‘Until the domination of the Jews is crushed, Sweden is not the land of the Swedes!’

Abstract

This article analyses Hammaren, a Swedish blend of Der Stürmer, Der Hammer and domestic antisemitic publications, published by the most radical Swedish national socialists and antisemitic crusaders, launched in January 1943 and discontinued on 30 April 1945, the day of Adolf Hitler’s suicide in Berlin. Hammaren fought a global war against an imaginary enemy, ‘the Jew’, described as evil and immensely powerful. ‘The Jew’ was responsible for everything wrong in the world, from embezzlement, petty theft and peddling to capitalism, Bolshevism and the ongoing world war, understood as an eschatological race war instigated by ‘the Jew’ and threatening the very existence of the white race. Hammaren, according to its contributors, was an enlightenment project; antisemitism meant self-defence against an overbearing, all-powerful enemy. This article investigates some of the strategies employed by Hammaren to spread rumours about the Jews, to ‘expose’ them and their henchmen, and thereby awaken Swedes to the dire situation.