Gestbook

Towards the end of the war there was a couple of Luftwaffe Ju 88 nightfighters ending up i Portugal. They are mentioned on your site. I call them deserters and not refugees as the war was still ongoing in Europe. Uffz Klaus Möller and Uffz Josef Allram ended up in Porto on 2 May. Any records of their whereabouts after the landing?

Over to Sweden, I will give a brief story of some events here. Despite our neutrality we had a share of war actions as well. Sweden was the closest neutral state for the many bombing missions over northern Germany and Berlin so many damaged planes were making forced landings here. 342 foreign aircraft landed or crashed for various reasons in Sweden, of which 142 were American, 121 German, 59 British, 10 Finnish, 8 Norwegian, and 1 Polish and 1 Russian each. Around 16,000 foreign planes violated Swedish airspace. The number of foreign planes shot down or forced down by Swedish anti-aircraft fire or Swedish aircraft was distributed as follows: 1940: 9 German planes, 1941: 1 German plane, 1943: 1 German plane, 1944: 3 German planes, 2 English, 2 American, 1945: 1 English plane. As you can see Sweden weren’t very active against all the airspace violations.

As in Portugal most were interned (mainly flying personel and some sailors and foot soldiers), for weeks and months, but some also several years in dedicated camps, germans in one camp, allies in other and deserters/refugees in another. Pilots and officers seems have been prioritized during repatriations. Air gunners were staying longer. Hotels and pensions were also used here, mainly for American crews, and it seems like this was funded at least partly by USA.

The Swedish Navy defended the neutrality by patrolling, escorting, convoying, mining, rescuing refugees and a more general aid to shipping and fishing. 17,796 ships were escorted, 3,775 mines were neutralized. Swedish warships had 674,131 operating hours. The navy lost eight ships with 92 Swedes killed.

The most common acts of war towards Sweden were the sinkings of Swedish merchant ships. The merchant fleet lost 206 ships with 1,270 Swedes killed and another 37 killed without the loss of a ship. In addition, 25 ships were confiscated. The fishing fleet lost 31 ships with 89 Swedes killed.

782 Swedes in Swedish uniform died, distributed among the army 350, the navy 145, the coastal artillery 35 and the air force 252. Mainly accidents during training/excercises but also by enemy actions, a handful of aircraft were shot down.

8 260 Swedes were also voluntary fighters in Finland. Swedish unit F 19 had 12 fighterplanes and 4 light bombers, they shot down 8 Soviet planes and lost 6, but only one in battle.

Sweden also supplied to Finland, 131 000 rifles and 42 million rounds, 132 artillery guns, 100 anti aircraft guns, 85 anti armour guns together with 256 000 shells.

Two civilian DC-3 airliners were shot down by Germany.

At least 4,200 of the US soldiers in World War II were born in Sweden. And although the majority were emigrants, an estimated half were still Swedish citizens.

Stockholm were also like Lisbon and Casablanca a place which saw a lot of covert activities, discreet meetings, hidden microfilms, envelope exchanging. OSS, SOE, Soviets, Germans all had their agents and our intelligence was trying to follow in the footsteps of all those.

So it wasn't really all that quiet - as many tend to believe - being in a neutral country during WWII.

Best wishes
Rainer Nyberg
Sweden... Collapse