Nazism in Sweden - Neo-Nazism

Neo-Nazism

At the end of the 1980s a new National Socialist movement developed in Sweden. This cannot be classified as classical Nazi, but it has its roots in the interwar National Socialist Parties. The link between these parties and the new Nazism is mediated largely by the Nordic National Party (NRP). In its outlet, Storm magazine, the party hoped to collect all the "race-conscious whites" in Sweden and collect the scattered movement:

We are the network we need to create for our freedom struggle. We do not care a damn if you want to describe yourself as a patriot, revisionist, nationalist, fascist, corporate elite, creator, or, of course, National Socialist...as long as you are racially conscious. We urge not to avoid infighting with our brother organizations.

In line with its effort to unify the movement, Storm sought to collaborate with the National League of Sweden (SNF), the Creative Church, the Nordic Reich Party, and the Norwegian group, Zorn 88. At a meeting in Stockholm on April 20, 1998, it formed a new network named VAM (The White Aryan Resistance). It became well known for a series of spectacular burglaries and robberies including one where they broke into a Lidingö police station and stole 36 guns. At the same time John Ausonius, the "Laser Man" engaged in a shooting spree targeting immigrants. He was not involved in the neo-nazi movement, but the concurrence of the events garnered press exposure. In late 1992 the movement expanded considerably, with Storm offering mail order merchandise and promoting a white-supremacist rock band. In 1993 the penultimate issue of Storm claimed the movement was divided into two camps: the parliamentary and the revolutionary. VAM no longer exists as a movement, but there are numerous organizations rooted in it, including the Swedish Resistance Movement (SMR) led by Klas Lund and the Party of the Swedes (SVP). In 2010, the SVP party won one seat in the council of Grästorp Municipality, the first overtly Nazi party to gain public office since the second world war.

Currently, the website Info-14 (published as a paper from 1995–2000) serves as a prominent hub of the neo-nazi movement. The title comes from David Lane's Fourteen Words, "We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children." The paper claimed one police killing in Malexander and a car bomb in Nacka in 1999, leading the paper's editor, Robert Vesterlund to be sentenced to eighteen months in prison for incitement to racial hatred, threats against an officer, and aggravated incitement. The paper is synonymous with the Salem Foundation which organizes "Salem Marches" (salemmarschen or folkets marchen). A number of "independent nationalists" are gathered around Info-14.

Neo-nazi organizations and sympathizers have committed other violent crimes in recent decades. In 1998, Hampus Hellekant murdered syndicalist union member Björn Söderberg after Söderberg exposed the ideology of Westerlund in the workplace. The case also became the focus of an important debate over privacy and medical ethics. In the past 25 years organized individuals in the White Supremacy movement have committed 23 known murders.