War Diaries, 1939-1945

by Astrid Lindgren

  Anyway, I’ve managed to have Christmas here at home without the children or Grandmother noticing anything but peace and happiness, I think. Both the children were so pleased with their presents and their Christmas Eve.

  Lasse had: anorak, ski boots, cardigan, white woollen scarf, two pairs underpants (he gets those every year), cufflinks, everyday trousers, a new watchstrap, All the Adventures in the World, [Helen MacInnes’s] While We Still Live, a marzipan pig; those were the ones I bought, and he got other presents from Karin and Ingegerd and visiting cards from the Lagerblads and money from Granny and Grandad. Karin had a pleated grey skirt, dark-blue cardigan, socks, The Black Brothers and Shipwreck Island [stories by German-born Swiss writer Lisa Tetzner], Swedish Plants, Gustav Vasa’s Adventures in Dalarna [children’s history book by Anna Maria Roos], copies of The Fairytale Prince and The Fairytale Princess [story magazines], Happy Families, a puzzle, a marzipan pig, a purse, plus Mary Poppins Opens the Door from Matte, writing paper from Ingegerd, a puzzle from Linnéa, money from Granny and Grandad. I had a very nice alarm clock from Sture, which was delivered a few days before Christmas Eve. Karin was delighted to be giving me a bath brush.

  We forgot to dip bread in the ham stock [a seasonal Swedish custom] on Christmas Eve – but otherwise everything followed the usual regulations.

  This morning Lasse and I took a walk out towards Haga. Sture didn’t want to go to Skansen this Christmas Day, oh no, you bet he didn’t!

  This afternoon I roasted a goose and braised some red cabbage – and made a batch of apple sauce, a strange occupation for Christmas Day, but the apples wanted using up. On the 27th the children are off to Småland – and I shall follow on New Year’s Eve and oh, how I’m longing for that! I shall be on sick leave for three weeks, for ‘neurosis and insomnia’.

  If all were as it should be, it would be just too good! What with Britt-Mari and everything! But now all is not as it should be, and perhaps that’s the whole point! What’s more, one only has to look about one in the world a little to appreciate that nothing is as it should be, nor will ever be.

  Well I’m blowed, the Germans have mounted an offensive in the West. This war isn’t going to end for some time yet, not by any means!

  1945

  Anne-Marie Fries, Astrid, and their colleague at the censor’s office, Birgit Skogman. Lidingö, 1945.

  17 JANUARY

  I’ve shamefully neglected to write anything of late. But there’s been plenty going on, all the same. The German offensive in the Ardennes has been repelled; a whole lot of Russian offensives are in progress, including in Poland, where Warsaw, according to the evening papers today, has been liberated from the Germans. There’s been protracted and violent fighting around Budapest. There can’t be much left of the city, I should imagine. Dagens Nyheter is running a series of articles under the title ‘On the Threshold of Peace’, so they evidently think it can’t go on that much longer, after all. Down at work they’re starting to worry about their jobs – I’m still off sick, and as things stand, everything looks so gloomy. However hard I scan the future, everything looks dark – yet Sture insists all that’s in the past. He who lives will see [in English].

  21 JANUARY

  The Russians are storming ahead. What if they reach Berlin! It might be best if I cut out the bulletins every day, as these clashes could be the crucial ones.

  Crucial clashes are in progress between Sture and me, too, and it’s a long time since I’ve felt as downhearted as I have these past few days.

  2 MARCH

  The Allies are advancing on the western front. Cologne is under artillery fire. The Russians are moving forward on the eastern front, though not as fast as might have been expected a while back – it doesn’t look as if they’ll be in Berlin tomorrow, exactly. There has been a terrific series of bombing raids on Berlin recently and it’s a sheer miracle Germany’s still holding together. Turkey has declared war on Germany at the eleventh hour – to secure a place for itself at the meeting in San Francisco.

  My own private war seems to have about ended, too – in victory for me.

  Other than that, I’m busy writing ‘Barbro and I’ [published as Kerstin and I] – that’s the most enjoyable thing I have at the moment.

