Per Engdahl continued long after the end of the war, and after the horrors of Adolf Hitler's regime and the Holocaust became known.
Kamprad was, for example, present at Per Engdahl's wedding in the 1950s, writing a letter at the time in which he expressed his pride to be part of the 'nysvenska' circles", referring to the nationalist movement founded by Engdahl in the late 1930s.
A spokesperson for the Ikea founder said on Wednesday that Kamprad was unaware that Swedish security services had files detailing the time he was active in the Nazi movement.
“But it's not that strange, that was Säpo's job to keep tabs on people on the right and left side,” Kamprad spokesperson Per Heggenes told the TT news agency on Wednesday.
“It confirms only one thing – that Ingvar time after time has told about the biggest mistake of his life and apologised to all involved 20 years ago.”
According to Heggenes, Kamprad hadn't seen the SVT report himself.
“But it's clear he hopes he can put this behind him. It's not fun to be reminded of it again and again – when he's been open from the beginning about it and apologised."
Heggenes doubted that the new details would have a negative impact on Ikea, however.
“It doesn't affect its image in any way. Everyone who knows Ikea knows that it's a multicultural company which practices a multicultural strategy,” he told TT.
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@Rick Methven , this is not about buying or not buying from IKEA. Finding out and comfirming that artist X is /was a padophile is not the same as saying that his/ her music will not sell or be listened to .
I thought Sweden was the perfect country before the Muslims, Middle Easterns, and Eastern Europeans came here.
Waddup SD and their disciples? Seems like your kind of propaganda has been around for a long time.
As far as Kamprad, I am sure he has grown up a lot from the time he was 17 years old.
The only people that hold hate in their hearts are ignorant, hopeless, jobless, uneducated people. Again, much like SD and other right wing nuts.
Success somehow seems to reveal to yourself just how idiotic your bigoted views really were.
There is a huge difference between a "sympathizer" and an "activist". The latter implies active support.
But whether he still holds Nazi sympathies now is another matter.
PS...notice that you haven't criticized Kamprad for not paying his share to the taxman in Swden...rofl.
!!!!!!!!! It was !!!!!!!
Can I assume then you are an SD, Nazi loving supporter?
You too, along with the rest of your buddies will be accountable for your racism, bigotry and hatred in due time, in this life or the next.
Good luck.
It's very sad when the only way some journalists can find a story is by regurgitating very old news about a very old man, who has already admitted and apologised for his dreadful youthful indiscretions. Doesn't Åsbrink have anything better to do? How about a similar investigation into the current owners of Saab? Now that might be worth a look Elisabeth, and actually useful!
The fact that he was still an active Nazi and proud of the fact, long after their attrocities had been fully exposed I still find very surprising if not shocking.
It is also painfully obvious that his attempt to try and renounce his actions only when his business was under threat of collapse really doesn't wash.
It seems to be the opinion of many who have studied his more recent actions that it is a very thinly veiled smokescreen and the leopard still hasn't changed it's spots right up to the present day.
Only "17yrs old for gods sake",.... yet still a Nazi many years later and proud of it, long after all the attrocities came to light.
Somehow I'm not inclined to take his word or yours for it,especially as the only reason he publicly denounced his membership was to save his company and his bacon.
"Åsbrink's book establishes that Kamprad's links to the SSS and far-right leader Per Engdahl continued long after the end of the war, and after the horrors of Adolf Hitler's regime and the Holocaust became known.
Kamprad was, for example, present at Per Engdahl's wedding in the 1950s, writing a letter at the time in which he expressed his pride to be part of the 'nysvenska' circles", referring to the nationalist movement founded by Engdahl in the late 1930s."
As I said there is no good reason to believe the leopard has changed it's spots even today, but quite a few signs still point in the other direction.
If full knowledge and awareness of the holocaust hadn't changed his views, I very much doubt anything else would.
