Olof Palme - Early Life

Early Life

Palme was born into an upper-class, conservative family in Östermalm, Stockholm, Sweden. His father, a businessman, was of Dutch ancestry, and his mother, Freiin von Knieriem, was of Baltic German origin. Palme's father died when he was six years old. Despite his upper-class background, his political orientation came to be influenced by Social Democratic attitudes. His travels in the Third World, as well as the United States, where he saw deep economic inequality and racial segregation, helped to develop these views.

A sickly child, Olof Palme received his education from private tutors. Even as a child he gained knowledge of two foreign languages. He studied at the Sigtuna School of Liberal Arts, one of Sweden's few residential high schools, and passed the university entrance examination with high marks at the early age of 17. He did his military service at K 3 and became a reserve officer with the rank of ryttmästare or captain. After his military service he enrolled at the University of Stockholm.

On a scholarship, he studied at Kenyon College, Ohio 1947–1948, graduating with a B.A.. Inspired by radical debate in the student community, he wrote a critical essay on Friedrich Hayek's The Road to Serfdom. Palme wrote his senior honor thesis on the United Auto Workers union, led at the time by Walter Reuther. After graduation he traveled throughout the country and eventually ended up in Detroit, where his hero Reuther agreed to an interview which lasted several hours. In later years, Palme regularly remarked during his many subsequent American visits, that the United States had made him a socialist, a remark that often has caused confusion. Within the context of his American experience, it was not that Palme was repelled by what he found in America, but rather that he was inspired by it.

After hitchhiking through the USA and Mexico, he returned to Sweden to study law at Stockholm University. In 1949 he became a member of the Swedish Social Democratic Party. During his time at university, Palme became involved in student politics, working with the Swedish National Union of Students. In 1951, he became a member of the social democratic student association in Stockholm, although it is asserted he did not attend their political meetings at the time. The following year he was elected President of the Swedish National Union of Students. As a student politician he concentrated on international affairs and traveled across Europe.

Palme attributed his becoming a socialist to three major influences:

• In 1947, he attended a debate on taxes between the Social Democrat Ernst Wigforss, the conservative Jarl Hjalmarson and the liberal Elon Andersson;
• The time he spent in the United States in the 1940s made him realise how wide the class divide was in America, and the extent of racism against black people; and,
• A trip to Asia, specifically India, Ceylon (Sri Lanka), Burma, Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia, and Japan in 1953 had opened his eyes to the consequences of colonialism and imperialism.