Report: IKEA Founder Was A Recruiter For Swedish Nazi Party

by Josh Feldman | 1:58 pm, August 24th, 2011

» 23 comments

How many times has this happened to you? You’re in your local furniture store, browsing through the aisles, and you say, “Gee, I like this furniture, but it doesn’t remind me of the Nazis. Will I ever find a retailer that was founded by a Nazi?” Well, average citizen, you’re in luck!

Because a new book coming out details how Ingvar Kamprad, the founder of IKEA, was very active in the Swedish Nazi Party. In the past, Kamprad has admitted his ties to the fascist group New Swedish Movement, but did not admit to being involved in the Nordic Youth (the Hitler Youth of Sweden, so to speak). But journalist Elisabeth Åsbrink dug up letters that Kamprad wrote as a teenager, indicating he was heavily involved in the group Svensk Socialistisk Samling, and helped recruit for the organization.

The Telegraph gives a few details about the book:

It quotes letters intercepted from Mr Kamprad, then 17, in which he enthuses about recruiting new members and says that he “misses no opportunity to work for the movement”.

The secret service concluded that, as Mr Kamprad received the party’s youth newspaper, he must have held “some sort of official position within the organisation”.

When Kamprad was interviewed for the book, he gave particular praise to Per Engdahl, the leader of the New Sweden Movement, saying he “is a great man, this I will maintain for as long as I live.”

This might be a good time to explain exactly who Per Engdahl is and what he believed.

[He] writes in the movements contemporary journal that “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”. In 1944, he describes Hitler as “Europe’s saviour”

After the war, Engdahl distanced himself from the Nazi ideology and regime, but remained opposed to democracy and held on to fascist ideas.

However, the book also details Kamprad’s early friendship with a Jewish refugee who not only lived with Kamprad on his family farm, but ended up being one of the key players in the eventual launch of IKEA.

But these new revelations have been dismissed as nothing new by Kamprad’s spokesperson, who insisted the man still views his involvement with these groups as the “biggest mistake of his life,” and also helpfully clarified that IKEA “is based on democratic principles and embraces a multicultural society.”

h/t The Telegraph

Ikea, Nazi, Sweden

Anonymous

Yeah, that’s a hoot! Kinda like Robert Byrd’s involvement in the KKK.
http://www.storminsmorningjava.blogspot.com/ stormin1961

i wonder if buyers of Volkswagons ever research who invented it?
Anonymous

If his recruiting skills were as good as his furniture building skills, there is nothing to worry about.
Anonymous

I thought Hitler only commissioned Ferdinand Porsche to design and build the Beetle (the peoples car)? Not the who line of VW?
http://www.storminsmorningjava.blogspot.com/ stormin1961

the VW was Hitlers brainchild.
B W

inb4He’sAlsoATeaPartyMember
Ralph

Ikea always seemed too efficient for me. It’s like that Whole Foods at Columbus Circle with the guy speeding you to the next available register. I’m just not that up for invading Poland these days. I view the cashier’s travials with each customer ahead of me as entertainment.
Laurence Glavin

Henry Ford was a noted anti–Semite and bought a newspaper near Day-trwah called the Dearborn Independent, in which he published an English translation of the “Protocols f the Elders of Zion”. IBM supplied Nazi Germany with punch-card machines even after the start of the war through one of its subsidiaries, although CEO Thomas Watson, Sr may not have known or sanctioned the enterprise. The Chief Executive of RCA and later NBC was so persistent in challenging the patents of Edwin Armstrong, the inventor of FM, which was a threat to the NBC empire built on AM transmission, that Armstrong eventually committed suicide. The “Founding Fathers” of American industry were not saints.
http://twitter.com/grimcity Neal Boyd

It’s a give and take. Hitler turned a symbol of peace into a symbol that oozes disgust by anyone who despises what the Nazis did and stood for, and nicer people took the Hiltermobile and turned it into a chick’s car.

