Auschwitz sign stolen for Swedish Nazis

[Elmore Furth]

Source: UPI

STOCKHOLM, Sweden, Dec. 24 (UPI) -- Swedish neo-Nazis arranged the theft of the "Arbeit Macht Frei" sign at Auschwitz to sell it to finance terrorist attacks, investigators said.

Patrik Peter, a spokesman for the Swedish security police, said the Nazis allegedly planned to disrupt next year's national election, The Times of London reported.

The Stockholm newspaper Aftonbladet said a Nazi source claimed the sign was stolen on order from a collector.

"The sign was to be delivered to Sweden, since it was here the deal should be made," the source said. "My role was to find a buyer. We had a person who was willing to pay millions but he had no political agenda. These things have a huge collector value.... The biggest collectors are from England, the United States and France."


Read more: http://www.upi.com/Top_News/International/2009/12/24/Auschwitz-sign-stolen-for-Swedish-Nazis/UPI-98801261702271/

[Brickbat]

1. Bizarre.

I'm so glad they found it.

[dflprincess]

2. Sweden was neutral during WWII

and in 1943 Sweden gave asylum to all the Jews (around 8,000) that Denmark managed to get out of the country when the Nazis began going after the Jews there. They also took in refugees from other countries and Sweden has been giving credit for saving more Jews than any other country.

Somewhere Raoul Wallenberg is weeping for his country.

[proteus_lives]

3. Somewhat neutral.

For a long time they allowed Nazi troops to travel through their territory and they sold a lot of iron ore to Germany.

[dflprincess]

4. But they also allowed Allied troops to use Swedish territory as well

so in a weird way they were neutral by letting both sides in.

And, they did stand up for those being oppressed and persecuted by Germany which probably means more than anything else they did. It doesn't sound like there were many Nazi sympathizers in the Swedish government (I'm sure there were some, but they must have been a minority).

[azurnoir]

6. Did it say that in Aftonbladet?

Sweden provided sanctuary to 8,000 Danish Jews

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rescue_of_the_Danish_Jews

[proteus_lives]

8. That makes up for all the war material they sold to the Nazis.

It was a complex situation.

To the Nazis they were politically neutral but allied economically.

[Ken Burch]

9. Swedish diplomat Harold Edelstam helped Jewish and other anti-Nazi refugees flee Hitler as well.

in 1973, as Swedish ambassador to Chile, Edelstam helped leftists and supporters of democracy escape the fascist soldiers during Pinochet's Kissinger-backed military coup.

Sweden's neutralist tradition should NEVER be construed as indifference to fascism.

[alp227]

5. I knew it! Must've been the work of such fools

That kind of BS sure undermines their belief that Holocaust denial is based on history and fact, not hatred.

[azurnoir]

7. Damn and here I thought it must have been Republicans n/t

[quakerboy]

11. Is there really much difference between a

Swedish Nazi and an American Republican?

[jmowreader]

17. Swedish Nazis are better than American Republicans

Swedish Nazis are up front with their views. American Republicans sit there going "we love everyone. We love (insert list of non-Anglo Saxon Protestants here). Everyone is equal in God's Eyes." At the same time, they want (insert list of non-Anglo Saxon Protestants here) to die horrific deaths, be deported, be thrown in prison or even executed. Swedish Nazis, OTOH, will come right out and tell you they'd string you up by the nuts if they possibly could. There's no two-facedness with a Swedish Nazi. They have one face, and it's hateful to the extreme.

[quakerboy]

18. Im pretty sure the teapartiers would be happy to tell you right were to go

And I am hard pressed to say that anyone willing to call themselves a Nazi is better than anyone else. But I am hard pressed to see any significant difference between our Republican party, and the values of the Nazi's. No better, no worse, and chock full of hate.

[Posteritatis]

21. Er... yes? (nt)

[Ken Burch]

10. It was always likely that it would be something like that.

Now they need to find out who the potential BUYERS of the sign were.

I wonder if the Swedish Nazis in question had anything to do with the assassination of Olof Palme (a crime that STILL hasn't been solved twenty-three years after the fact).

[saigon68]

14. He was killed by US Fascist interests

During Viet-Nam guys like him let Sweden become a haven for Draft Resisters and US Military Deserters.

I also believe some one in the CIA was trying to get even with him.


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


Palme became, alongside Raoul Wallenberg and Dag Hammarskjöld, one of the most internationally-known Swedes of the 20th century, on account of his 125-month tenure as Prime Minister, fierce opposition to American foreign policy, and assassination.

[rasputin1952]

12. Swedish Nazi's???

Who would have thunk! What's next, Icelandic Nazi's, Burmese Nazi's, Israeli Nazi's...:eyes:

I find it hard to fathom that Nazi's even exist anymore, rarely in history, has a group been so incredibly negative in every aspect, and somehow still draw followers...

[Marthian]

13. Fascism is based, psychologically, in an inability to

accept change. It is a fear-based ideology, driven by fear of death. Therefore the need to wage war and death on others...the economics of it are similarly fear-based. Fascism will never die as long as there exist those who fear death and think economic and political power will somehow save them from the inevitable.

[MilesColtrane]

15. Re:American buyer

Apparently the interested party thought the sign would look great displayed next to Geronimo's skull.

[panzerfaust]

16. NAZI's, Saints, and the Final Solution

Belsen Camp (images from http://www.indoforum.org/showthread.php?t=77708)


As best I know, only ONE NAZI leader was excommunicated by (soon to be) Saint Pius XII - and that excommunication was for having divorced and then marrying a protestant.

Certainly Adolf Hitler's soul remained safe in the embrace of his Holy Mother Church - Divorce being ever-so-much worse than the murder of millions (?Did someone mention that the monetary takings of the German Catholic Church continued to flow to Rome throughout the war).



Where was Christ, or his Dad, while this was going on? Where was His Church on Earth?

[Hubert Flottz]

19. I'll bet the neoCONs swiped that sign for the Bush Library.

They'll probably drink a toast out of Ralph Nader's skull at the grand opening.

[breadandwine]

20. Posts above omit a key point - the sign was used to deceive Jews into thinking it was a labor camp.

That's the whole point of preserving the sign, to keep alive the memory of what the Nazis did and how they were intent on deceiving their victims.

As far as I'm concerned comparing the Nazis to other evils, even Republicans, is merely political mooching off Jewish suffering. Everybody tries to say their favorite devil is a Nazi. No question, key Republicans had ties to Nazis, including Gerald Ford, Richard Nixon and Nelson Rockefeller. Those who stole the sign apparently were real Nazis. But it would have been nice if all those who today fight against "derivative Nazis" had fought against the Holocaust when it really happened. Neither the US nor England bombed the railroad lines to Auschwitz even though detailed plans of the area had been furnished to the Allies and Allied planes were even able to bomb remote Romanian oil refineries in Ploiesti. The attitude was, if Hitler wants to waste valuable resources killing "expendable" Jews, let him. And there were Jews who escaped the Holocaust and made it into the forests and tried to link up with Soviet partisans there only to find that they were as anti-Semitic as anybody else. Everyone had their excuse, regardless of ideology. And everybody had something better to do than save the Jews.