  23 MARCH

  Grandmother is 80 today. We’re not there but we have sent her cake, chocolate, a book and some glassware. It’s now the vernal equinox of 1945. And today, spring is in the air.

  We’ve had dinner (a very nice one of roast reindeer, smoked prawns, liver pâté, roast beef)! Sture’s taking an after-dinner nap. Karin is translating from Danish, Lasse’s playing the banjo guitar and I’m writing.

  I’ve no newspaper cuttings to hand, so I’d better try writing a little from memory.

  In Finland, things have been coming to a head of late. At the start of March their minister of labour Wuori gave a remarkable radio address, basically saying that all traces of Nazism would have to be eradicated from Finland or the country would suffer for it. The parliamentary elections, wider in scope than any before, ended in victory for the ‘democrats’, that is, the Communists, who have been banned in Finland since 1930 but now have the wind in their sails.

  Germany is being completely wiped out. There soon won’t be a German soldier west of the Rhine. There was an upsetting description in Stockholms-Tidningen the other day about the state of things in Germany – I haven’t got it, unfortunately. Hitler doesn’t want to surrender; he’s worried history will deliver a shameful verdict, that was one thing the article said.

  As for the Lindgren family, I can say ‘Home is the sailor, home from the sea, and the hunter home from the hill’ [in English].

  Here, everything’s spick and span after all the spring-cleaning, and sometimes I’m happy and sometimes I’m sad. I’m happiest when I’m writing. I had an offer from [the publisher] Gebers a couple of days ago.

  I forgot to say that the Shell Building, the German headquarters in Copenhagen, was levelled to the ground by Allied bombers. A Catholic school caught fire and lots of children were killed.

  Norway has seen many executions by firing squad.

  26 MARCH

  Yesterday, Sunday afternoon, Churchill went by landing craft across the Rhine to the American Ninth Army’s bridgehead.

  6 APRIL

  Easter is over – Sture and I spent it here on our own, and the children were in Småland – and it’s all been quite intense. Historic days as Germany gradually crumbles, surely the last weekend before its collapse.

  [Unidentified short press cuttings: latest from the fronts; a Finnish coalition government is formed; two Danes summarily executed by the Germans; Roosevelt’s funeral.]

  14 APRIL

  Via the Red Cross, Sweden has sent food supplies to the starving in Holland. Here is a letter of thanks to the king and the Swedish people.

  [Press cutting from Dagens Nyheter, 14 April 1945: letter from a Miss Koens and a Miss Kardinaal in Amsterdam to ‘Sire and the Swedish people’.]

  25 APRIL

  Berlin is a smoking heap of rubble, and according to the evening news a little while ago completely surrounded by the Russians.

  It takes me several hours to cut everything out of the papers. The evening papers excel in gruesome descriptions of the concentration camps in Germany. I don’t want to put them all in.

  To me it feels as if there’s a smell of fresh blood emanating from Germany, and a terrible sense of doom. It feels like Untergang des Abendlandes [the fall of the West].

  German women have been taken to see the horrors of Buchenwald – as have a number of neutral press reporters.

  I’ve read lots of letters from Danish Jews, whom the Red Cross brought back from Theresienstadt. They are now very happily housed in a camp near Strängnäs. The Red Cross also brought Swedish and Norwegian students home, but that’s all top-secret for the time being. The Jews’ letters were deeply moving. Even though Theresienstadt was a comparatively decent place and the Danes had special stat
us.

  The San Francisco conference started today (without any Roosevelt). Just imagine all the half-baked theories they’ll put forward!

  [Under Astrid’s heading ‘Geschichten aus dem Buchenwald’ (Stories from Buchenwald), a press cutting from Svenska Dagbladet, 26 April 1945: ‘Terrible instruments of torture and destruction’. ‘Astonishing will to live among many of the prisoners’.]

  29 APRIL

  This Sunday morning, when we were woken by the sound of the rain gushing in the gutters, the huge headline in the paper read:

  THE GERMANS SURRENDER!

  Germany surrenders – finally! Why not earlier, before the whole of Germany was reduced to a pile of rubble and so many children aged 10–12 were sent to their deaths?

