Sweden: Paradise on Earth?

[Chemical Ollie]

Originally posted by monolith94
Anyone here ever seen Lilya 4-Ever?

Trouble in paradise.

I haven't seen the movie, but isn't it mostly about social problems in Russia, and sex trafficing to the west, with Sweden as example (because the director is Swedish). While we have some problems with trafficing, it's much more widespread in Germany and Holland, where brothels are legal.

[Alexander's Horse]

Originally posted by Lawrence of Arabia
yeah, but its not their fault. you too would want to end your life if you spent two thirds of it shoveling snow in the dark.

I have been to Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland. They are clearly warmth deprived and a bit crazy as a result. We in Australia should send them some sunshine in return for mobile phones, cod and mountains.

[Chemical Ollie]

Originally posted by Berzerker

Scandinavia suffered very little from WWII compared with other countries in Europe. That created an opportunity for Scandinavian countries to get rich off rebuilding the war torn countries while producing welfare states.

Hearing how some podunk country can spend more on social welfare because it has capitalists to protect it reminds me of Karl Marx living off his capitalist father while criticising capitalism. **** em!

How is "not being damaged by war" equal to "freeriding on capitalists"? When did your army become capitalist, anyway? Isn't it payed by taxes, just like ours?

Our industry is mostly in private ownership (except for Norway), so we are capitalists too.

[Alexander's Horse]

weeellll.... you did provide Hitler with iron ore and other essential war materials.

[Chemical Ollie]

Originally posted by Alexander's Horse
weeellll.... you did provide Hitler with iron ore and other essential war materials.

Nothing wrong with some extra income for a capitalist. It looked like they would win, so the choice was to play along or die.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Oerdin
Sweden is able to do well by sacrificing current and future economic growth.

The free marketters have been saying that for 70 years. When is it going to happen?

[Agathon]

What's your point? Mine is that combined with a final RAF sortie, and properly utilizing the cover of darkness, the RN could survive long enough to seriously disrupt the invasion.

Hence my caveat that the Luftwaffe would have to have complete air superiority over south-eastern England. The Brits knew that if the RAF was beaten, they were done for.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Agathon

What's your point? Mine is that combined with a final RAF sortie, and properly utilizing the cover of darkness, the RN could survive long enough to seriously disrupt the invasion.

Hence my caveat that the Luftwaffe would have to have complete air superiority over south-eastern England. The Brits knew that if the RAF was beaten, they were done for.

They wouldn't have to have complete air superiority. They never had it during the BoB, and were able to send swarms of bombers into England anyway. With the Soviets out o the war, you have all of Germany's bombers available to pound the British fleet when it sailed into the Channel. Even with all of Britain's fighters in the air, the RN is gonna get sunk. Once that's gone, the UK would probably negotiate as defeat at that point is inevitable.

[Last Conformist]

The Finns were just itching to invade Sweden because Finns just loved Hitler?

No, but we 'd ended up on the opposite side from the Finns.

As for what Sweden should have done, the Finns withstood at least 2 Russian invasions but Sweden could do nothing in conjunction with the allies even after Barbarosa made Germany vulnerable? I imagine the allies would have invaded mainland Europe sooner if they could get the Scandinavians to attack Germany from the north.

1) Overlord was timed by weather tides. It could really only have come sooner if it had got going in '43.

2) Had Sweden declared war in '42 or '43, the relevant question had been whether the Germans would have succeed in taking us out in a blitzkrieg attack, or whether prolonged fighting would take place on Swedish soil. In the later case, the need for German reinforcements would have weakened the Eastern Front, but it's beyond belief it would have allowed the Anglo-Americans to carry out the invasion of France a whole year early.

You apparently also fail to understand that the attack on the SU increased Hitler's popularity in Sweden, making entering war against him harder to sell politically.

[Alexander's Horse]

Hence my caveat that the Luftwaffe would have to have complete air superiority over south-eastern England. The Brits knew that if the RAF was beaten, they were done for.

If you wargame this the Krauts can take Britain easily even without defeating the RAF or the Royal navy. But Prussians don't like getting their feet wet.

Hitler was surprised by the French collapse and expected Britain to make peace so he dithered over the invasion until it was too late in the year to launch. Then he turned his attention to Russia believing it would be an easy victory.

Britain was virtually defenceless on land in 1940. A paratroop assault to seize a port close to Calais followed by a quick insertion of troops by boat and ship under Luftwaffe air cover is quite feasible in July or August 1940. Once the Germans had a foothold neither the RAF nor the Royal Navy could have stopped them from building it up, though they could have caused losses, possibly serious losses, which Hitler was not prepared to accept.

The journey by barge, boat or ship from the Calais area to the British channel ports is only 2 or 3 hours. Dunkirk showed that air attack was ineffective in stopping troop movements across the channel.

In 1940 however Hitler was still looking for easy victories and passed up the opportunity to finish off Britain.

One factor was poor German intelligence about how strong British defences were but decisive was probably the aversion of the German Army to operating over the water. The German Army did not want to go into seaborne ops they had no experience in or tradition for.

The Battle of Britain was a decisive battle in WWII but it is quite clear the German side did not appreciate its true significance. Their invasion preparations were halfhearted and neither Hitler nor Goering paid much attention to the battle until in the case of the latter he began to see his own prestige and that of the Luftwaffe as being at stake.

Hitler pretty much ignored the whole thing and was already engrossed in planning for the attack on Russia before the Battle of Britain concluded. The German side did not even see the air battle as a loss. Hitler shrugged off the cancellation of the invasion without disappointment. He seemed rather pleased to move on to Russia.

[Lawrence of Arabia]

My question to you is what would hitler have done if swiss bankers hadn't taken all their looted gold and assets?