Några synpunkter på Sture Bolin och Sveriges Nationella Förbund

Sture Bolin, professor of history at Lund University from 1938 to 1963, was, from the end of the 1940s, a good democrat. But he had earlier been of a very different mind. He did not want Swedish students to join the new International Confederation of Students, the CIE, because it was French-dominated and because German students were not involved. He liked Imperial Germany, but not the Weimar Republic. When the French occupied the Ruhr in 1923, he took France's part, because in his opinion Germany was then being ruled by Semites, not Teutons. Bolin played a leading role in Sveriges Nationella Ungdomsforbund, the National Youth League of Sweden; first in Lund, then nationally. When in 1932 Lund politicians, Bolin among them, gained control of the League, they made no secret of the attraction National Socialism in Germany held for them.This caused the break in 1934 between the Swedish Conservative Party and its Youth League. The main reason was the junior organization's refusal to repudiate Nazism.