H Nordic Fascism

(1)

H ISTORISKA INSTITUTIONEN

Nordic Fascism

Investigating the Political Project Behind Bollhusmötet

Master’s thesis (45 credits) Author’s name: Erik Blohmé Name of supervisor: Heléne Lööw Semester: Spring 2021

Date of Submission: May 17, 2021

(2)

(3)

Abstract

This thesis investigates the political project behind the infamous tennis hall meeting, commonly referred to as Bollhusmötet, that took place in February of 1939 in Uppsala, Sweden. Gathering in the local tennis hall, the members of the Uppsala Student Union decided to send a resolution to the Swedish king protesting the reception of Jewish refugees into Sweden in the wake of the 1938 November Pogrom. The protest was widely influential, spurring similar resolutions at other universities and arguably influencing Swedish refugee policy on a national level. The event itself was orchestrated by a group of nationalist students as part of a political project aiming to establish a Nordic power bloc with Sweden as the central power. This political milieu rejected the geopolitics of both England and Germany to promote a specific form of Nordic fascism. Antisemitism was a central part of their ideology, both regarding short- and long-term goals, and antisemitism was also the ultimate motive behind the tennis hall meeting. The architects of these events joined the mainstream conservative milieu in 1940 as part of a strategy to abolish the Swedish political system from within and restructure the Swedish state according to a fascist model bearing many similarities to national socialism.

Keywords: Bollhusmötet, Heimdal, Den Svenska Linjen, Arvid Fredborg, fascism, antisemitism, national socialism, Nazism.

Acknowledgments

I would like to express my gratitude to Heléne Lööw who has supervised this thesis with patience, honesty, and great care. I would also like to thank Lars M. Andersson who has been a great help through discussions, reading recommendations, and advice. This thesis would not exist without their guidance and working together to craft it has been a very rewarding experience. Finally, I would like to extend my thanks to my classmates, whose support, humor and advice have lightened the load of research and writing considerably.

(4)

"On the stretcher, this I can tell you now already, you will always find him lying face down, and even if you turn him over five times, he will still be facing the wrong way."

Thomas Mann, Doctor Faustus

(5)

Introduction

Mes congratulations

On February 18 of 1939, student, writer, and right-wing activist Arvid Fredborg received a telegram that simply stated “Mes congratulations”, signed “Louis”.¹ The day before, February 17 of 1939, was a big day for Fredborg and many of his friends - “Bollhusmötet”, roughly translated into “the tennis hall meeting”, was apparently perceived as a triumph by Fredborg and those working with him to organize it. In his huge archive of diaries and letters, organized by Fredborg himself, the material relating to the tennis hall meeting has been given a box of its own, neatly organized in chronological order, complete with personal letters, postcards, news articles, and telegrams. It stands out from the other capsules in his so-called “Private archive” as they are simply marked by year while this one is marked by name – “1939: The Student Union meeting (Bollhusmötet), the refugee question and Heimdal’s yearly review”. Fredborg will be properly introduced in the subchapter “Who is Arvid Fredborg?” – but for now, the nature of the event most central to this study, Bollhusmötet, needs to be explained.

To understand Fredborg’s victory, it is necessary to look a few months back. On November 7 of 1938, a polish Jew was arrested for an attack on the German embassy in Paris, seriously injuring the Legion Secretary Ernst vom Rath. When vom Rath died from his injuries two days later on the night of November 9, civilian mobs attacked German Jews in the streets and vandalized synagogues, Jewish stores, and residences all over Germany – an event known as the November Pogrom, or the “Kristallnacht” (“the crystal night”) as it was called during most of the twentieth century. It was a semi-coordinated series of events encouraged and stoked by German official authorities. 36 people were killed, 20 000 Jews arrested and sent to concentration camps, and Jews themselves were forced to pay for the damages caused during these pogroms – a total sum of one billion Deutschmarks.² In Sweden, the event and its consequences spurred an aggressive debate that caused disunion between and within political circles³ - those who were pro-German were now trying to find a balance between understanding Germany's motives while condemning its violence.⁴

In Swedish media, newspaper headlines told of the horrors that German Jews had been subjected to. In the reporting immediately following the “Kristallnacht”, newspaper Dagens Nyheter described the events as “horrible mass terror” and Göteborgs-Posten used the phrase

1 to Arvid Fredborg, “Telegram,” 1939, Arvid Fredborg: Efterlämnade papper.

2 Ingvar Svanberg and Mattias Tydén, Sverige Och Förintelsen: Debatt Och Dokument Om Europas Judar 1933-1945, 3rd ed.

(Stockholm: Dialogos förlag, 2005), 137.

3 Sverker Oredsson, Lunds universitet under andra världskriget: Motsättningar, debatter och hjälpinsatser (Malmö: Lunds universitetshistoriska sällskap, 1996), 51; Ola Larsmo, Djävulssonaten. Ur det svenska hatets historia. (Falun: Albert Bonniers Förlag, 2007), 38–41.

4 Svanberg and Tydén, Sverige Och Förintelsen: Debatt Och Dokument Om Europas Judar 1933-1945, 149.

(8)

“terrible excesses” to describe the pogrom.⁵ However, these condemnations were short-lived.

While some newspapers continued to protest the “Kristallnacht”, like liberal Göteborgs Handels- och Sjöfartstidning or social-democratic The Social Democrat,⁶ others did not. In many Swedish newspapers, the initial strong condemnations soon gave way to indifference and embraced a German perspective.⁷ On November 12, Svenska Dagbladet wrote that the “Kristallnacht” was an

“inner concern of Germany”, on November 13 Dagens Nyheter wanted to tone down the critique of foreign countries, and on November 28 Göteborgs-Posten wrote that the Jewish problem should not be a concern in the negotiations between the great powers. This readjustment was then coupled with arguments against immigration and the reception of Jewish refugees, in both left and right-wing newspapers.⁸ Nya Dagligt Allehanda, a newspaper close to Fredborg himself (see the section “Lead-up to the tennis hall meeting” in the chapter “The Fredborg circle examined”), was hesitant to lay the blame on Germany, stating in an editorial that it was “unfortunate” that pogroms should occur in a “civilized country”.⁹ Some publications, like Stockholms-Tidningen, Sydsvenska Dagbladet, and Skånska Dagbladet, had a consistently pro-German perspective from the beginning, seeing the Jews as sharing the guilt of the “Kristallnacht”.¹⁰ While the precarity and danger that faced Jews in Germany had become common knowledge among all Swedish newspapers, many chose not to discuss or portray the situation beyond the initial newsflash, much less discuss or propose Swedish aid.¹¹

It was the November Pogrom and the political turmoil that followed in its wake, that triggered the events central to this study. Bollhusmötet and all the controversy surrounding it should be understood as a reaction to the “Kristallnacht”. University students were among the first to discuss Jewish refugees in Sweden in the wake of the pogrom, and among the first to react politically. On December 17 of 1938, some students in Uppsala sent a petition addressed to the Swedish prime minister and social minister urging them to assist refugees. These students belonged to various popular movements, Christian associations, and sobriety organizations, as well as the social- democratic student association Laboremus and liberal/humanist association Verdandi. The petition was written because said students were rightfully anticipating more refugees in the wake of the “Kristallnacht” that took place about a month before.¹² Different forms of refugee aid

5 Göran Leth, Konstruktionen Av En Likgiltighet – ›Kristallnatten‹ i Svenska Tidningar, ed. Charlotte Haider (Vällingby:

Forum för levande historia, 2005), 11.

