Sverige och kriget

In 2025 it will be 80 years since the end of World War II. What was it like to live in Sweden during the war? How were people affected by everything that happened so close to home? SVT has asked the Swedish people to send in their memories: letters, films, photographs and diaries and several thousand responses were received from all over the country.

DocumentaryWar & Politics

Seasons

1. Episode 1 The outbreak

Air Date: 2025-05-11

Sweden is unprepared when Germany attacks Poland on September 1, 1939. Two months later, the Soviets drop bombs on Helsinki. Swedish volunteers go to the Finnish Winter War and our authorities begin to hunt down and internecine Swedish communists.

2. Episode 2 Surrounded

Air Date: 2025-05-18

On April 9, 1940, the Swedish people wake up to the news that Denmark and Norway have been occupied by Nazi Germany. We are neighbors with evil. Our troops are positioned in the north towards the Finnish border and we are unprotected along the borders with Denmark and Norway

3. Episode 3 The Children of War

Air Date: 2025-05-25

The war is entering its third year. Finland is now also on the side of the Nazi regime against the Soviet Union, in what is called the Continuation War, and tens of thousands of Finnish war children are coming to Sweden. Resistance is growing against the Swedish government's policy of appeasement

4. Episode 4 The Turning Point

Air Date: 2025-06-01

Things are starting to go badly for Germany in the war and the Allies are putting pressure on Sweden. Are we going to continue to allow the German transit trains? Are we going to open the borders to the Danish Jews? Which side does Sweden really want to be on?

5. Episode 5 Peace

Air Date: 2025-06-08

It is the summer when the transit trains stop rolling through Sweden. When we can no longer turn a blind eye to the extermination camps. Germany is losing on front after front, but the deportations of Europe's Jews continue. Tens of thousands of people come from Finland with their livestock as the Nazis retreat and burn villages and houses

Select an episode to start watching