  We heard it first on last night’s news. Sture and I were sitting there, having our usual little Saturday powwow, but there have been so many rumours going round lately that one hesitates to believe anything in a hurry.

  Himmler, that monster, proposed the peace and claims Hitler’s dying and won’t survive the surrender by more than 48 hours.

  The whole thing’s been mediated by a Swede – Count Folke Bernadotte, head of the Swedish Red Cross. Unconditional surrender – no wonder Hitler’s dying. Perhaps he’s been dead for ages, perhaps Himmler had him killed. Just think, the war’s coming to an end, it’s unimaginable! Germany lost it after Stalingrad, really – why did the pointless fight have to go on for so many years?

  In parliament the other day there was a secret plenary to take a decision on possible armed intervention in Norway. They voted almost unanimously against. Quite right, why should we enter the fray at the eleventh hour? Luckily the question is now immaterial, because both Norway and Denmark will very probably be given up without a fight – Allied condition. And I can’t believe the Germans in Norway are so crazy that they’ll keep up the fight on their own.

  But all the youngsters, the Norwegian refugees, and Danes too, who are here in our country preparing to go back home and do their bit in the final struggle, might be disappointed. The Norwegian government in London is (or was) disappointed in us for not wanting to get involved. It’s not the first time they’ve been disappointed in us for one thing or another, but I reckon we can take it with equanimity. Think how disappointed the British and French were when we wouldn’t join in the punch-up in Finland and let Allied troops through to fight Russia, which at that time was allied with Germany. What would the world look like now if we’d been swayed by their disappointment! Germany and Russia united, dear oh dear, then Britain would have been in a real fix. And how let down they felt when we, having very little choice, were obliged to let the German leave trains through to Norway, which certainly was a deplorable and painful episode, but the most sensible course of action in the long run. Because Sweden was needed outside the war. Looking back, we’ve achieved a fair bit, nothing to get all puffed up about of course, but gratifying all the same. We provided unprecedented material aid to Finland. And almost as much to Norway. We’ve been a place of refuge for nearing – what shall I say – 100,000 Norwegian and Danish refugees, perhaps that’s a slight overestimate, I’m not sure. We’ve run courses for them in special ‘police camps’ that provided little short of standard military training. And now, in these last days, we were able to arrange for the Danes and Norwegians interned in Germany, Jews and others, to be brought to Sweden. I’ve read some of the letters that these young people sent to their families at home once they got here, and they’re exultant. ‘Think that life can be so glorious’ – ‘Are we dreaming?’ and so on. It’s the joy of being able to sleep in a proper bed, eat proper food, walk in the forest to pick wood anemones and live a normal life, in spite of everything. One wrote that he had God to thank above all, and then the Swedish Red Cross. And now we have a Swede acting as intermediary to bring the peace offer from Germany. Somebody’s got to stay neutral, otherwise there can never be peace – for want of intermediaries.

  Just think that there’s to be peace! It’ll be May in a few days’ time – it’s spring, the trees are turning green and the lovely rain is falling on the land that will now have to yield enormous harvests to keep the human race alive. There won’t be another wartime winter, thank God! I’m glad the war’s ending in spring, so that poor, tormented peoples have time to get ready, rebuild a bit and lay in some food, before winter comes again.

  Spring 1945 – we never thought it would go on so long.

  EVENING

  It was a lie! The surrender. But it’s going to happen in the next few days, at any rate. Somebody in America let the cat out of the bag. The part about Folke Bernadotte bringing a verbal message from Himmler was true. But I expect they are only willing to surrender to Britons and Americans, not to Russians. And Stalin doesn’t want to agree to any surrender until the German army has been completely crushed. There are so many rumours buzzing about that it’s hard to know what to believe. There are confident claims that Hitler died of a stroke at the start of the week, but it might not be true. According to today’s papers, Mussolini’s been shot.

  1 MAY

  A little while ago we had the Lund students on the radio, serenading the spring: ‘O, hur härligt majsol ler’ [‘How the glorious may sun smiles’] and ‘Blommande sköna dalar’ [‘Valleys in beautiful bloom’] and all the rest. Before that we had chicken and sherry and cheese; the sherry was in honour of today’s big news – Denmark is free, the Germans are shoving off. (That wasn’t quite the truth!)