6 Leth, 16–18.

7 Leth, 20.

8 Leth, 20–22.

9 Svanberg and Tydén, Sverige Och Förintelsen: Debatt Och Dokument Om Europas Judar 1933-1945, 148.

10 Leth, Konstruktionen Av En Likgiltighet – ›Kristallnatten‹ i Svenska Tidningar, 23–25; Svanberg and Tydén, Sverige Och Förintelsen: Debatt Och Dokument Om Europas Judar 1933-1945, 148–49.

11 Leth, Konstruktionen Av En Likgiltighet – ›Kristallnatten‹ i Svenska Tidningar, 7.

12 Larsmo, Djävulssonaten. Ur det svenska hatets historia., 35–43.

(9)

initiatives sprung up or intensified all over Sweden during this time, crossing over previously rigid confessional and political dividing lines.¹³

A counter-reaction soon followed. On January 18 of 1939, newspaper Svenska Dagbladet published the article “Swedish import of doctors raise protests” about the protests against the planned reception of ten Jewish refugees with medical professions. During February 1939, protests against the reception of Jewish refugees continued as several commercial entities and labor organizations sent a petition to the Swedish king and government with worries about job scarcity and the alleged corrupt practices of Jewish people, emphasizing the importance of racial purity in Sweden.¹⁴ On February 6, a protest meeting in Stockholm organized by Nazis together with student organizations protested the admittance of Jewish refugees, and during the coming months meetings would be organized at Uppsala, Stockholm, and Lund university by student unions and organizations, all resulting in resolutions against the admittance of Jewish refugees.¹⁵

It was during this time a group of political outsiders started to act. English student Arvid Fredborg and law students Thor Åke Leissner, Igor Holmstedt, and Erik Anners, to name a few, used their key positions in the Uppsala University student organizations to set a grander plan in motion (these individuals will be introduced in detail later, see the section “Who were Arvid Fredborg’s friends?”). Their coordinated efforts were successful - Uppsala University Student Union decided to write a resolution addressed to the Swedish king, asking that Sweden turn away the Jewish medical professionals. Uppsala students were summoned to a meeting in the student tennis hall, Bollhuset, to discuss the resolution and vote on it. During the meeting, a new version of the resolution with sharper wording won the vote - a part of the original resolution where the students expressed sympathy for the difficult situation of the refugees was crossed out, as was the call for other relief efforts.¹⁶

In Arvid Fredborg’s archive (described in the chapter “Material”), he has himself collected and organized newspaper clippings from the many articles about the tennis hall meeting, and some from the period shortly before the meeting took place. One of the first items presented to anyone who opens the capsule is an article demanding to know – where do the students stand on the question of admitting Jewish refugees? There is already a clear consensus, transcending political affiliation, ideology, and social groups, the article claims – everyone wants “an effective control over the flow of refugees”. If the students speak up, maybe the rest of society will follow, the author suggests. As previously mentioned, other student movements certainly followed Uppsala’s example, especially Lund University who adopted a similar resolution on March 2 of 1939. It has

13 Oredsson, Lunds universitet under andra världskriget: Motsättningar, debatter och hjälpinsatser, 59–60.

14 Larsmo, Djävulssonaten. Ur det svenska hatets historia., 46; Oredsson, Lunds universitet under andra världskriget:

Motsättningar, debatter och hjälpinsatser, 61.

15 Oredsson, Lunds universitet under andra världskriget: Motsättningar, debatter och hjälpinsatser, 62; Oredsson, 63; Oredsson, 66.

16 Larsmo, Djävulssonaten. Ur det svenska hatets historia., 49.

(10)

been suggested, both by Fredborg himself and his critics, that Bollhusmötet strengthened the already restrictive national policy on refugee admittance, delaying any substantial reception of Jewish refugees into Sweden.¹⁷ For example, the tennis hall meeting was explicitly cited as an argument against the proposal of funding “the subsistence and education of refugees” by members of parliament on February 27 of 1939.¹⁸ It was not until the deportation of Norwegian Jews in 1942 and the occupation of Denmark in 1943 that Swedish refugee admittance policy changed and Sweden started receiving refugees fleeing across Öresund.¹⁹ However much the student resolution delayed this policy change is hard to measure in definite terms, yet, that the original intent of the tennis hall meeting and its resolution was to restrict the admittance of refugees is indisputable, even if motives might have varied among the participants of Bollhusmötet. However, the victory that Fredborg received congratulations for was not, as some still may claim, a misguided victory for a certain brand of labor protectionism. For Fredborg and his circle, it was a victory over a racially inferior outside enemy threatening to undermine and eradicate the Swedish people. More than that – this study will show that the tennis hall meeting was also a victory for a short-lived brand of Nordic fascism spearheaded by Arvid Fredborg and his political allies.

Relevance today: Recent debate about the tennis hall meeting

In the aftermath of the meeting, the events that transpired were described in a variety of ways, ranging from a peaceful and noble oath to an antisemitic riot, depending on which newspaper you read. Stockholms-Tidningen described the meeting as “calm and balanced” while Dagens Nyheter has a more sinister view of the event, writing that “Nazis and half-Nazis” took advantage of the situation.²⁰ However, even after Germany lost the war and decades passed, the narrative about Bollhusmötet has not ceased to be a contested territory.

The debate about what was said, who was responsible, and what effects it had arisen several times during the twentieth and twenty-first century. There have been several notable spikes in the debate in recent times, which are noticeable when searching for the keyword “Bollhusmötet” and

“Arvid Fredborg” in the Newspaper archive Retriever which goes back about 25 years. The most substantial debates occur in 2000 around October, and then again in February and March of 2006.

