Autor/Autorin
On the evening of 15 June 1946, the gates of the Kremlin open. The Swedish ambassador Staffan Söderblom is granted a rare audience with the Soviet dictator Josef Stalin. The meeting was initiated by Söderblom. The brief conversation focussed on just one topic – the missing Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, who had disappeared in Hungary a year and a half earlier. Söderblom tells Stalin that Wallenberg is probably dead and asks for official confirmation that he is not in the Soviet Union.
Nothing could be more wrong. Raoul Wallenberg is alive and imprisoned near the Kremlin. Just six weeks before the interview, a high-ranking Soviet diplomat had informed Söderblom that Wallenberg was possibly alive and could be in a camp. So why did Söderblom speculate to Stalin that Raoul Wallenberg was most likely dead?
A few days after Söderblom’s conversation with the Soviet dictator, the Swedish government announces plans for a trade credit of one billion Swedish kronor (SEK) to the Soviet Union (equivalent to about 25 million US dollars at the time; 500 million US dollars in today’s value). The Swedish diplomats know that the enormous loan will be highly unpopular with the Swedish public. In his article, researcher and risk analyst PETER AXELSSON examines whether and how Staffan Söderblom’s meeting with Stalin and his disastrous statements to Raoul Wallenberg in June 1946 were connected to the plans for a Swedish-Soviet trade agreement.
Peter Axelsson – works as a risk analyst specialising in Eastern Europe. His publications include a political analysis of the military transports on the passenger ferry M / S Estonia (Kvartal, 26/09/2019). Axelsson holds a Master of Science in Economics and a Swedish Master of Laws.
This article is the second in a three-part series of articles on the fate of the Swedish diplomat, which was initiated by the Raoul Wallenberg Research Initiative 70 (RWI-70 ).
The first article by Bengt Jangfeldt was published on 4 April 2021.