Though I don’t have data to support this, I’m pretty sure that current VW sales in no way fund the Nazi regime.
Anonymous

Ummm the IKEA furniture is the BEST. Not sure why you have a problem with inexpensive furniture that is stylish.
Anonymous

Ummm the IKEA furniture is the BEST. Not sure why you have a problem with inexpensive furniture that is stylish.
http://games-survival.com Justplaythegame

It all comes down to politics of money.. if we thought as a nation we could make more money on Hitlers side, we would have chose Hitlers side. so many wrongs thru-out the world at the time. USA is not immune to them nor above them. Many well known companies still exist because money talks over ethics and freedoms. People really need to study history.

a few more…
KRUPP – Makers of washing machines, coffee makers, and the Nazi gas chambers.
BAYER used to be a much larger German chemical company called IG Farben. Gas chamber pellets.
BMW, which makes 4 further appearances on Sommer’s list. Altogether, BMW admits to using 25,000 – 30,000 slave laborers, POWs and concentration camp inmates.

there are many more..
Anonymous

Being a custom woodworker (hobby)… I respectfully disagree.
Anonymous

Understood. But ask the typical 20-something or CA resident about IKEA and they’ll all own a piece at least.
Holistic

Its been 65 years folks time to move on.
AlGore

I don’t think so. He’s the same party as you, a Democrat.
AlGore

Very True, take a look at Craigslist. Most of the furniture is from Ikea.
Masterplumber5420

at least he said it the biggest mistake of his life…unlike some folks in washington
Just sayin’…

Boy, if I was judged for the things I said and did when I was 17, I’d never leave my house!!!
JMcCarthy

So, the next article here will be about George Soros? THE Liberal Media Darling George Soros who has admitted to turning over fellow Jews to the Nazi’s during WW2 to be sent to their deaths in the SOCIALIST Workers party, aka Nazi’s, death camps. Oh, that’s right, he supports democrats so something so trivial as participating in the death’s of millions can be overlooked, WHAT was I thinking?
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_YJOFCUW4S62AICSGYG562VMHZY Marje

Strongly disagree, Hol. We need to remember history so we either don’t repeat it or recognize it when a repetition of it is barreling down the tracks toward us at warp speed.

As this country’s economic and climate troubles repeat in their own way the troubles of the 1930s, we are in danger of turning to whatever preacher promises help. And whatever politician tells us in slick language that s/he has the answers we seek. Let us not repeat on our own soil the experience of Germany w/ its crowds of Hitler supporters with arms upraised, nor the book burnings, nor the blaming of one group and being willing to turn them in to authorities–to a bad end.

History is not bunk. It is the story of human life, equally revealed in the Old Testament. When God thunders therein about destroying whole groups of people, he means it. And uses human beings to do it. Whether we believe in that God or not, the work describes the depravity and the cruelty of human beings, and often makes God the bad guy. But He is all of us who refuse to learn from history.

History does not move on, it simply repeats its cycle over and over. It takes about 2.5 generations to repeat. Moving on is for when you hit your thumb with a hammer, it is not about disregarding the depravity of humanity. Nor is it about ignoring the warnings against repeating historical tragedies.
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_YJOFCUW4S62AICSGYG562VMHZY Marje

Get your facts straight, then come back and rant. Soros was a kid trying to survive. Your kid could be next, targeted for deportation to a work camp, when fascism takes over this country. The corporations already have control of the voting and the media and buy our officials with campaign contributions aka bribes. It won’t be long til they, little-by-little reveal themselves as the actual rulers.
Soros does good with his money, the Koch brothers, not so much……
Holistic

History does not move on, it simply repeats its cycle over and over. It takes about 2.5 generations to repeat

That maybe true but in these days and ages it would be difficult to find another Hilter. It may not be difficult to find another dictator but another Hitler type would be somewhat unlikely. My point being, I’m tired of hearing about what was as opposed to what is or what could be. I find the idea of still going after WW2 war criminals who are 85-95 years old as despparate. What does is really accomplish?