In 2000, the tennis hall meeting was suddenly brought to public attention when Swedish historian Herman Lindqvist was forced to retract 100 000 copies of his new book Drömmar och verklighet (“Dreams and Reality”) where he falsely claimed that author, professor, and member of the

17 Arvid Fredborg, Destination: Berlin (Malmö: P.A. Nordstedt & Sönders Förlag, 1985), 143.

18 Larsmo, Djävulssonaten. Ur det svenska hatets historia., 95–99.

19 Oredsson, Lunds universitet under andra världskriget: Motsättningar, debatter och hjälpinsatser, 179; Larsmo, Djävulssonaten.

Ur det svenska hatets historia., 95–96.

20 “Kårdirektionens Förslag Besvarar Frågan Med ‘Jaså’.,” Stockholms-Tidningen, February 18, 1939, Arvid Fredborg:

Efterlämnade papper; “Uppsala Studenter Emot ‘Intellektuell Import,’” Dagens Nyheter, February 18, 1939, Arvid Fredborg: Efterlämnade papper.

(11)

Heimdal student association Karl-Gustaf Hildebrand was affiliated with Nazism.²¹ This mistake seemingly led to hesitation about laying blame on other actors and participants in the tennis hall meeting, as well as some unfortunate misunderstandings about the nature of the meeting. The events that transpired at Bollhusmötet are mentioned several times in this debate, however, the facts are often mixed up, simplified or incorrect. For example, in an opinion piece by author and historian Wilhelm Odelberg published in the newspaper Svenska Dagbladet, the meeting is described as a spontaneous discussion about national policies where a debate took place over the choice between a “harmless” compromise resolution based on tolerance and humanitarianism versus one that was hostile and protectionist.²² Three important facts are obscured by such a conception: 1. The meeting was not merely reactive to national policy but orchestrated as a proactive strategy by specific far-right and fascist political interests. 2. Both resolutions were against the admission of Jewish refugees, and the students who thought Sweden should welcome the medical professionals had no real voting alternative. 3. The arguments behind the resolutions were not merely protectionist, but largely antisemitic and eugenic.

Arvid Fredborg appears in the periphery of the discussion. He is criticized in an opinion piece by writer and political scientist Svante Nycander where he is said to have been a member of Nazi organizations, while journalist PM Nilsson calls him a “black flag-writer” in another opinion piece in Expressen, suggesting he had fascist sympathies.²³ Fredborg is then defended by critic and literary historian Peter Luthersson who finds these claims baseless²⁴. Professor of political science Johan Tralau also defended Fredborg in response to the allegations, calling him “one of Sweden's most significant anti-Nazis”.²⁵ It should be noted though, that Tralau is Fredborg’s grandson, revealing that the debate is conducted in part by partisan interests.²⁶ Lindqvist himself also defended Fredborg as an apologetic, one of the few voices that admitted guilt in a time where everyone was guilty.²⁷ These claims, as closer examination will show in the later segments of this investigation, are dubious. This debate had a short revival again in 2012 when certain parts of Lindqvist's autobiography could once again be interpreted as portraying Hildebrand in a fraudulent way.²⁸

Another debate about Bollhusmötet came to life in February 2006 when author Ola Larsmo wrote a play that reenacted the events of the tennis hall meeting, which was then performed in the actual locale when it had taken place in 1939. As a result, the Heimdal student association came

21 Ebba Von Essen, “Förlaget Tar Tillbaka Lindqvists Historiebok,” Aftonbladet, October 20, 2000.

22 Wilhelm Odelberg, “Hildebrand Uppmanade Studenterna Att Erkänna Sitt Humanitära Ansvar,” Svenska Dagbladet, October 19, 2000.

23 PM Nilsson, “Svenska Dagbladets Historieskrivning,” Expressen, October 31, 2000.

24 Peter Luthersson, “PM Nilsson Blandar Bort Korten,” Svenska Dagbladet, November 2, 2000.

25 Johan Tralau, “Fredborg Skrev När Flocken Teg,” Svenska Dagbladet, October 26, 2000.

26 Johan Tralau, “Kan Man Lita På Carolina?,” Svenska Dagbladet, October 26, 2000.

27 Herman Lindqvist, “En Lucka till En Länge Sluten Kloak,” Svenska Dagbladet, October 29, 2000.

28 Erika Josefsson, “Bonniers Drar in Lindqvists Biografi,” TT Spektra, August 13, 2012.

(12)

under pressure due to allegations of involvement in the meeting. When the chairman Christopher Lagerkvist denied that Heimdal had Nazi ties, Larsmo wore an opinion piece in Uppsala Nya Tidning questioning his categorical dismissal of any responsibility, arguing that Heimdal was one of the main conduits for the organizers of the tennis hall meeting, citing antisemitic passages from the Heimdal’s yearly review of 1939.²⁹ Possibly prompted by this debate, the Heimdal student association published a white paper in May the same year concerning their involvement in the affair. In this document, the appointed researcher, economic historian Henrik Lindberg, claimed that the organization itself was never involved – it was a deed of mere individuals happening to associate with Heimdal.³⁰ Instead, Heimdal shifted the blame towards the Uppsala Student Union.³¹

The debate continued through an essay in Dagens Nyheter, and now Fredborg became the focal point of the debate – Larsmo argues that he was the chief architect behind Bollhusmötet and that he never changed his ideological outlook but remained totalitarian all his life. He further argues that Fredborg’s deed as an anti-Nazi has been overstated, this time pointing out his supposed antisemitism and pro-German sentiments in the political pamphlet Den Svenska linjen (“The Swedish Line”) published 1940. Larsmo also argues that Fredborg’s famous Germany-critical book Bakom Stålvallen (“Behind the Steel Wall”) is overstated as an expression of anti-Nazism and that Fredborg’s reputation as someone who exposed the Holocaust should be questioned.³² Swedish writer and public intellectual Jan Myrdal then replies to this article by Larsmo. Myrdal writes that he actively worked for the republishing of the Behind the Steel Wall, not because it was groundbreaking or revealed anything to the wider public, but because Fredborg helped turn the Swedish bourgeoisie away from Nazi sympathies by telling them “firsthand” about his experiences as a correspondent in Germany. He writes that Fredborg was simply a Swedish bourgeoise nationalist and, like many such nationalists at the time, he was opposed to immigration and concerned with the preservation of the Swedish people from a racial standpoint. Thanks to that nationalism, Myrdal argues, Fredborg opposed those who were faithful to German fascism.³³ Responding to those arguments, Larsmo writes in another reply that “the nationally minded”

faction of the Swedish right played a different and much more dangerous role in the political landscape during the second world war than what Myrdal claims. Larsmo further argues that this dangerous influence was absorbed into the mainstream bourgeoise milieu – he calls for an honest examination of this history by the Swedish right-wing movement, and an exhaustion of these corrosive influences once and for all.³⁴ In 2007, Larsmo published the book Djävulssonaten (“The devil's sonata”) which further investigated the origins and consequences of the tennis hall meeting.

