Swedish LGF operative “Truumax” has done yeoman’s work translating volumes of information about far-right party Sverigedemokraterna (Sweden Democrats), whose participation in the Brussels anti-Islamization conference I identified in this post as problematic for the counter-jihad movement. That post prompted a series of extremely vindictive and often highly personal attacks from other conference participants that are still continuing.

Link: expo.se…

On February 6th, 1998, seven men gathered in an apartment in Stockholm. Formally, they held a meeting for the Sweden Party, but in reality, they were forming a new party - The Sweden Democrats.

Leif Zeilon had previously had contact with the Nordic State Party, and Sven Davidsson was associated with the fascist organisation New Swedish Movement. Others came from Keep Sweden Swedish (BSS), or were associated with skinheads. Soon, they attracted more people who had been activists in nazi parties.

1989 - The Spokesmen

Ola Sundberg and Anders Klarstrom were chosen as representatives for the Sweden Democrats. Anders Klarstrom had started his political career within the Nordic State Party, and is among other things known for having issued a death threat to Hagge Geigert. Ola Sundberg quickly gained a reputation for his brutal statements as spokesman. In one interview he said: “It is unnatural and unswedish with foreign kids in daycare. I don’t want to use the word ”race“, but it’s a disgusting image seeing two parents with an indian kid between them.”

1990 - Flaming Banner

The Sweden Democrats started using a flame as a party symbol. They received the inspiration from the British Nazi organisation National Front, who used the same symbol during the 1980’s in the form of a British flag. National Front was formed in 1967 by Nazis, but later changed their public image to one of men in suits and ties - a transformation not unlike the one the Sweden Democrats went through.

Not until 2006, (Truumax note: !), before the elections, did the Sweden Democrats decide to replace the flame with a more innocent symbol, a windflower.

1991 - Protests

On November 30th, 1991, 500 people gathered to participate in the Sweden Democrat march to Kunsgstradgarden in Stockholm. Lying in wait were around 5,000 counter-protesters. Riots broke out and it took hours for the police to gain control of the situation. Party chairman Anders Klarstrom tried to aid the police by encouraging people to calm down through the speakers of a police vehicle.

1992 - Youth Organisation

The Sweden Democrats formed a youth group, SDU, Sweden Democratic Youth. The first chairman was Robert Vesterlund. Today, he is more known as the leading figure in the network behind the Nazi homepage Info-14 (Truumax note: One of the most vile swedish neo-nazi homepages in existence). Vesterlund was the Nazi that union member Bjorn Soderberg warned about in his work place before he was murdered in october of 1999. During the years, SDU was a breeding ground for young Nazis, and several of its members have gone on to have leading positions in different Nazi organisations.

1993 - Live Rounds

When three skinheads showed up for a speech by the Left Party leader Gudrun Schyman on May 1st in Kungstradgarden in Stockholm, the police became suspicious. When they were searched, it was discovered that the skinheads were carrying a live hand grenade. Among the three were Robert Vesterlund and Niklas Irberger, former member of the board in the Sweden Democrats. In the following interrogations, they refused to say what the hand grenade was to be used for. Niklas Irberger was sentenced to one year in jail.

1994 - Heil Engelbrekt

The Sweden Democrats were hoping for their big breakthrough in the 1994 elections. The success didn’t happen, and the Sweden Democrats recieved only 14 000 votes in the national elections, and five regional seats. The competition from the the anti-immigrant party New Democracy was too stiff. Critical voices within the party viewed the failure as a result of the Sweden Democrats blatantly obvious connections with Nazis. In 1994 it was still common for members to do Nazi salutes during SD manifestations. People carrying riot shields also occured, for example when the Sweden Democrats participated in the Engelbrekt March. (Truumax note: The Engelbrekt March was a commemoration to the german nazi division that were allowed to transit from Norway to Finland through Swedish territory during WWII, Swedens most blatant breach of neutrality during the war.)

