Book review - Veras journey - my sister the nationalsocialist by Folke Schimanski

 For the past week I have been reading a quite different book from what I usually read on my sparetime. Since I read alot of history in my line of work I seldom read books on social science or popular history, due to that it basically would mean to work in the little spare-time I have. However, I made an exception for the book Veras Resa - min syster nationalsocialisten (Veras Journey - my sister the national socialist) by Folke Schimanski. 

In Swedish political history, you will sooner or later encounter Vera Oredsson (née Schimanski) whom for the past six decades been part of the right wing extremist environment. Furthermore, part of her infamousy comes from her being the first female party leader when she in briefly held leadership over the Nordic Reich Party (swedish Nordiska Rikspartiet), which in reality was chaired by her husband Göran Oredsson. Much can be said about Vera Oredssons life but to keep it short the following summary can work:

Oredsson was born in Berlin in 1928 and spent her childhood growing up in the third reich. During her teens she was active in a youth organization for girls, similar to Hitler-Jugend, and later on trained as a form of nurse that was supposed to aid the establishment of the third reich. Towards the closure of the second world war, she was evacuated to Sweden since her mother held a Swedish pass-port. In Sweden she soon joined what was left of the nationalsocialist movement, spearheaded by Sven-Olov Lindholm who would become her first husband. Lindholms nationalsocialist party did however not survive the years following the second world war and were later on suceeded by the Nordic Reich Party which Vera joined in 1960. Two years after she divorced Lindholm and married the party-leader Göran Oredsson with whom she lead the party until it was finally disbanded in december 2009. 

BDM - Bund Deutscher Mädel, the organization Oredsson were active in during the war. Picture Wikipedia


In contemporary history writing and public discourse Oredsson is often seen as a key-player in the ultra-radical right-wing environment. By her up-bringing in nazi-germany she serves as a direct link between the old nazis and the contemporary right-wing political movements. Therefore, the life of Oredsson clearly motivates a biography which her brother Folke Schimanski have written. In many ways the biography opens for interesting questions, such as why Folke Schimanski have spent his life as a journalist and an outspoken critic of totalitarian regimes, whilst Vera on the contrary strongly believes the ideology of her old homeland. This is partly discussed by Schimanski, but as an academic I think it is hard to review his conclusion - mainly that the nazi-movement gave Oredsson a home away from home during her though upbringing with an authorian father and that this followed by serious bullying in Sweden which strengthened her beliefs. 

The conclusions in the book is therefore perhaps a bit to much out of my field as an historian, but this does not mean that the book does not have strengths, where the main strength is that it puts Oredsson into a larger context. In the book there is little focus on the actual person Vera Oredsson, even though it is around her that the context is presented. Instead it gives a fascinating insight to the millieu that Oredsson was brought in both privately and politically. By this form of contextualisation, it becomes possible to understand how the sourrunding society shaped Oredssons beliefs, but not how they actually shaped her person. 

What perhaps is a bit sad is that Schimanski's book is mostly oriented towards the third reich, and not the period after (around third of the books deals with development after 1945). This is partly due to that he lost contact with his sister and fell out of touch in a rather undramatic way. Still the book have given me some fresh insights to European history, and is well worth a read. 

 

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