29 Ola Larsmo, “Heimdal Bör Göra Rent Hus,” Uppsala Nya Tidning, February 4, 2006.

30 Daniel Jansson, “Egen Rapport: Heimdal Inte Med Vid Bollhusmötet,” Uppsala Nya Tidning, May 5, 2006.

31 “Ordföranden Hoppas På Slut För Spekulationerna,” Uppsala Nya Tidning, May 5, 2006.

32 Ola Larsmo, “Bakom Stålvallen,” Dagens Nyheter, March 11, 2006.

33 Jan Myrdal, “Arvid Fredborg Hjälpte Borgerligheten Att Förstå,” Dagens Nyheter, March 28, 2006.

34 Ola Larsmo, “Här Behövs Utvädring!,” Dagens Nyheter, March 29, 2006.

(13)

Arvid Fredborg and his circle of friends were still in the spotlight, as the book argues that Fredborg was a consequential anti-Semite and fascist.³⁵

Looking at the debate as a whole, it is clear that a lot of vague suppositions about terms such as Nazism, fascism, far-right and extreme right, as well as ideations about the contents of these labels, confuse the public discourse about the tennis hall meeting and its origins. First of all, the term Nazi is often used as a binary, as if individuals are either loyal to the specific German imperialist variant of national socialism or otherwise completely innocent of being antisemites or affiliated with fascism in any way. This was the case in the 2000-debate about the tennis hall meeting, where Fredborg and other participants of the meeting oscillated between “pure” Nazism and complete innocence.

Different ideologies are presumed equal both in form and ethical gravity. Larsmo writes that the question is not if Fredborg was a Nazi or not, but rather “how much of a Nazi”, conceptualizing far-right ideology as if it were a singular sliding scale that finds its true, final and most extreme expression in Nazism. These false dichotomies and concepts, used by all participants in this debate, seem to have obscured the historical reality of the tennis hall meeting, as well as its nuances and particularities. The newspaper opinion piece format of course does not lend itself to the careful definition of terms, nor is the most theoretically correct text the most powerful and convincing one in the public discourse, so these “mistakes” are wholly understandable. Nevertheless, neither is it surprising that this format derails the discussion and, at best, nods to the truth rather than arriving there. Examining the tennis hall meeting in an academic, detached, and systematic way is therefore a worthwhile pursuit that can hopefully clear up some of the misunderstandings created by the debate and unearth the events and motivations behind Bollhusmötet. Because as this investigation will show, there is reason to believe Larsmo when he writes that modern-day liberals and conservatives who hold documents like The Swedish Line in high regard are probably not aware of what they say.

Research aim and questions

The lively debate about Bollhusmötet, along with the many misconceptions about the procedures of the meeting, as well as the misconceptions about the people involved and their motivations, suggest a knowledge-gap concerning both the origins of the meeting, the political driving forces behind it, and its connections to broader political milieus. This thesis aims to uncover the story behind the tennis hall meeting and offer historical insight into the ideological motives behind this controversial and influential event. The investigation has been conducted through the following research questions:

35 Larsmo, Djävulssonaten. Ur det svenska hatets historia., 113; Larsmo, 146.

(14)

• Who were the people behind the meeting?

• What were their motives?

• What was their overarching political vision?

Separating motive from political vision has to do with how ideologies are structured. For instance, antisemitism might be a short-term motive, removed from any grander political strategy – however, antisemitism might also be the larger, overarching ideological goal. Ideology contains both more and less important elements.

While some relevant model ideologies and traditions of thought have been chosen as reference points, the theory of this study also holds that ideology, as manifested in individuals, can be fragmented, mixed up, and contradictory. The research questions are therefore relatively open- ended to allow for this ideological complexity, ambiguity, and fluidity. Clear-cut lines and dichotomies limit our understanding. It is not a question of “Was X or Y a Nazi”, but rather an investigation into the specific ideological nature of a person or organization, rooted in his/her/its historical context. It is of course necessary to use ideological concepts and labels to conduct such an investigation, but all the while being wary of their reductionist nature.

Material and method

In this chapter, the primary sources of the investigation are introduced and discussed – the tennis hall meeting archival material organized by Fredborg, Heimdal’s Yearly Review 1939, and The Swedish Line. The most important secondary source, Destination: Berlin, is also properly introduced. In the second part of the chapter, the methodological approach for working through the material is described. It demonstrates how Paul Ricoeur’s method of hermeneutics operationalizes the research questions and how the investigative parts of the study are structured.

Material

When following the ideological breadcrumb trail behind the people who participated in the tennis hall meeting, almost all secondary sources refer to two documents – one document is the Heimdal's Yearly Review 1939, published when the Heimdal association was run by Fredborg’s friendship circle of nationalist intellectuals in 1939. The other document is Den Svenska linjen (“The Swedish Line”), a political pamphlet and program statement distributed by roughly the same group of nationalists in 1940, Fredborg among them. During the process of this study, it quickly became clear that these are not simply secondary sources or political expressions peripheral to Bollhusmötet – they are

(15)

intimately intertwined with the events of the tennis hall meeting. Not only were they produced by many of the same people who orchestrated the tennis hall meeting, but they also came out in relatively short succession afterward and display a clear ideological continuity that not only complements but completes our understanding of Bollhusmötet. Analyzing one without the other results in a flawed understanding of the meeting's motives, ideological elements, and long-term results. The tennis hall meeting cannot be fully understood without a combined analysis including the archival material about Bollhusmötet, Heimdal’s Yearly Review 1939, and The Swedish Line. Until now, no such analysis has existed. This kind of investigation is not only important when it comes to settling the debate about Fredborg and his political allies, but also when it comes to shining a light on ideological elements that were absorbed into the mainstream right when they probably should have been shunned by conservatives and liberals alike.

The fact that the material is written, gathered, and sorted by Fredborg himself is both a strength and a weakness. On one hand, the material offers a look into the world view of Fredborg in more ways than one, like the choices to include, exclude, obscure, neglect or give emphasis to certain subjects can be analyzed in themselves. On the other hand, we see what he wants us to see – perhaps he allows us to see the whole truth, perhaps not. Caution and reflexivity have been necessary when interpreting the material.

