Bergman's Nazi Past

Abstract

INGMAR BERGMAN'S DEATH, on 29 July 2007, unleashed as might be expected a flood of comments in the Swedish press, in various modes--for example, tributes (En av de tre stora nordiska giganterna inom vaddslitteraturen ar borta: Strindberg, Ibsen och [One of the three great Nordic giants of world literature is gone: Strindberg, Ibsen, and Ingmar Bergman]); recriminations (Jag tror inte vi rikfigt forstatt hur stor han var utomlands [I don't think we've quite understood how great he was abroad]; Det ar bara Sverige vi inte riktigt forstar vidden av hans berommelse och betydelse [It is only in Sweden we don't quite understand the extent of his fame and significance]); high-toned rhetoric (Bergmanlander ar tidlost och allmanmanskligt [The Bergman landscape is timeless and universal]); political promises (Fran regeringens sida ar det emellertid ocksa viktigt att sakerstalla att Ingmar Bergmans konstnarliga arv Forvaltas och kan ge inspiration till morgondagens publik och framtidens utovare inom film- och scenkonst [The government must ensure that Ingmar Bergman's artistic legacy is well preserved so it can inspire future generations of viewers and artists in cinema and theater]--from the prime minister and his minister of culture). (1) There were two discordant notes in this orgy of nostalgic loss. One was from the author and journalist Cordelia Edvardson, the long-time foreign correspondent in Israel for the Swedish daily Svenska Dagbladet, who marveled not at the fact that in his autobiography Bergman had confessed that he cried when he heard that Hitler was dead, but at his explanation that he long ago had forgiven himself for this sin of his youth (his Nazisympathies). Bergman, she says, seems to have gotten the notion of guilt and forgiveness all wrong. Den som lat sig forforas av en ideologi som stamplar en viss sorts manniskor som Untermenschen' har inte ratt att forlata sig sjalv. Der ar offren som, fall de kanner for der, kan utdela forlatelsen (Edvardson) [the one who is seduced by an ideology which brands some human beings as 'Untermenschen' has no right to forgive himself. It is the victims who, if they so wish, can offer forgiveness]. The second note came from the journalist and popular historian Maria-Pia Boethius, who accused the Swedish cultural milieu of stupendous cowardice in producing reams of newspaper copy about Bergman's life, his films, his women, his idiosyncrasies, his conversations and interviews, nowhere menuoning the fact that i tio ar--fran 1936 till 1946 sympatiserade [han] med nazisterna och med hans egna ord 'alskade Hitler' (Ingmar Bergman beundrade Hitler) [for ten years--from 1936 to 1946, he harbored sympathies for the Nazis and in his own words loved Hitler]. The pictures from the concentration camps he regarded, as late as 1945, as propaganda; he only realized the truth in 1946 and was then crushed with shame and guilt. In the Swedish press it seemed as if this had never happened. Dessa tio ar hans unga liv maste ju ha varit helt avgorande for hans fortsatta liv, tankande och skapande; kanske sjalva grundbulten (Ingmar Bergman beundrade Hitler) [These ten years in his young life must have been quite decisive for his future life, his ideas and creativity, maybe the very foundation]. Yet about this there was a massive silence in the Swedish press, which preferred instead to present him as the masterful icon of the bourgeoisie of the twentieth century. The issue of Bergman's Nazi past, especially as it is presented in his autobiography Laterna Magica, had been nouced by reviewers, like Jan Myrdal and others, in 1987, the year of its publication. In 1999, a further article was published on the subject in Die Welt. Maria-Pia Boethius then added a commentary, Es schwindelt einem, wenn man hinabsieht [One gets dizzy when looking down], in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. (2) Meanwhile Boethius had, in 1991, published a pamphlet, Heder och samvete: Sverige och andra varldskriget [Honor and Conscience: Sweden and the Second World War], in which she castigated both the wartime coalition government and those historians who have written about it. …

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