A World Gone Mad: The Wartime Diaries

by Astrid Lindgren

  I must paste in Goebbels’ speech and Hitler’s proclamation too. Hitler’s presumably having another carpet-chewing session, as he didn’t speak in person.

  [Press cutting from Dagens Nyheter: Goebbels: ‘The high point of our struggle is near’.]

  And here’s what Hitler’s proclamation said:

  [Dagens Nyheter article from 29 January 1943: ‘Unambiguous victory’ promised by the Führer.]

  There would be plenty to say about the above, but I think Johannes Wickman’s comments in Dagens Nyheter will do the job:

  [Press cutting from Dagens Nyheter from 31 January 1943 of Wickman’s piece ‘Jubilee without jubilation’.]

  Say what you will about Wickman – but he’s not exactly neutral. I wonder what would happen if the Gestapo got hold of him.

  The only thing I don’t like is the general tendency of Anglophiles to make the Russians into little doves of peace. I think we are going to discover that they are not.

  7 MARCH

  No major news to report. But one remarkable thing is the total reorganization of the German economy, making everything subordinate to the aims of the war. The occupied countries are starting to do the same, too. The other day there was a huge British air raid over Berlin, in which Zarah Leander’s villa was totally destroyed. Many hundreds killed.

  Save the Children has launched a big drive to help the children of Europe – and they certainly need it. But Karin had put on a kilo at her last check-up and now weighs 29kg.

  In Denmark there was an abortive bomb attack on German women. I can’t recall if I ever wrote about King Christian’s Hitler telegram. They say the clampdown in Germany’s treatment of Denmark is the direct result of this telegram. Anyway: Hitler sent the Danish king a telegram – I forget exactly when – it must have been for his birthday. The telegram was in the usual bombastic style, all about the new European order, etc. The telegram Christian sent in reply, with heartbreaking Danishness, read as follows: ‘Mange Tak Christian Rex’ [Many thanks Christian Rex]. No wonder Hitler was furious. Our newspapers only dropped hints about ‘the brief royal telegram’, giving no details. I heard the rest from Gunnar at Christmas.

  And then there were presidential elections in Finland. Ryti was re-elected. He had a lot of trouble forming his government.

  Yesterday there was a terrible accident at [the military training ground at] Ränneslätt. A charge of TNT exploded, seven soldiers were killed, six of them outright and another died later, and many were badly hurt. There are a lot of accidents even in our peaceable defence forces.

  Hitler is staying silent and speaking only through deputies. Some say he’s dead, others that he’s lost his mind.

  1 APRIL

  In Africa, the British have stormed the Mareth Line and it’s not looking good for Rommel. We haven’t heard much from Russia: things are probably going badly for all of them. Hitler’s come back to life again after his long silence and made a speech or two. But German disintegration is in all probability only a question of time.

  Here in Sweden there’s been a lot of hot air and questioning in parliament about a German courier plane that had to come down in the water at Lekvattnet, which produced a worrying lack of reaction from the Swedish armed forces, except for a 17-year-old member of the home guard, who has received a medal for his resourcefulness. The ‘courier plane’ was full of German soldiers and had machine guns on board, albeit not assembled. The affair has caused a lot of displeasure in Britain.

  Allied invasion is anticipated in one place and another, before too long. In Denmark, acts of sabotage have increased dramatically.

  The British bombing raids on Germany and Italy are having an impact.