Fredborg’s archival material about Bollhusmötet

The entirety of the archive Arvid Fredborg: Efterlämnade papper (“Arvid Fredborg: Posthumous papers”) contains 70 shelf meters of material. It is located in Uppsala, Sweden, in the university library Carolina Rediviva. Access to the material is restricted, and permission is only granted for research purposes. The contents include biographica, diaries, letters and drafts, manuscripts, notes, photographs, and press cuttings.

Out of this vast array of material a capsule has been chosen as research material for this investigation, and for obvious reason. In the section of the archive titled “The private archive,” all capsuled are marked only by year, except one called “1939: The Student Union meeting (Bollhusmötet), the refugee question and Heimdal’s yearly review”.

The material inside is prefaced by a short introductory note by Fredborg, stating that the contents of the capsule shall be left to Carolina Rediviva after his death, to be made accessible to researchers from October 8 of 2015 and onward, along with the rest of his deposited documents.

The remaining contents of the capsule include an original copy of the resolution that won the vote at Bollhusmötet, the protocol from the Uppsala Student Union Directorate Meeting, a yellow note with a motion for an alternate resolution, Fredborg’s written down speech at the tennis hall meeting, 83 clippings of newspaper articles and opinion pieces, three copies of the Uppsala Student Union magazine Ergo that contain further articles and opinion pieces about the tennis hall meeting,

(16)

23 letters, three postcards, one telegram, a drawing of a map of Europe that is used in Heimdal’s Yearly Review 1939, a note concerning sold copies of Heimdal’s Yearly Review 1939, a budgetary note concerning the economy of Heimdal’s Yearly Review 1939, and a draft for an opinion piece.³⁶

The material is structured in chronological order, beginning with the letters and articles concerning Bollhusmötet and ending with the material concerning Heimdals Yearly Review 1939.

There is also another capsule called 1939, which contains the material from the same year that is not directly connected to Bollhusmötet. The choice to separate this material means something – this event stands out in Fredborgs life and recalling the congratulatory telegram mentioned in the introduction to this study, it is easy to get the impression that it stands out as an achievement. Also, the interconnectedness between the sources becomes apparent already in this title - the intimate connection between the event of the tennis hall meeting and Heimdal’s Yearly Review 1939 is suggested by the choice to file these together, apart from the other documents of the thirties. There is a preliminary budget for the yearly review, complete with a description of the contents of all the articles. It is without date but filed sometime before March 17 as that is the date of the next document. As the tennis hall meeting took place on February 17, the texts for Heimdal’s Yearly Review 1939 were most likely written during the same period when the Fredborg circle planned and coordinated Bollhusmötet.

Heimdal’s Yearly Review 1939 and The Swedish Line

Heimdal’s Yearly Review 1939 was published at the end of April and was an important political outlet for Fredborg and his circle - the ideological statements and proposed strategies formulated here was, according to Fredborg himself as well as his critics, an important development of the ideas that had driven him politically thus far. Looking at the archival material about Bollhusmötet, it is clear that the opinions in Heimdal’s Yearly Review 1939 is a clear continuation of the reasoning behind the tennis hall meeting, a continuity that is addressed in detail during the analysis in the section

“Heimdal’s Yearly Review 1939 examined”. The review itself is 181 pages long and can be found in its original form in the Carolina Rediviva library in Uppsala.

The Swedish Line is, just like Heimdal’s Yearly Review 1939, often brought up in the modern-day debates, and the conservative student association Fria Moderata Studentförbundet, FMSF (“Confederation of Swedish Conservative and Liberal Students”), still publishes a journal named after this particular text. The ideas that motivated the tennis hall meeting and were first formulated systematically in Heimdal’s Yearly Review 1939 take on their full form here. It was published in 1940

36 Arvid Fredborg, ed., “1939: Kårmötet (Bollhusmötet), Flyktingfrågan Och Heimdals Årsskrift,” 1939, Arvid Fredborg: Efterlämnade papper.

(17)

and is relatively short in comparison to the other documents – only 31 pages. It is available online through Project Runeberg.³⁷

While often discussed, there has been little to no research about the ideological content of both these documents, so little in fact that Fredborg himself could embrace them as late as 1985 without receiving any backlash. Author Ola Larsmo comes closest to examining their contents in his book Djävulssonaten as well as in his opinion articles. He however focuses mostly on the tennis hall meeting, so The Swedish Line and Heimdal’s Yearly Review 1939 often became peripheral. Yet, these texts deserve proper academic attention in themselves.

Destination: Berlin

The most important secondary source in this investigation is Fredborg’s autobiography Destination:

Berlin from 1985. It provides a first-hand account of the genesis and development of the above- mentioned material and has arguably been the most important companion piece to these documents and events before the Fredborg-archive was made available for researchers. It offers a frame of interpretation of the 1939-1940 events of Bollhusmötet and the publication of Heimdal’s Yearly Review 1939 and The Swedish Line, an interpretation that is often referred to in debates and discussions about Bollhusmötet. If taken at face value, it would offer answers to all three of the research questions and this investigation would not be necessary. It is therefore important to discuss its narrative in contrast to the source material, as this study aims to go beyond the answers provided by Destination: Berlin.

Method

This thesis employs a variant of Paul Ricoeur’s hermeneutics of faith and suspicion as its primary methodological framework. This method is appropriate for the investigation since there is constant friction between the secondary and primary sources, leaving us to make sense of the dissonance.

The media descriptions of the people and events at Bollhusmötet, today and the 1930’s and 1940’s, as well as Fredborg’s description of the events, often do not align easily with the historical documents, sometimes directly contradicting them. Not only is Ricoeur’s method a good way of dealing with such contradictions but it also turns this friction between different narratives into an interesting place from which to explore historical topics.

The method, as characterized by clinical psychologist Ruthellen Josselson, is simple but powerful, and sidesteps the dichotomy of positivism/postmodernism in favour of a phenomenological approach. The method has its roots in religious phenomenology and exegesis

37 “Den Svenska Linjen,” Project Runeberg (Project Runeberg, 1940), http://runeberg.org/svlinjen/. Project Runeberg is a private online archive of Nordic and Scandinavian literature.