  Sture and Karin and I went to Skansen this morning, and it was spring there; we sat in the sun outside Älvrosgården and caught the scent of spring. Yesterday it was cold and rainy but today, spring’s here. A very special spring, not just any old spring but the spring when peace came at last. Goodness gracious, how wonderful it is!

  This afternoon I typed up a couple of chapters of ‘Barbro and I’, or whatever it’s going to be called, if it ever gets into print.

  Right, time for [the news from] TT: Count Bernadotte said at a press conference that around 15,000 internees were brought home to Sweden from the camps in Germany.

  But he has no peace offer with him this time. He said he is convinced that Hitler – dead or alive – is in Berlin.

  21.40, 1 MAY

  At this very moment the surging tones of ‘Deutschland, Deutschland über alles’ are pouring from my radio. A moment ago, the usual programme was interrupted for an extraordinarily important announcement. At 21.26, a Meldung für das deutsche Volk [message to the German people] was transmitted from Hamburg. Unser Führer Adolf Hitler died this afternoon, fighting Bolshevism to the last. Grand Admiral Dönitz has been appointed his successor. The battle will go on. Then Dönitz addressed the German people, and the national anthem followed. And even though Hitler and Nazism are the very quintessence of horror, the fall of a major country inevitably makes a deep impression on us as it crashes down into the abyss. Now they’re repeating the broadcast from Hamburg, I can hear Dönitz saying Schenckt mir Euren Vertrauen [Give me your trust]!

  This is a historic moment. Hitler’s dead. Hitler is dead. Mussolini’s dead, too. Hitler died in his capital, in the ruins of his capital, amid the ruins and rubble of his country.

  ‘The Leader fell at his post of command,’ Dönitz said.

  Sic transit gloria mundi !

  5 MAY

  Rejoice, rejoice! Denmark is free again, after five years of serfdom. Holland too. Surrender at 7 o’clock this morning. When I was walking to work this morning and suddenly saw all the Danish, Swedish and Norwegian flags, I couldn’t help the tears coming to my eyes.

  At work we listened to King Christian’s speech to ‘Danish men and women’ at 11 a.m. He was introduced by the chimes of the clock at Raadhustornet [the tower of City Hall], and after his speech they sang ‘Kong Christian Stod ved Højen Mast’ [the Danish royal anthem], for which we all stood up. The sun is shining on this, Denmark’s day of freedom.

  The papers are full of news – I don’t know how I�
��ll keep up with cutting it all out. They devote a lot of space to all the Danish and Norwegian (and other) prisoners brought to Sweden by the Swedish Red Cross.

  I’m scribbling this down in a hurry in my lunch break.

  5 MAY, 7-SOMETHING IN THE EVENING

  Sven Jerring is in Copenhagen right now, and on the radio I can hear Danes of both sexes going wild with jubilation.

  7 MAY

  It’s VE Day! The war’s over! The war’s over! THE WAR IS OVER!

  At 2.41 p.m. (I think), the surrender was signed in a little red schoolhouse in Reims, for the Allies by Eisenhower (Bedell Smith), for the Germans by Jodl, under the terms of which all German forces in the whole of Europe capitulated. Norway’s free now, too. At this very moment, a wild sense of jubilation is spreading across Stockholm. Kungsgatan is ankle-deep in paper and everyone seems to have gone crazy. We sang ‘Ja, Vi Elsker’ [the Norwegian national anthem] at work after the radio broadcast at 3 o’clock. Sture isn’t in for dinner this evening, but he sent home a bottle of sherry so we could celebrate the peace. They’re playing ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ on the radio at the moment. I’ve been drinking sherry with Linnéa and Lars and feel a bit giddy. It’s spring and the sun is shining on this blessed day and the war is over. I wouldn’t want to be German. Just think, the war’s over, Hitler’s dead (there’s shouting and cheering on the radio now; Stockholm has completely taken leave of its senses). ‘The waves of joy are still washing over Kungsgatan,’ the announcer is saying, ‘It’s a gloriously wonderful day.’