A World Gone Mad

The Diaries of Astrid Lindgren, 1939-45

Astrid Lindgren, Sarah Death

• Publisher: Pushkin Press
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781782272328
• Topic: Geschichte
• Subtopic: Geschichte des 20. Jahrhunderts

A civilian, a mother, and a writer's unique account of a world devastated by conflict

'A rare glimpse of life in neutral Sweden and an insight into the dark setting that created her best-known work' FT

Before she became internationally known for her children's books, Astrid Lindgren was an aspiring author living in Stockholm with her family at the outbreak of The Second World War. In these diaries, Lindgren emerges as a morally courageous critic of violence and war, as well as a deeply sensitive and astute observer of world affairs. Alongside political events, she includes delightful vignettes of domestic life, moments of personal crisis, and reveals the origins of Pippi Longstocking - soon to become one of the most famous and beloved children's books of the twentieth century.

1943

Christmas Eve 1943: Karin, Karolina Lindgren, Astrid and Sture.

NEW YEAR’S NIGHT

We’re just into 1943. I remember when we were children back home in Näs, we stayed up to see in 1918 and wrote ‘Long live 1918’ on the white wall behind the stove in our room. I wonder whether 1918 and 1943 will turn out to have anything in common; surely the war will have to end this year? I think it feels exactly like 1918. In the last few days I’ve heard from many directions that Sweden’s situation is serious again. But I hope it’s just exaggeration. And I hope there’ll be peace in the world next New Year – as I’ve hoped every New Year these past three years.

On Christmas Eve, Admiral Darlan was murdered in Algiers.

The outlook is black for Germany. Things are going badly both in Russia and in Africa; it could be disastrous. In Germany, people are saying: Den Krieg haben wir schon verloren [We’ve already lost the war]. And I think they’re right.

24 JANUARY

The situation is much as before, though things are going even worse for the Germans than they were. The British have marched into Tripoli and in Russia it looks like a sheer catastrophe. A German army is encircled at Stalingrad, over which they’ve fought tooth and nail. In Germany they’re playing funeral music on the radio to honour the heroes of Stalingrad. Every day there are reports of the Russians advancing afresh; in the Caucasus the Germans are making a planned retreat. The poor soldiers at Stalingrad are holed up in dugouts with entrances guarded by Russian marksmen. And it’s cold in Russia now. Poor people, I can’t help feeling sorry for the German soldiers for having to suffer so terribly, no matter how much I detest Nazism and all the acts of violence the Germans have committed in the countries they occupied. I think the Gestapo should be expunged from the face of the earth, but there are bound to be some decent Germans too, there simply must be.

However – Sweden is tightening its defences, the king made an extremely serious throne speech at the opening of parliament and Per Albin [Hansson] made a speech that pretty much amounted to ‘Don’t think you can come here, or we’ll soon show you otherwise!’ There’s a lot of talk about whether we’ll get that elusive second front here this spring as part of an Allied attempt to invade Norway. If that happens one can imagine the Germans demanding transit for their troops – and us refusing (which we all hope we would do) and then all hell would be let loose. We do transport ammunition and soldiers going on leave on our Swedish railways – and even that is too much, in my view.

Sture was out with a few journalist chums the other night and Beckman at [the news agency] TT, who ought to know what he’s talking about, claims Hitler’s fallen into a state of total apathy. Long may it continue! If only he’d been a bit more apathetic from the start.

In Stockholm they’re currently showing Mrs Miniver, which really is a delightful film and excellent propaganda for the Allies. It would do the Germans good to see it.

The winter thus far has been mild and still. Karin and I went skiing at Koa today.

29 JANUARY

[Press cutting from Dagens Nyheter about a Swedish newspaper that spread misinformation about transit arrangements. In fact, modest numbers of German medical officers and materials were transported through Sweden in 1940, none while fighting was in progress in Norway.]

This is really interesting, I think. Sadly there seems to be a widespread perception in Norway that we Swedes let German troops through while the fighting in Norway was still going on. It’s shameful of Göteborgs Handels- och Sjöfartstidning to spread an assertion like that. We were scared stiff of the Germans then – April 1940 – and were standing to attention at the borders – how could we have let troops through? I don’t believe it. But we did let trains through with troops on leave after the fighting stopped, and still are doing; I wish we’d stop.

Roosevelt and Churchill met in Casablanca to confer about new theatres of war. Wonder what they said about the Nordic countries?

Today the Nazis marked the tenth anniversary of their coming to power – without a speech from Hitler. According to the evening papers, Hitler was in Stalingrad to urge the surrounded troops not to surrender but to fight to the last man, because Germany’s fate was in their hands. ‘The Sixth Army must hold its positions to delay and obstruct the enemy advance,’ Hitler decreed. In other words, their Führer has ordered them to die, and I expect they’re sufficiently dutiful and pig-headed to obey.

As I said, there’s been no speech from Hitler today, and that seems pretty sensational – but Göring made one instead, more than an hour late, and it went like this:

[Press cutting, source unknown, with long extracts in Swedish from Göring’s speech.]