  GOOD FRIDAY

  A week ago, most probably on Friday the 16th, the Swedish submarine Ulven disappeared with its 33-man crew. The sub had been taking part in naval exercises down on the west coast and was last seen on Thursday afternoon. The Ulven didn’t appear on Friday for its scheduled exercises and investigations began. A week has passed since then, in which the interest of the whole Swedish nation has been focused exclusively on the Ulven. All hope is now lost. It’s assumed that the sub got into such trouble that it was stranded on the seabed, unable to manoeuvre, its crew still alive for as long as their oxygen lasted. All possible resources were put into looking for it, with all the expertise that Swedish science can [illegible word], and in the end the anguished father of one of the crew paid for a flight to bring down Karlsson, the clairvoyant from Ankarsund in Västerbotten. But not even the clairvoyant could locate the Ulven. The weather’s been dreadful, one storm after another, which stopped the divers going down. Things looked really hopeful to begin with. The papers declared that the Ulven had been ‘localized’, but by God that didn’t mean they’d found it. There were reports of knockings heard from the Ulven, but as none of them were in Morse code, I don’t think they really came from the submarine. Today’s paper says: ‘At 6 on Tuesday morning the last knocking was heard on the hydro-phones – since then there has been silence.’ As this would more or less correspond to the length of time the crew could be assumed to have stayed alive, it does make you wonder.

  On Sunday evening the Swedish submarine Draken reported that on the Friday morning, that is, the day the Ulven vanished, and in the same waters, it was fired on by an armed German merchant vessel. The commander of the Draken, the prize blockhead, didn’t tell anyone until Sunday evening. Protests have been lodged in Berlin with a demand for a prompt investigation of whether the same merchant vessel shot at the Ulven. We can only hope that this was the case and that the men aboard Ulven died a quick death rather than enduring a week’s horrendous suffering. But if it turns out that the German ship, which is called the Altkirch by the way, sank the sub in a way that left parts of it watertight and the crew still alive, then I hope they kill the commander of the Draken who couldn’t spit out what he knew until the Sunday evening.

  The navy has suffered a great tragedy, much worse than Hårsfjärden in my view. I read a moving letter from a sailor; he wrote that he and his fellow seamen were sitting round talking about the Ulven ‘and there wasn’t a single one of us not in tears’.

  Today spring seems to have arrived in earnest! And the Ulven men will never get to see another spring. The commanding officer had been married just over a year and his wife is expecting their first child any day now.

  In England, Churchill has announced that intelligence has reached them about German intentions to use gas on the eastern front. Churchill is preparing the Germans for the fact that if this is true, gas will immediately be released over German port cities and war-related industrial sites. This is going to be a lovely spring and no mistake.

  But today out at Djurgården among wood anemones and yellow star of Bethlehem in the sunshine it was glorious. Lars has gone to Småland, so it was just Sture, Karin and me. Karin and I played ‘golden shoes and golden hat’, which you had to undergo various trials to win. On the subject of golden shoes: today we’ll hear about shoe rationing, and if the papers are to be believed it’s going to be more than somewhat strict. I’m so annoyed I didn’t at least get Karin’s shoes half-soled for Easter.

  9 MAY

  Since I last wrote, here’s more or less what has happened. We’ve had a reply to our protest about the Draken and it’s a damned cheeky one, see below:

  [Unidentified press cutting.]

  Just the sort of insolence you’d expect from those bastards. So Germany’s to have the right to decide how our Swedish subs behave in Swedish waters! But we responded in no uncertain terms, probably in sharper tones than we’ve ever dared before. The Germans said nothing about the Ulven in their memo.

  This was the Swedish government response:

  [Unidentified press cutting.]

  I suppose the most disquieting thing of all was that the damned Germans laid a minefield in Swedish waters. It was probably that minefield which decided the Ulven’s fate. Because the other day they found the Ulven, for which
they’d hunted so intently and desperately. And it was lying more or less in the middle of that mine belt at a depth of 52 metres. They still haven’t found out how it met its end, but it doesn’t seem to have had a collision or been fired on. The bow looked ‘compressed’, said the divers who went down. It was a fishing boat that found it. All are eager to find out whether the crew died instantaneously, which seems likeliest and what we all wish and hope for. Presumably it hit a German mine, and in Swedish waters. So now it must be time to stop the hateful transit permits to Germans ‘going on leave’, which the whole Swedish nation is furious about.