(18)

but has also been found useful in the social sciences and arts. The method distinguishes between two different forms of interpretation of the material – a “faithful” interpretation and a “suspicious”

interpretation. The goal of the former is to restore the original meaning of the text as the author intended it, and the goal of the latter is to unveil meanings that the author has hidden from the reader, knowingly or unknowingly.³⁸ Although Ricoeur refers to his method as one of doubt and faith, Ruthellen Josselson suggests that the terms demystification and restoration are more suitable because of the pejorative connotations that “doubt” and “suspicion” carry with them – perhaps one could also add that the word “faith” implies an esoteric or transcendental quality that becomes misplaced when attributed to the source material of an academic investigation. Therefore, the method will be referred to as the hermeneutics of demystification and restoration from now on.³⁹ Employing hermeneutics of restoration means taking someone at their word and requires reasoning for why the reader should also align themselves with the intentions of the author.⁴⁰ Choosing the hermeneutics of demystification means presenting an argument for why the author should not be taken at his or her word - the researcher must convince the reader why the chosen narrative does not make sense at face value, that there is more to the narrative presented by the sources than meets the eye.⁴¹

The argument for restoration/demystification must be a concrete one, not based on vague suspicion or sentiment. For example, it can be done by pointing out contradictions or inconsequential parts of the text.⁴² After this initial argument, both the restoration and demystification approaches go beyond mere description to produce an analysis of the text.⁴³ It is not a question of “surface” versus “dept” level reading, as both restoration and demystification aim to uncover deeper meanings within the material. The question is rather how the researcher understands the text - is the text primarily an expression of an authentic experience that needs clarification or is the text primarily a construction that needs to be unpacked?⁴⁴ Most texts can of course be both at the same time, and a combination of the methods, an alternation between restoration and demystification, is theoretically possible. However, such a double-edged approach can be ethically difficult and requires the researcher to be transparent about when the shifts occur.⁴⁵

This investigation is based on the hermeneutics of demystification. The research aim and questions are formulated in a way that presupposes a deconstruction of the material and an argument is presented for why the source material is in conflict with itself, a conflict that requires an

38 Ruthellen Josselson, “The Hermeneutics of Faith and the Hermeneutics of Suspicion,” Narrative Inquiry, no. July 2004 (n.d.): 1.

39 Josselson, 4–5.

40 Josselson, 8.

41 Josselson, 18.

42 Josselson, 18.

43 Josselson, 10.

44 Josselson, 3–4; Josselson, 18.

45 Josselson, “The Hermeneutics of Faith and the Hermeneutics of Suspicion,” 20; Josselson, 22.

(19)

explanation. In the case of the tennis hall meeting, an inconsequential narrative arises when Fredborg’s later writings about the events of the 1930s and 1940s in his autobiography Destination:

Berlin are compared to his own archival material about the tennis hall meeting, The Swedish Line and Heimdal’s Yearly Review 1939. Together with the context provided by the theoretical framework and historical background, the analysis of the material will attempt to resolve and make sense of contradictions found between these texts.

However, this approach to the material invites anyone willing to attempt an opposite, restoration-based reading of the documents, a reading that could result in different conclusions and important critiques of the analysis attempted here. A demystifying approach is not synonymous with antipathy toward the author of the source material – the condition of suspicion is one of opportunity, and according to Ricoeur's later works, it is even a necessary component of friendship.

Choosing to critically examine an inconsequential narrative is not a hostile action per se.⁴⁶ In practice, the method looks like this – after providing an introduction and some historical context, the contents of the material will be described and contextualized. For example, in the case of Heimdal’s Yearly Review 1939, this section is called “Heimdal’s Yearly Review 1939 examined”. Next, the contents of the text are read together with potential conflicting statements and narratives found in the secondary sources (Destination: Berlin), the historical background, and occasionally the arguments made in media debates. The contradictions are then discussed and analyzed together with the remaining historical background as well as theory, to arrive at a plausible interpretation based on demystification – what is being obfuscated and what actually happened? This section is then called “Heimdal’s Yearly Review 1939 interpreted”. In the case of the subchapter “The tennis hall meeting”, the argumentation is so multifaceted that the interpretation part has been divided into two sections, “The race arguments interpreted” and “The job scarcity arguments interpreted”.

Theoretical perspectives

This chapter introduces the theoretical perspectives of the study. First, the theory of ideology employed in the analysis is described - Michael Freeden’s idea of morphological ideology. Then, the theory of language use is introduced, based on ideas formulated by Matthew Feldman, Paul Jackson, and Robert Griffin.

Ideology

Since this investigation deals with ideological configurations that are perhaps unusual or existing in the spaces between popular labels and conceptions, ideology is approached according to Michael

46 Alison Scott-Baumann, Ricoeur and the Hermeneutics of Suspicion, 1st ed. (Continuum International Publishing Group, 2009). p. 76

(20)

Freeden’s idea of morphological ideology. Even if ideologies are permanent ideal types of political thought, they are not necessarily rigid or synonymous with certain political parties. The boundaries between ideologies are unstable and ideologies may mutate diachronically, both on individual and collective levels. All too often ideologies are downgraded to “grand narratives” that simply fit individuals inside of them like a container, and the job of the researcher becomes that of pushing square pegs through square holes and round pegs through round holes. An overly generalized view of ideology risks neglecting the nuances of varieties that exist under the grander labels like

“liberalism” or “conservatism”. Ideology is not either-or, not defined as a closed set of categories, but as free-flowing and multiple discursive competitions for control over the mainstream political language, and thus control of the political decisions that follow from that discourse.⁴⁷

Freeden argues that we should conceptualize political thought “as ideologies”, not “through ideologies”. Ideologies do not mask deeper truths - ideologies are themselves modes of political thinking.⁴⁸ Personal or factional variants of the ideology are always highly probable through different interpretations of the core, adjacent and peripheral elements of the ideology.⁴⁹ The core elements make up the long-term durability of an ideology, like “liberty” for liberalism – they hold it together. Adjacent elements are described as “internal mutations of the core”, not always present in every situation, but still important in “anchoring” the core. For liberalism, adjacent elements could be democracy or property. Peripheral elements are those most joined with current affairs and are as such the least stable and most sensitive to changes in the sociopolitical and economic landscape. Freeden uses examples like migration, terrorism, and climate change. Peripheral elements can move up the ladder and become adjacent (which might be the case with climate change in some instances), as can adjacent elements be downgraded to the periphery. Core concepts are not immune to change either, but such a change would signify a major instability in the ideology, and possibly its transformation into another ideology altogether.⁵⁰ This is a non- essentialist view of ideology much inspired by Wittgenstein’s theory of meaning in language – ideologies can be grouped in “families” that are “a complicated network of similarities overlapping and criss-crossing”. These families share most or all of the core concepts.⁵¹

A premise of this thesis is that this is also the case with far-right ideologies. The ideological spectrum does not consist of clear, delimited categories, but is rather a complicated patchwork. An obsession with simple dichotomies like Nazi/non-Nazi is not helpful. At the same time, ideologies often come “prepackaged” through organizations and parties, to borrow sociologist Theodor W.