Imagine having the gall to stand up and tell the poor, tormented German people that ‘the past ten years have demonstrated the innate power of our world view and the blessings it is able to bestow’. I wonder what the German people really think and feel, faced with the ‘blessings’ of National Socialism. A deadly war killing the flower of youth; the hatred and loathing of virtually all other nations; want and misery; horrific assaults on defenceless people; concerted brutalization and deculturing of its citizens, especially young people; torture, both mental and physical, of the populations of occupied countries; the informer system; the demolition of family life; the destruction of religion; ‘euthanasia’ for the incurably ill and mentally deficient; the reduction of love to a matter of basic procreation; the news blackout shielding them from the rest of the world and – unless all the signs are deceptive – total breakdown of the German people in the not-too-distant future. It’s simply impossible for many Germans not to have realized how royally duped they’ve been by their Führer and other leaders. And when, as I saw in a German letter, one calls Mrs Miniver pure propaganda, one clearly isn’t seeing very straight. A film that preaches humanity above all. I was almost as angry with that letter as I was with a Norwegian quisling; she claimed things have never been so free in Norway as they are now and she can’t see that the Germans are getting in the way in Norway, any more than she got in the way down in Berlin last year. If you can’t even see the difference in that, you must be a quisling or a Nazi. I’ve never heard anyone else make such grotesque assertions.

‘There’s a buzz of German and a buzz of Norwegian in the streets,’ she wrote, and the dear little love thought it was so nice – and then she signed off with a ‘Heil Hitler – Quisling’. So the German leader took precedence over the Norwegian.

Quisling seems to have gone down with flu, so he can’t receive the ‘people’s tribute’ on his first anniversary.

Yes – and Leningrad’s finally been relieved after a siege of a year and a half. You’d have to be Russian to endure the sort of suffering the population of Leningrad has had to go through. The dogs, cats and rats were all eaten up long ago, and according to Mrs Medin yesterday, she’d heard from Finland that human flesh was offered for sale towards the end – but it surely can’t be true. People only had the energy to be up for a short time each day, and a lump of bread and a drop of the wateriest soup was apparently their daily ration.

From time to time we get appalling reports of Russian rampages in the Baltic during the year they were in control there. Eighty thousand people were sent to Siberia and God knows where. Had a letter from Riga today, smuggled here. The writer said we presumably wouldn’t believe the accounts from there – but he swore they were true. Even women and children were shoved into cattle trucks and carried off; children were separated from their mothers, husbands and wives from each other, and so on. Rosén came the other day and said he was feeling sick; he’d seen photographs from the Baltic, and Bågstam had confirmed that she recognized several of the victims – these were pictures of actual scenes of slaughter committed by the Russians before they withdrew. No, let us never have to suffer the Russians here!

I must paste in Goebbels’ speech and Hitler’s proclamation too. Hitler’s presumably having another carpet-chewing session, as he didn’t speak in person.

[Press cutting from Dagens Nyheter: Goebbels: ‘The high point of our struggle is near’.]

And here’s what Hitler’s proclamation said:

[Dagens Nyheter article from 29 January 1943: ‘Unambiguous victory’ promised by the Führer.]

There would be plenty to say about the above, but I think Johannes Wickman’s comments in Dagens Nyheter will do the job:

[Press cutting from Dagens Nyheter from 31 January 1943 of Wickman’s piece ‘Jubilee without jubilation’.]

Say what you will about Wickman – but he’s not exactly neutral. I wonder what would happen if the Gestapo got hold of him.

The only thing I don’t like is the general tendency of Anglophiles to make the Russians into little doves of peace. I think we are going to discover that they are not.

7 MARCH

No major news to report. But one remarkable thing is the total reorganization of the German economy, making everything subordinate to the aims of the war. The occupied countries are starting to do the same, too. The other day there was a huge British air raid over Berlin, in which Zarah Leander’s villa was totally destroyed. Many hundreds killed.

Save the Children has launched a big drive to help the children of Europe – and they certainly need it. But Karin had put on a kilo at her last check-up and now weighs 29kg.

In Denmark there was an abortive bomb attack on German women. I can’t recall if I ever wrote about King Christian’s Hitler telegram. They say the clampdown in Germany’s treatment of Denmark is the direct result of this telegram. Anyway: Hitler sent the Danish king a telegram – I forget exactly when – it must have been for his birthday. The telegram was in the usual bombastic style, all about the new European order, etc. The telegram Christian sent in reply, with heart-breaking Danishness, read as follows: ‘Mange Tak Christian Rex’ [Many thanks Christian Rex]. No wonder Hitler was furious. Our newspapers only dropped hints about ‘the brief royal telegram’, giving no details. I heard the rest from Gunnar at Christmas.

And then there were presidential elections in Finland. Ryti was re-elected. He had a lot of trouble forming his government.

Yesterday there was a terrible accident at [the military training ground at] Ränneslätt. A charge of TNT exploded, seven soldiers were killed, six of them outright and another died later, and many were badly hurt. There are a lot of accidents even in our peaceable defence forces.

Hitler is staying silent and speaking only through deputies. Some say he’s dead, others that he’s lost his mind.

1 APRIL

In Africa, the British have stormed the Mareth Line and it’s not looking good for Rommel. We haven’t heard much from Russia: things are probably going badly for all of them. Hitler’s come back to life again after his long silence and made a speech or two. But German disintegration is in all probability only a question of time.

Here in Sweden there’s been a lot of hot air and q...