  Another development: the ‘safe conduct by sea’, which the Germans stopped in January, was reinstated a few days ago. Perhaps we can start getting some essentials in again, a bit of coffee and some shoe leather so they can relax the strict shoe rationing slightly.

  Well everything I’ve written here has been about Sweden. But of course there’s been plenty going on in the wider war as well. Tunis and Bizerte have fallen, so the game is up for the Axis in North Africa. This is a success of the first order for the Allies, of course, their greatest of the war so far. The remains of the Axis army are squeezed into a tight corner on the Cap Bon peninsula and thousands upon thousands have surrendered.

  There’s also been quite a row, which I haven’t really followed, between the Russian and Polish governments. I didn’t even know there was a Polish government, but I presume it’s based in London. Anyway, the Polish government has demanded an investigation, through the Red Cross, of some dreadful mass graves in Katyn (I think it was called), where the Russians killed and buried 10,000 Polish officers after they annexed Poland. Yes, God preserve us from the Russians! They’ve also been rowing about Poland’s future borders and relations with Russia, but as I say, I haven’t been paying attention.

  22 MAY

  So warm and so lovely, what a blessing! Unbelievably good weather. The day before yesterday, Karin turned nine. Elsa-Lena and Matte were here. Karin got a watch, a school bag, a box of chocolates, one book, one pair of overtrousers from us, and several books from our visitors. For dinner we had not only Matte but also prawns, radishes, sardines, ham and eggs, and the rest of the cake.

  Lars took his English exam the same day, which will decide his final mark in the subject. A school year is drawing to an end, thank goodness, because it’s all been quite a trial since he had those warnings from school [about potentially poor grades], and I’m sure I’ve nagged more than I should. He’s bound to fail his German; as for the other subjects, we can only hope and pray for the best.

  I’m back at work on Monday after a delightful week and a half off for a terrible cold. While I was in bed I wrote a few odds and ends and sent them in, first to Stockholms-Tidningen, which bought one of my light articles and returned three, then to Dagens Nyheter, which returned both the pieces I’d sent them. On one of them, Staffan Tjerneld had written some comments, starting with ‘The girl can write, there’s no question about it,’ but it was too short and not true enough to life, hah hah!

  Enough of this drivel. A minor detail such as Stalin dissolving the Comintern probably deserves a mention. It was in the papers yesterday and has caused a great stir all round the world, of course. It would mean that Bolshevism has renounced the idea of world revolution. I very much doubt that’s the case; the Comintern will still exist but under cover, and the whole device has probably just been dreamt up to curry favour with public opinion in Britain and America.

  I can’t remember if I wrote that the British bombed two so-called barrages in Germany, resulting in huge destruction and large-scale flooding. A German Jew in exile is said to have given the British the idea, which will now be the excuse for fresh persecution of the Jews in Germany.

  That’s all for today.

  3 JUNE

  No particular news from the war, I don’t think. Something called ‘Attu’, which the Japanese held, has fallen. When the few hundred warriors who were left realized they wouldn’t make it, they turned to face the Imperial Palace in Tokyo, bowed deeply and then charged the enemy with one last banzai cry, to be mown down to the last man, according to the papers. So much for ‘Attu’ – I don’t know what the implications are in the general chaos.

  The bombing is more devastating than ever. At work I saw an Italian propaganda photo – a maternity hospital in Italy had been bombed and the picture showed many dead and maimed – it was simply awful.

  In the papers the other day they said that, in all, 100,000 people in Athens are dying of hunger. Sixteen hundred a day, when things are at their worst.

  But in Sweden we’re doing remarkably well on the food front, a very distinct improvement. Lots of meat and bacon and there’s suddenly fish available, so they’ve lifted fish rationing. It’s really easy to be a housewife now. Butter’s the only tricky thing.