[Link: en.wikipedia.org…]

1995 - A New Beginning

In 1995, the Sweden democrats chose Mikael Jansson from Orebro to become new party leader. Jansson did not have any previous connections with Nazi or racist organisations. The appointment caused division within the party. The Nazi Home District Party was formed and some of the Sweden Democrats transferred to them. When the Sweden Democrats Ekero district switched sides, it took with them a regional mandate and a party treasury of about 20,000 Swedish crowns, and somewhat of a scuffle erupted. Then-party organiser Lars Emanuelsson forced the chaiman from the Ekero district into a car and extorted him for money. Emanuelsson was later sentenced to jail time for deprivation of freedom and blackmail, but Mikael Jansson retained his support for him.

1996 - End Of Uniforms

You already know about this one.

1998 - French Sponsorship

The Sweden Democrat party leader Mikael Jansson shook hands with Jean-Marie Le Pen and went into the election with financial backing from Front National. The French support meant, among other things, that the Sweden Democrats could print out 200,000 issues of a 24-page election folder that was handed out to Swedish households.

In the folder, the Sweden Democrats are presented as a “national democratic centrist party”.

The Sweden Democrats moved forward in the election and recieved almost 20,000 votes. It was enough to grant them eight regional mandates.

1999 - Contact With Europe

Before the EU parliament elections, Expo revealed that the Sweden Democrats had been a part of the European joint effort called Euro-Nat. The network was a collection of assorted right-wing extremists, fascist and anti-semitic parties. Among the participants were the French Front National and the italian fascist party Movimento Sociale Italiano, MSI.

For the Sweden Democrats, the association became a burden toward the EU elections. At the same time, it was hard for the party to completely distance themselves from it - among the members were Front National, who had been financial backers of their Swedish sister party. The Sweden Democrats solved the problem by passing on the membership to their youth organisation, SDU.

2000 - Jimmie On Top

The youth organisation followed in the footsteps of the mother party, and in the year 2000 they elected it’s first chairman who had no previous connections with the White Power movement. Jimmie Akesson, then member of the Solvesborg regional district, replaced Jimmy Windeskog. Windeskog is today out of the Sweden Democrat party, and has instead joined their competitors, the National Democrats.

2001 - Division

For some time, the tensions within the Sweden Democrats had increased. The reason was personal disputes, and not least the fact that a lot of members who were viewed as having racist or Nazi opinions had been ousted. In the year 2001, two of the banned members, Tor Paulsson and Anders Steen, decided to form the National Democratic party, and got a lot of SD members to jump ship. The National Democrats are a profoundly racist party and are more hard-line than the Sweden Democrats on the immigration issue. The party has today subsumed many of the members who earlier had been a burden for the Sweden Democrats.

2002 - Sten Andersson

Sten Andersson, previously a member of the the Swedish Riksdag for the Moderate party, switched sides and joined to Sweden Democrats heading into the 2002 elections. In front of surprised journalists, he declared that the Sweden Democrats had cleaned out racists and Nazis, and said that if he were to discover that such people still remained in the party, he would leave it. Despite the fact that since then, several criminal elements with Nazi backgrounds still remain in the party, and that the party has been sponsored by a Belgian anti-semite, Sten Andersson has chosen to remain as a member. That same year, the Sweden Democrats gained their big regional break-through - 49 regional mandates in 29 districts. Sten Andersson was elected into the Malmo city council.

2003 - Regional Scandals

It didn’t take long until the regional mandates the Sweden Democrats had won in 2002 started to drop in numbers. In Kristinehamn, Goran Hagberg was forced to leave the party after it was revealed that he had sent revisionist letters to the department. Hagberg chose to remain in the city council as an independent. In Askersund however, Bjorn Lennartsson left an empty chair in his wake. After he was caught calling in to the local radio station and screaming vile racist statements, he opted to leave both the party and regional politics alltogether. Even as early as 1996 Bjorn Lennartsson made a name for himself when he presented his views during a May 1st demonstration in Askersund. His improvised demonstration against immigration led to his wife, who was chairman for the Social Democrats workers district, feeling forced to take the podium and reject her own husbands views.

2004 - Heavy Drop-Off

Tommy Funebo, party organiser for the Sweden Democrats, left the party. In an interview with Expo, he told the story of a party ruled from the top where members have a hard time getting any real insight into the internal happenings of the party.

He also told about how members rarely discuss immigration.