Adorno and philosopher Max Horkheimer’s term, and as political “customers” we sometimes buy

47 Michael Freeden, “The Morphological Analysis of Ideology,” in The Oxford Handbook of Political Ideologies (OUP Oxford, 2013), 115; Freeden, 117; Freeden, 129.

48 Freeden, “The Morphological Analysis of Ideology,” 118.

49 Freeden, 120–21.

50 Freeden, 124–26.

51 Freeden, 127.

(21)

the entire “package”, or “family” as Freeden would express it.⁵² The attraction to a certain ideological element might lead us to embrace the other adjacent and peripheral elements that it is institutionally intertwined with. Here, both Freeden and Adorno are correct at the same time – the political and ideological “packages” or “families” exist, such as the Nazi package, yet individuals relate to these “packages” in a complicated way.

As ideologies are not seen as free-floating ideations existing onto themselves, but as political discourse in proximity to real-world events, the study of ideologies requires knowledge and historical context rather than general ethical prescriptions.⁵³ This is why a rather extensive chapter of historical background will be provided later on to better our understanding of Arvid Fredborg’s political circle and its place in the political landscape.

Doublespeak

This study is in large part an analysis of language – therefore it is important to be aware not only of concepts found in language but of language use in a broader sense. Dealing with material that exists in the spaces between mainstream political discourse and fascism, what is allowed to be said has repercussions for how it is said. The revelations of the Nazi genocide at the end of World War II led to the extreme stigmatization of fascist and far-right ideology, making anti-fascism normative.

Subsequent attempts to revive these ideological projects have all failed, at least on a popular level.

During the recent decades, fewer and fewer far-right organizations self-identify as fascist, partly as a conscious choice to present differently, recognizing that they have to “repackage” their ideological content to reach success. New language and presentation are thus used to smuggle extreme right or fascist ideology into the liberal democratic political arena, the goal being to change its foundations from within. As historian of fascism Matthew Feldman and historian of the twentieth century Paul Jackson point out, many fascists and far-right politicians have been very vocal about this covert operation, more or less admitting a double agenda - one presented to the insiders and loyalists and another presented to the public. This has coincided with a general outward shift of focus from eugenics to more “cultural racism”, often targeting Muslim or middle eastern groups rather than displaying antisemitic tendencies.⁵⁴ However, early examples of self-conscious doublespeak have been pointed out already in the early 1940s by historian and political theorist Robert Griffin.⁵⁵ In the context of this study, it is likely that the threat of political exclusion that faced Swedish fascists and national socialists all through the thirties, especially after the Nazis took

52 Max Horkheimer and Theodor W Adorno, Upplysningens Dialektik, Dialektik der Aufklärung, trans. Lars Bjurman and Carl-Henning Wijkmark, Third edition (1944; repr., Axlo: Daidalos, 2016), 224–26.

53 Freeden, “The Morphological Analysis of Ideology,” 117–18; Freeden, 134.

54 Paul Jackson and Matthew Feldman, eds., Doublespeak: The Rhetoric of the Far Right since 1945 (Ibidem Verlag, 2015), 7–14.

55 Roger Griffin, “‘Lingua Quarti Imperii’: The Euphemistic Tradition of the Extreme Right,” in Doublespeak: The Rhetoric of the Far Right since 1945 (Ibidem Verlag, 2015), 39–40.

(22)

power in Germany, would lead to some form of doublespeak in their milieu, and especially in milieus adjacent to the mainstream political arena.

Of course, on some level, most political parties and movements use milder expressions and calculated language in their external communication - not to mention business language, which often avoids the more direct and abrasive aspects of economic reality (“downsizing, “structural readjustment”, etc). What makes far-right and fascist doublespeak stick out is the blatant intentionality of it, the often-demonstrated conscious renaming and rebranding of terms that have become offensive, the instrumentalization of language.⁵⁶

Historical background

To contextualize the events and ideological expressions that are central to this study, it is important to understand the political climate that Fredborg and his circle acted in. This chapter provides the necessary historical context that the tennis hall meeting is nested in. First, a description of the general political landscape of Sweden in the 1930’s acts as an introduction, with special attention given to the general Swedish perception of Nazi Germany as well as the refugee situation of 1938 and onward.

Then, areas of Swedish political life relevant to are described in-depth, providing history and definitions of ideologies, as well as describing their concrete manifestations in Swedish political life during the early twentieth century. The inclusion of these specific milieus and ideologies are entirely motivated by their connections to the source material and the recent debates about the tennis hall meeting, and any magnetism or likeness between them is not implied by their inclusion alone unless explicitly stated.

First, antisemitism is defined and given historical context, before discussing specific manifestations of antisemitism in Swedish society during the 1930s. Then the history of Swedish race biology is summarized. A subchapter is then dedicated to Fascism, Nazism, and the far right.

Finally, an overview of the Swedish conservative movement is provided, along with a history of The National Youth League of Sweden which started as a conservative organization but gradually became Nazi affiliated.

Sweden’s political landscape 1933 – 1940

Looking back at the 1930s, there are a lot of concepts that have drifted into other connotations and realms of meaning since then. For example, around the time of World War II, the word

“national” was widely popular and bore positive connotations – it was a broad conception of

56 Griffin, 56.

(23)

Swedishness that overarched all party lines and ideological conflicts.⁵⁷ The political “middle” did not exist as a political concept during the 1930s like it does today, and alignment with political movements, therefore, had a different logic.⁵⁸ It is also important to keep in mind that it was not possible to have a complete and truthful picture of Nazism and its deeds until the end of the war, even if many of its violent and abrasive aspects were visible early on, as discussed in the introduction. Germany was, at this time, the country that Sweden was most closely tied to culturally.

The Swedish knowledge about German arts, language, and politics was unsurpassed in all areas except film, where the USA had more influence.⁵⁹ Even events of lesser magnitude did not go unnoticed, and German cultural and political life was the subject of much debate during the interwar years and the second world war.

