Text 42296, 121 rader
Skriven 2006-11-06 19:18:08 av Michael Cronsten (2:203/412.444)
  Kommentar till text 42216 av FRANK SCHEIDT (1:123/140)
Ärende: Act lively
==================
About WWII:

 FS> RC> Too bad the Svedes stayed out of it, their powerful armies
 FS> RC> could have singlehandedly defeated Germany.
 FS>
 FS> The Swedes were *far* too much interested in selling war
 FS> materials to the Nazis.  They loved the *money* and to hell with
 FS> the ethics!

The Swedish government did what was needed to keep the Germans from attacking
Sweden. Every country anound us was either occupied by or run by Germany or the
Soviet Union. Norway that had been promised assistance from Britain in case
they were attacked by Germany was occupied by Germany. Sweden was lucky to stay
out of the war. The first two years after the war started in late 1939 the
Swedish armed forces were very weak, it took a few years to build up our
strength. Most experts (researchers) believe that the Germans were fooled by
Swedish self confidence in believing Sweden had a strong defense. Up until May
1940 less than 100.000 conscripts was called up at any one time, but when
Norway/Denmark was occupied in mid May 1940 the number of conscripted soldiers
jumped up to 450.000 and remained so until 1943.

Sweden sold iron ore to both Germany and Britain. While transports to Britain
were subject to attacks from German ships and submarines, transports between
Sweden and Germany was kept up without interruptions during the entire war up
to 1945 when Germany lost its abilities to supply coal to Sweden, as one
country bought coal and the other iron ore. Passenger transport by
trains/ferries and airplanes between the two countries was also running without
disruptions during the entire war.

Millions of foreign soldiers were transported through Sweden by train both
during the first and second world wars. In 1917-1918 wounded Russian and German
soldiers were transported home on the Swedish railways which had a good track
record for working which was not the case in the surrounding countries of the
time. Swedes got to see the horrors of the war through the didmembered and
crutching soldiers of the formerly great foreign armies that were led for walks
along the platforms at the stations along the way. Swedish local newspapermen
took pictures which were published and did more to teach Swedish people about
the horrors of war than did pictures from abroad. So when the Swedish
government decided to axe the national defence forces in 1925 very few
protested. The army was not needed since there would never again be war, so
most of it was done away with.
During WWII millions of German soldiers were transported on Swedish railways.
germany had demanded this coupled with a threat to otherwise occupy the
country.

During the last years of the 1930's more and more people in Sweden saw the use
of a stronger army and airforce, and a build up was started which reached its
full strength in 1948 as decided by the parliament in 1938 and 1940. After the
war the cold war begun, and Sweden had one of the worlds largest defense or at
least air force. But the last few years the Swedish forces have again been
decreased by at least nine tenths since it is unlikely that there will ever be
war again.....

///

In 1917 the war between Germany and Russia was going bad for Germany, and they
decided to let a troublesome Russian agitator, Vladimir Lenin, pass through
Germany home to St. Petersburg (then called Petrograd) in the hope of confusing
the Russians. There had been a revolution in the Russian capital and the Tsar
had been overthrown. The agreement between Switzerland and Germany was that the
rail carriage where Lenin travelled was to be kept sealed all the way to
Petrograd. The journed led them through Germany, on the train ferry to Sweden,
and with a stop at Stockholm central station where local commie dignitaries
visited, and on to Haparanda/Torneå in the north on the border with Finland
where the agitator had to be let off to change to a Finnish/Russian carriage as
the rail gauges are different. Finland was a part of Sweden from the 12th
century until a peace agreement in 1809 when it was turned over to Russia. So
when the railways were built in Finland it was to the same gauge as the rest of
the Russian Empire, which is larger than the gauge in western Europe or for
that matter in Ireland or the Iberian peninsula.

When Lenin had travelled through peaceful Finland and entered into Russia he
found the country was in a chaotic state after the revolution in February 1917.
He travelled on to Petrograd and started planning for a new (and better)
revolution.

In November the government now led by Aleksandr Kerensky was overthrown in a
bloody coup led by Lenin, and from then onwards and for the next 70 years the
country was a communist state, except for countries like Finland and the Baltic
states which managed to break free in 1917.

Twenty-five years later Hitler must have been sorry his country sent Lenin to
Russia, and with that started a communist regime that with all its power and
all its men (hordes of slaves) now were invading the German Reich. Without
Lenin parhaps the Soviet Union had been just poor Russia and not such a threat
as it was now.

Many years later (like 30 or so) in another part of the world the nation of
Israel suffered fanatic attachs by Palestinian terrorists from the PLO
(Palestinian Liberation Organization) led by the not so funny little man Yasser
Arafat. They PLO hi-jacked planes and blew up bombs wherever they could. In the
Olympic Games in Munich they caused German police to shoot Palestinian
terrorists and Israeli athletes to death during a PLO-engineered attack. The
PLO was a nuisance, and the Israeli government decided to financially support
another more peaceful Palestinian group called the Hamas (the word hamas means
courage, enthusiasm in Arabic) and perhaps get the more moderate of the
Palestinian people to support Hamas instead. As we all know now, they succeded.
Now Hamas is in power and PLO is a mere bystander on the political arena in the
Palestine territories.

In the late 1970's there was a coup in Kabul which is the capital of
Afghanistan. Mr Hafizullah Amin who was prominent in the outlawed communist
party of Afghanistan and likewise under house arrest felt he was in power and
sent a telegram to the government of the Soviet Union saying, I am the leader
of Afghanistan but I am threatened by outside elements, could you please come
and help. So Soviet forces came to his aid, and stayed on in Afghanistan. In a
neighbouring country a man named Osama bin Laden had just come of age and was
looking for something to do. He travelled to Afghanistan to fight the Soviet
Red Army, part of an organization founded by CIA (an American state agency),
and after some years they and fellow freedom fighters succeded in getting USSR
forces out of Afghanistan. So, said Osama, what will I do now, or in 1993 and
2001?...

There is no old saying saying Beware of feeding snakes lest they return and
bite you in the ass, but perhaps there should be?

Best regards, Mi Cro

--- oOo ---
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