COMMENT: In FTR #707, we examined the ascent of fascist elements in Europe, Sweden in particular. Officially neutral during the Second World War, Sweden was home to a powerful fascist movement, driven in considerable measure by elements of that country’s power elite.
Enamored of National Socialism, many Swedish movers and shakers sought to implement fascism in their own country. Many were business partners of key Nazi industrialists and financiers.
Among those drawn to Swedish fascism was a youthful Ingvar Kamprad, the founder of furniture giant IKEA. Kamprad has been relatively candid about his youthful alliance with Nazism, but a recent book suggests that his Nazi activities and alliances may be far more significant than previously disclosed.
It now develops that Kamprad continued his fascist activities well after the war, networking with prominent Swedish fascist Per Engdahl, among others. Engdahl was instrumental in shepherding the fascist international into the postwar period.
Kamprad continues to praise Engdahl, as well as defending his past association with the Swedish fascist kingpin.
Although much more information would need to be developed to see Kamprad’s lucrative and famous IKEA firm as an element of the Bormann capital network, it does seem reasonable to ask if perhaps the company’s success and its founder’s political associates may be connected.
In that context, it is worth noting that Sweden was home to more Bormann front companies (233) than any of the other neutral nations in which the brilliant Reichsleiter set up the entities which were to serve as repositories for the stolen wealth of the Third Reich, as well as the economic rebirth of the “new” Germany.
As noted by a listener in the COMMENTS on this article, IDEA was founded in 1943 when Kamprad was only 17.
One wonders if the firm’s connections in the former East Germany may have stemmed from Underground Reich elements operating in the GDR. Those connections apparently provided IKEA with forced labor, an eventuality that Kamprad opined would “be in society’s interest.”
That was, of course, during the war and after the Nazis had begun their program of going underground in preparation for their postwar perpetuation and resurgence.
George Soros also got his start in business while still in his teens, aiding the Nazis with their Aryanization of Hungarian property during the Holocaust.
EXCERPT: A new book claims IKEA founder Ingvar Kamprad’s youth ties with Nazi groups extended beyond what he has previously admitted, saying Sweden’s intelligence agency even set up a special file on him.
Respected Swedish author and journalist Elisabeth Asbrink says Kamprad joined the Swedish Nazi party in 1943 when he was 17, prompting the security police to set up a file on him the same year.
Asbrink also claims in her book, “And in Wienerwald the Trees Remain,” that the founder of Swedish furniture chain was in contact with Nazi sympathizers until at least 1950 – two years longer than he had previously acknowledged. . . .
. . . The book also mentions a wedding invitation Kamprad sent to a renown Fascist, Per Engdahl, in 1950, in which he underscored how proud he was that the two belonged to the same circle. . . .
[...] of its similarities with the world depicted in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. In a recent blog post, anti-fascist researcher Dave Emory brought some more meat around the bone of that trail of [...]
Its crazy how overt this network is, and security services seem impotent.
More info on Siemens here — http://germanywatch.blogspot.com/2011/08/siemens-data-mining-or-espionage.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/sweden/8742172/Ikea-used-political-prisoners-in-GDR-as-slave-labour.html
Ikea ‘used political prisoners in GDR as slave labour’
Swedish retail giant Ikea used political prisoners in East Germany as “slave labour” to make furniture, secret police files unearthed by a German broadcaster appear to show.
By Matthew Day2:31PM BST 05 Sep 2011
Ikea developed strong links with the communist state in the 1970s, opening a number of manufacturing facilities, one of which, according to Stasi records discovered by German television company WDR, used political prisoners to construct sofas.
The factory in Waldheim stood next to a prison, and inmates were used as unpaid labour, it is claimed. Gaols in the Democratic Republic housed significant numbers of political prisoners, with some estimates indicating they made up at least 20 per cent of the entire prison population.
Quoted in a Stasi file, Ingvar Kamprad, Ikea’s founder, said while he had no official knowledge of the use of prison labour, if it did indeed exist “in the opinion of Ikea it would be in society’s interests”.
Hans Otto Klare, who had been sent to Waldheim prison for trying to escape to West Germany, described conditions in the factory as harsh.
“Our labour team lived on the upper floor of the factory with the windows covered,” he told WDR about his time making hinges and other components for Ikea furniture. “The machines were on the lower floor, and you had little rest. On the factory floor you had no proper seating, no ear protection: no gloves. Conditions were even more primitive there then in the rest of the GDR. It was slave labour.”
Another former prisoner said he recognised some of the parts he has made when he went shopping in Ikea after the fall of communism.
In the documentary Sabine Nold, an Ikea spokesman, made no comment on the revelations other than to point out business practices had changed over the past 25 years. An Ikea statement issued later said the company had no knowledge of the use of prison labour, but was sorry if it had occurred.
Kamprad founded Ikea in 1943, aged 17. In 1994 it was disclosed that he had briefly joined Sweden’s pro-fascist New Swedish Movement in 1942.
There is a little spy scandal going on involving Ikea in France. The link was on the Drudge Report. It does not seem to be as bad as using slave labor in East Germany in the 70s though.
http://www.iol.co.za/news/world/france-quizzes-ikea-execs-over-spying‑1.1608850#.Uor2uMQgfph