There were lots of Nazi sympathizers in Sweden during WWII, particularly at the start of the war. Many switched sides as the war progressed - some when they heard of the atrocities being commited by the Nazis and others only once they realized Germany was going to lose the war. It's all in the past now and this was old news.
My father and two uncles served in the Royal Canadian Air Force during WWII and they have no grudge with this today. Let it go people.
The Swedes didn't switch sides (as you suggest) - they collaborated throughout the entire war and did not take a stand like the brave Norwegians. The shame will be forever theirs.
Training resistance groups, sending food, weapons and volunteertroops to Finland.
Sweden also helped jews to flee from Denmark, Raoul Wallenberg saved jews in Hungary and so on.
And who cracked the germans codes as to when and where they would be stationing troops? Sweden
Sure, they traded with the nazis, but it was either that or being invaded and not being able to do a darn thing. Obviously it would have looked better in the history books if Sweden had suffered the same fate as its neighbours but they were able to stay out of the war, somewhat help alot of people and in the same time earn some money from it.
Look at the finns btw, they worked with the nazis to throw out Russia, or Quissling who tried to make Norway a nazi-country. No country is perfect. You adapt to the situation, and try to make the best of it.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1146462/Revealed-How-neutral-Sweden-secret-loans-Nazi-Germany-WWII.html
Surprise,surprise.
Your quote: 'Sure they traded with the Nazis, but it was either that or being invaded and not being able to do a darn thing' is the stock Swedish answer but the fact is that it did not make a stand with the rest of Europe but chose to profiteer from the war - The shame will always be theirs...
You people sure are slow on the uptake.
His personal hypocrisy does seem analogous to that of the Swedish establishment and ruling class when it comes to the stories that have been told of those years versus actual facts that have surfaced since.
It is important to have an accurate historical record. One can always attempt to justify, deny, or distort, but facts are stubborn.
What difference does it make now? The facts are there for anyone too see.
His wife could eat no lean.
And so between them both, you see,
They licked the platter clean. I like the name Jack Sprat.
Well, I as a philosopher and sociologist will never admire the likes of Martin
Heidegger, who never apologized for his extreme moral lapse
and Seinsvergessenheit in embracing Nazism as das Schicksal des deutschen Volkes except in a densely veiled way by acknowledging his
having been "auf dem Holzweg". The great Richard Rorty stated that Heidegger could not be forgiven for that. I am no admirer of Kamprad or Kampfrad, the combat wheel. Das "Rad der Geschichte" cannot be turned back, to erase
the blotch on Kamprad's life' narrative.
virtually every country in europe and the Islamic world collaberated weith the Nazis during WW". Brave Norwgians, yesm but do you mean quisling, the police, the Norwegian Nazis? Do yuo mean the large organisations like Fred Olsen, Storbrand and Den norske Creditbank and many others who profiteered by their trading with Germany? What about Ford, and Kennedy in America? King Edward of Britain? So the list can go on...... and on..... and on.
The Nazis were just 'the Germans' back in the day, no doubt ethno-nationalist, but not the evil party we knew that put people to death in death camps.
The Nazis became truly evil when we found out about the gas chambers etc.
So, a 17 year old Swede caught up in a nationalist ideology is not a big deal.
If the founder of IKEA actually thinks we should be putting Jews into gas chambers - well then you have a story.
If he publicly states that he supports what the Nazis did - then you have a story.
If you found out he turned in Jews to be killed, then you have a story.
But you have none of that - and don't have a story.
Quite a long time ago I read about a reunion former Nazi soldiers attend where they drink and sing and express their love for the fatherland. This seems idiotic, but they do it. This group will soon pass from history, thank g-d.
In the United States, there is a town in NW PA that once was the carbon center of the world, and that mostly German ethnicity town had corporate owners who were still doing business with the SS as late as 1942, even as the United States was fighting a war with Germany, and people from that town and the county were dying in the air, on the ground and on and under the seas in combat.
Kamprad was a 17 year old kid,. What do you want next, to have him hounded until he is 98 by other factors who do the same?