  Ascension Day was fine and the warmer weather arrived and I was angry as heck with Sture for the usual reason [in English], so I went out cycling with Karin, in the morning with Alli and in the afternoon (after dinner) just the two of us, to Koa. It’s so beautiful now, the lilacs and chestnuts are blooming like mad. I wanted Lasse to come with us too, but he prefers to go his own way nowadays.

  WHITSUN EVE

  Such a gorgeous Whitsun Eve, and so hot. Everything’s abnormally early this year. Here we are in our living room with the windows wide open, and it’s more or less like sitting in the park. The sounds are intensely summery: the clack of heels on the pavement outside, the noise of the children in the park, and when the trams speed by it sounds almost as if they are coming straight in here.

  Karin’s gone out to Solö [in the Stockholm archipelago] with Matte and I’m glad she’s there for this heatwave, even though it feels rather empty at home without her. She had her exam on the 8th and got Ba [a satisfactory pass] in all her subjects except music and gymnastics. Lars, on the other hand, came home with a sorry set of results (Bc [a bare pass] maths, B? [a pass?] in English, history, chemistry and French), which is such a shame after he got such good marks last year. He doesn’t seem to have realized he’s in upper secondary school now. He had some work as a bicycle messenger this week and earned 50 kronor, and next week he and Göran are off on a cycle trip. I wish I could go with them because the summer’s so glorious it makes you want to get out of town instantly. But – it can’t be denied that it’s extremely lovely here, in the most beautiful summer city on this earth (so I think, though I haven’t seen that many others) and all I want to do is get out on my bike in the evenings to enjoy the profusion of flowers and all the greenery, the floral scents and the totally fantastic evening sky. The season of rapture, and I certainly am enraptured!

  We marked the start of Whitsun with a dinner of radishes, hard-boiled eggs with anchovies, asparagus, veal chops and mazarin tarts. It’s beyond belief that we’re suddenly so well off for food; it’s the simplest thing in the world to be a housewife, though expensive, of course.

  Meanwhile, the Italian island of Pantelleria has capitulated after a devastating bombardment. ‘You keep writing and writing,’ says Sture. ‘Are you writing about Lampedusa?’ Lampedusa is the next island the Allies will take. The mood in Italy must be lower than low. After all, the occupation of Pantelleria can be seen as a little prelude to invasion, since it was originally Italian territory. There’s a lot of talk of invasion these days.

  Today the papers say the report on the 1941 Hårsfjärden accident indicates that the cause of the disaster appears to be sabotage. How horrible!

  In Russia, the Germans and Russians are preparing to go on the offensive. In Germany, the Allies are continuing their dreadful bombing, last night targeting Düsseldorf and Münster, Wilhelmshaven and Cuxhaven in what’s said to be the biggest bombing raid yet. I read in a letter from a pilot today that in Germany they claim 200,000 people died when the barrages were blown up a while back. The British pilots who carried out the bombing were apparently specially trained for a month for the mission. The devastation being
visited on the world is just growing and growing. The sanctity of life is held in contempt. In this delightful summertime [first line of a Swedish hymn]...

  2 JULY

  Since I last wrote, the king has managed to turn 85, a landmark that’s attracted a lot of press coverage here and abroad. There was great excitement in Stockholm on the day and it was all very festive, but I was so busy getting Lasse’s kit ready for the cycle trip that I didn’t even get a chance to go and see the procession through town. It was as dry as tinder all through the early summer and we were desperate for rain, but why did it have to rain partout at precisely 5 p.m. on 16 June when the king was in his open carriage? Yet it did, of course, and everybody worried because the king was getting wet. He’s incredibly popular, our old king, and the whole world sent him congratulatory telegrams. The Swedish people are convinced it’s King Gustaf we have to thank for our country not being at war, and it’s entirely possible that they are right.

  Then it was midsummer. Lars and Göran’s cycle trip took them round Östergötland and Småland. Karin was out at Solö and had her ride in the hay cart as promised, but came home with Sigge Gullander on the evening of Midsummer Day. Sture and I took a bike ride out to Saltsjöbaden and had a really nice time.