Ingvar Kamprad was identified as a Nazi by Swedish intelligence during WWII and retained loyalty to Swedish far-right after war, book says.
By JPOST.COM STAFFikea biz 88 224(photo credit: Ariel Jerozolimski)
The founder of the Swedenbased worldwide chain of furniture stores, IKEA, was identified as a Nazi by the Swedish Security Service in 1943 during World War II, a new book reveals, according to the Stockholm News website.Och i Wienerwald står träden kvar (And in Wienerwald the Trees Remain) by the author Elisabeth Åsbrink tells of how Ingvar Kamprad, a global business leader and one of the richest men in the world, had a personal file set up with Swedish intelligence when he was 17 years old in the Swedish province of Småland.RELATED:'Dutch soccer club must rein in anti-Semitism at games'Opinion: Can universities study anti-Semitism honestly?According to Kamprad’s file with Swedish intelligence, he devoted much time and energy into recruiting new members to the Nazi party.Kamprad, whose Nazi sympathies became known to the public in the 1990s, had previously written off the troubling period of his life as a passing instance of “teenage confusion.” He stated that he had been more of a fascist than a Nazi, attracted by the ideology’s social element.However, the book describes how Kamprad’s contacts with the far-right New Swedish Movement and their leader Per Engdahl continued long after the conclusion of WWII, even when the full extent of the Holocaust became known to the world.Engdahl wrote in 1944 that Adolf Hitler was “Europe’s savior.”The Stockholm News also quoted the New Swedish Movement leader as saying “the Jews are an alien element in the Western public body” and that “an anti-communist movement can never reach its goal if it’s not also anti-Semitic."