“If immigration policy was to be discussed openly, there would be a huge risk of division within the party. There are those in the upper echelon of the party who think that we should establish a huge register of bus timetables to Bosnia, and things like that. They wouldn’t really get along with the group of people who argue for the Policy that Sten Andersson represents, where the immigration rates of Sweden should be harmonised with the rest of the world,” Funebo told Expo.

2005 - Hostile Takeover Attempt

Together with Carl Lundstrom, the former owner of Wasabrod who is also called Crispbread-Carl, the Sweden Democrats tried to take over the Swedish Taxpayers Association. By enlisting a huge number of new members into the association the Sweden Democrats had hoped, on the association’s yearly summit, to be able to suggest and vote through a new board where the party representatives would be in a majority position. The plans were revealed by Expo, which enabled the coup to be stopped.

2006 - Strengthened Position

During the party’s yearly national summit in Norrkoping in the beginning of the year, Jimmie Akesson could establish that he had strengthened his position as party leader, despite internal conflicts in the party. With a campaign budget of almost 10 million Swedish crowns, the Sweden Democrats set their aim for the Swedish Riksdag. They could go through with their biggest election campaign to date, and were covered in the media more than ever before.

However, the party did not reach the sought-after 4% barrier, but they did receive 162,463 votes giving them 2.93 percent, thus passing the 2.5 percent limit needed to be entitled to state financial sponsorship, resulting in a significant increase in the party treasury.

The Sweden Democrats are also now represented in close to half of Sweden’s districts with their ~280 regional mandates, compared to the 49 mandates they received in the 2002 elections.

Comments from Truumax

I want to add a few things of my own, concerning both past and present.

1. Ted Ekeroth, the Sweden Democrat attending the conference, is a Jew and Israel supporter. He has received the Herzl award from the Swedish Zionist Organisation. And yet, he is a member of the SD. This has been presented by some people as evidence that the Sweden Democrats can’t be all that bad. What all of these people fail to mention is that Ted Ekeroth himself was a member of the Swedish Zionist Organisation; however, when he was nominated for the Herzl Award the SZO didn’t know that he was a Sweden Democrat. They were shocked to say the least when they found out, and pleaded with him to leave the party, which he refused. In the end, the SZO and Ted Ekeroth parted ways, and in hindsight they regret giving him the award in the first place. Nowadays, he is the Sweden Democrats’ pro-Israel poster boy.

2. In relation to the 1996 posting, some people presented the idea that the SD were in the process of purging the party and removed Tina Hallgren Bengtsson from the SD because they really didn’t have Nazi sympathies any longer. These people need to focus on the mention of the Engelbrekt March, a then-annual political demonstration. This march has been described by some people as an innocent Swedish nationalism rally. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

The name of the march comes from Nazi germany, and a part of the Wehrmacht army that is famous in Sweden. The reason is that during WWII, the Swedish government agreed to allow a German army division to transit through Sweden from Norway, to fight against the Soviets on the eastern front. This incident marks Sweden’s most blatant Nazi cooperation and breach of the Swedish neutrality of the war, the only act to be in complete violation of the international neutrality act. This division was the Engelbrecht division.

In short, the Engelbrekt March was a political rally to commemorate Sweden’s collaboration with Nazi Germany. By that nature, every single person who walked in that march had Nazi sympathies. And the SD didn’t stop participating in the march in 1996. The reason they removed Tina Hallgren Bengtsson wasn’t because she was a Nazi. It was only because she was a silly Nazi, and the SD wanted people to treat them seriously.

3. The Belgian anti-semite financing the SD mentioned in the 2002 post is an author named Bernard Mengal.

[Link: sv.wikipedia.org…]

For people who question the claims of Mengal being a known anti-semite, consider the fact that he stopped associating with the SD in 2006; instead he joined the even more vile National Democrats as a political advisor. This should tell you something about his sympathies.

Note also that up until the 2006 elections, the Sweden Democrats still used a copy of a British National Front logo as their own.

The stink is still there, from the inception of the party up until as late as 2006. It’s simply impossible to deny the white supremacist connections and racist sympathies of the party. There have been some people here who have argued that we still don’t know enough about the SD to take sides for or against them, and that we should wait and hold out judgment. I say that we have information about them stretching 19 years back, with all the damning evidence in the world. They never cleaned up their act, they simply polished it. After this, I hope that everyone judges them accordingly.