Adolf Hitler became the Chancellor of Germany on January 30 of 1933. Still lacking a majority government, Hitler managed to enforce a dissolution of the Reichstag with a new election set for March 5. The run-up to the election was marked by coordinated Nazi terror so effective that the national socialists had practically seized power before the election date. This was a totalitarian takeover of German society with the abolition of all political parties except for the Nazis, dissolved unions, cultural cleansing and book burnings, the exclusion of Jews from all public service, and much more. The Nazi hostility to basic civil rights, its antisemitism, and its violence was apparent from the very beginning – especially to the citizens of a country that was more influenced by German culture than any other.⁶⁰

The reaction from Swedish newspapers was all over the place, from condemnations to congratulations. Liberal debaters like publicist and historian Torgny Segerstedt and publications like Dagens Nyheter condemned Hitler as a populist and an anti-democrat while Social Democratic debaters like Fredrik Ström as well as left-wing publications like Clarté accused the Nazis of being a front for the landowning class. Formerly liberal Aftonbladet on the other hand praised the new regime as “fighting for the sake of humanity” and conservative Nya Dagligt Allehanda found it understandable that Hitler had thrown out the dubious democratic system – more than anything, they both praised German national socialism for being a defense against communism, an argument that united all supporters of Nazi Germany at this time.⁶¹ Fredrik Böök of Svenska Dagbladet condemned the race ideology and antisemitism of Nazi Germany (while being understanding of it), but defended everything else, even the book burnings, calling oppositional authors like Thomas Mann and Heinrich Heine traitors.⁶² This position shows, interestingly, that in the early days of the Nazi regime, some stood firmly behind the ideological fascism of Nazi Germany but disliked the

57 Lena Berggren, Nationell Upplysning: Drag i Den Svenska Antisemitismens Historia (Stockholm: Carlsson Bokförlag, 1999), 72.

58 Oredsson, Lunds universitet under andra världskriget: Motsättningar, debatter och hjälpinsatser, 16.

59 Oredsson, 36–37.

60 Oredsson, 20.

61 Oredsson, 20–21.

62 Oredsson, 22.

(24)

race ideology – the ideological “package” of Nazi sympathies in the Swedish public imagination was not yet entirely negotiated.

In 1938, the number of refugees seeking to enter Sweden increased substantially, especially after Nazi Germany annexed Austria. Sweden’s government did not accept any refugee quotas, instead proposing that the problem of Jewish emigration should be solved by one or several colonization areas outside of Europe. Swedish negotiators demanded that German agencies made a clear distinction between Jewish and non-Jewish emigrants, resulting in the German policy that all Jews, from 1938 and forward, got a red J-stamp in their passports. A common argument for this policy was that the more Jews in Sweden would also naturally increase and intensify antisemitism.⁶³

When the “Kristallnacht” occurred in November the same year the dire situation of Jewish refugees once again came into focus. Swedish agencies decided that entry permits for single refugees could be granted if famous people or judicious organizations recommended them.⁶⁴ This is why the following debate with its tennis hall meeting was decisive – the Swedish government had essentially outsourced the criteria for entry permits to civil society. As stated in the introduction, refugee activists and non-profit associations were the first to start mobilizing. A variety of Social democratic, communist, Christian, Jewish as well as other organizations and beneficiaries were organizing different forms of aid. Medicinalstyrelsen (“The Medicinal Board”), the Swedish state authority responsible for the healthcare system, put forward a proposal that about ten Jewish doctors from Germany should be given a residence permit and right to practice their professions.⁶⁵ The first serious countermove then came from six trade organizations in February 1939, connected to textile laborers, clerks, and small business owners. Together, they sent a resolution to the king where they urged for the greatest possible restrictions when it came to “the influx of foreign subjects”, and especially Jews, for fear of work scarcity and the racial corruption of the Nordic folk tribe. Newspapers wrote about a coming “refugee invasion”. Out of the 1 748 residence applications from refugees after the “Kristallnacht”, 839 were turned down.⁶⁶

Antisemitism

Since antisemitism is at the heart of the controversy of the tennis hall meeting and its following debate, this subchapter will provide an understanding of antisemitism and the antisemitic tradition.

The term antisemitism, an etymology that is questionable because there is no real “Semitism” to counter, came into general use somewhere around the end of the nineteenth century and referred

63 Oredsson, 59; Berggren, Nationell Upplysning: Drag i Den Svenska Antisemitismens Historia, 79.

64 Berggren, Nationell Upplysning: Drag i Den Svenska Antisemitismens Historia, 59.

65 Berggren, 80.

66 Oredsson, Lunds universitet under andra världskriget: Motsättningar, debatter och hjälpinsatser, 61; Berggren, Nationell Upplysning: Drag i Den Svenska Antisemitismens Historia, 81.

(25)

to a continuous resentment of Jews ranging back for over two millennia.⁶⁷ In this thesis, antisemitism is defined according to sociologist Helen Fein.

“I propose to define antisemitism as a persisting latent structure of hostile beliefs toward Jews as a collectivity manifested in individuals as attitudes, and in culture as myth, ideology, folklore, and imagery, and in actions - social or legal discrimination, political mobilization against the Jews, and collective or state violence - which results in and/or is designed to distance, displace, or destroy Jews as Jews. (Herein, it is assumed that Jews are people who are socially labeled as Jews as well as people who identify themselves as Jews, regardless of the basis of ascription.)”⁶⁸

Fein’s definition may be lengthy, but intellectual historian and researcher of antisemitism Lena Berggren argues in her book Nationell Upplysning (“National Enlightenment”), it is well formulated because it includes theory, practice, ideas, and behaviors, while many other definitions tend to be reduced to one or the other of those four. However, as Berggren also states, antisemitism cannot be summed up in just a few sentences, and as Freeden’s idea of ideological morphology posits, we also need to examine the historically specific context and origin of the ideology in question.⁶⁹

Antisemitism is not something singular or monolithic, but takes on different expressions in different milieus, just like Freedens theory of ideology points out. As Berggren writes, modern antisemitism paradoxically has nothing to do with Jews or how they relate to their surroundings, if they assimilate or not – the answer to the “why” of antisemitism is to be found with the antisemites themselves, in their worldview and ideology. Only when we ask what the Jew represents for the antisemite can we understand antisemitism.⁷⁰

Antisemitism is not strictly textual. According to Berggren, it is necessary to interpret the intertextual message as antisemites often presume Jews use code language and then mirror that presumption by using it themselves – a style that is especially prevalent in texts regarding a global Jewish conspiracy. Building on her definition of antisemitism, Fein details five antisemitic Jewish archetypes that are useful when identifying and discussing different variants of antisemitism. Even though more archetypes could probably be added indefinitely, these are the most common.

• The Jew as a betrayer and a manipulator (the Judas image)

• The Jew as an exploiter personifying usury or modern capitalism (the Shylock image)

• The Jew as a skeptic, an iconoclast, a revolutionary, undermining faith and authority (the Red Jew)

68 Helen Fein, “Dimensions of Antisemitism: Attitudes, Collective Accusations, and Actions,” in The Persisting Question: Sociological Perspectives and Social Contexts of Modern Antisemitism (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter & Co, 1987), 77.

70 Berggren, 97–98.