German-Swedish Economic Relations during World War II

Abstract

During World War II Sweden was one of the few countries in Europe, which could keep its formal neutrality. The war, however, brought about important changes in the Swedish economy, not least by the fact that Swedish external trade was concentrated to almost one single country, viz Germany. The mutual economic dependence was thereby increased. In this paper it will be investigated how the war influenced the economic relations between Germany and Sweden. On the one hand it concerns how the economic policy practically was modelled by the great power Germany versus a military and economically inferior nation. On the other hand it will be of interest to investigate how the smaller nation could solve its support problems and balance a formal neutrality against a certainly unvoluntary but essential incorporation in the greater German economic room.