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A Day in the Life: Aryanization Before the Swedish Supreme Court 1941–42

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 August 2018

Anna Wallerman
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Abstract

This article examines the jurisprudence of the Swedish Supreme Court during WW2 in disputes between exiled Jewish business owners and the Nazi-appointed administrators of their companies over the rights to the enterprises’ assets in Sweden. Contrary to assertions in previous scholarship, this article argues that the judgments of the Supreme Court were dictated neither by moral indignation in the face of the treatment of Jews in the Third Reich, nor by political considerations in a time of war. Instead, they were based on principles of private international law that predated, and outlived, the Third Reich. The outcome of the cases hinged upon whether the claim to Swedish assets arose before or after the date when the enterprise was placed under forced administration. If before, the claims of the Jewish owners were in principle successful; if after, they were not. This reasoning was well in line with both previous and subsequent case law on confiscations effected abroad. The article therefore concludes that the Swedish Supreme Court's judgments on Jewish assets in Sweden should be viewed not as outflows of extrajudicial considerations, but rather as failures to recognize political or ethical responsibility.

Type
Original Article
Information
Law and History Review , Volume 36 , Issue 3 , August 2018 , pp. 593 - 617
Copyright
Copyright © the American Society for Legal History, Inc. 2018 

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Footnotes

She expresses her gratitude to Hans Petter Graver and the participants of the Judges During Occupation workshop in Paris (May 4–5, 2017), as well as to Anna Warberg, Ioanna Hadjiyianni, and the anonymous reviewers of this journal for valuable comments on earlier drafts of this article.

References

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2. Ibid., 72. All translations are by the author, unless otherwise specified.

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4. Although a few did so on the occasion of the 1939–40 Winter War between Finland and the Soviet Union; see Modéer, Kjell Å., “Den kulan visste var den tog!” in Festskrift till Per Henrik Lindblom, ed. Andersson, Torbjörn and Lindell, Bengt (Uppsala: Iustus, 2004), 456Google Scholar.

5. According to the Swedish constitution at the time, the judicial power “was definitely not meant to function as a check on the other branches,” had “no political functions whatsoever,” and was “not even completely separated from the executive” (Holmström, Barry, “Sweden,” in The Global Expansion of Judicial Power, ed. Tate, C. Neal and Vallinder, Torbjörn (New York: New York University Press, 1995), 345–68Google Scholar.

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10. Safrian, “Expediting Expropriation and Expulsion,” 396. The full text version of the decree is available on the website of the Austrian National Library, http://alex.onb.ac.at/cgi-content/alex?apm=0&aid=glo&datum=19380004&seite=00000141&zoom=2 (January 30, 2018).

11. Barkai, From Boycott to Annihilation, 138; Bajohr, “Aryanization and Restitution,” 37; and Genschel, Die Verdrängung der Juden, 196. The full text version of the decree is available on the web site of the Austrian National Library, http://alex.onb.ac.at/cgi-content/alex?apm=0&aid=dra&datum=19380004&seite=00001709&zoom=2 (January 30, 2018).

12. Decree of December 3, 1938, Art. 1 § 2(2). Cf. decree of April 13, 1938, § 2(1).

13. “Depositionsförfarandet vid betalning till utlandet,” Svenska Dagbladet, July 21, 1940, 12. More exact information about the number and nature of these cases can be obtained only by examining the records of all Swedish ordinary courts. Such an endeavor would be very time-consuming and has therefore not been possible for this article.

14. The nine cases were Trostli v. Koci and Hanselmann (NJA 1941, 424 I), Tuchmann v. Seitz (Nytt Juridiskt Arkiv [NJA] 1941, 424 II), Stern v. Bodack (NJA 1941, 424 III), Weiss v. Simon (NJA 1941, 424 IV), Wellemin v. Hedbrandh (NJA 1942, 382), Horovitz v. Lehner (NJA 1942, 385), Salomon v. Deutsche Bank (NJA 1942, 389), Böhm v. Czerny (NJA 1942, A 124), and Pemsel v. Altschul (NJA 1942, A 125).

15. Bengtsson, Bertil, “Ändringsdispens och prejudikatsdispens,” in Högsta domsmakten i Sverige under 200 år, ed. Nygren, Rolf (Lund: Institutet för rättshistorisk forskning, 1990), 267–90Google Scholar.

16. Code of Judicial Procedure 1734 as it stood in 1938, Sections 30:5 and 30:13. See further Ernst Kallenberg, De ordinära devolutiva rättsmedlen (Lund: Gleerupska, 1915): 250–77.

17. The justices involved were Axel Afzelius (1885–1955), Gustaf Grefberg (1879–1964), John Alsén (1888–1959), Hugo Ericsson (1893–1964), Gunnar Dahlman (1895–1963), Einar Stenbeck (1881–1949), Algot Bagge (1875–1971), Ragnar Petré (1892–1943), and Per Santesson (1892–1982). Justice Dahlman sat on both benches.

18. Afzelius (father) and Grefberg (uncle).

19. Afzelius was the son of a Conservative MP, Grefberg belonged to the Conservative student association Heimdal (Alfred Sprichhorn, “Gustaf E Grefberg,” Svenskt biografiskt lexikon, https://sok.riksarkivet.se/sbl/artikel/13171 [February 3, 2018]), and Bagge, in his obituary (Svenska Dagbladet, May 6, 1971, 6), was said to belong to Conservative and Liberal circles. His brother Gösta Bagge was a Conservative politician and served as minister of ecclesiastical affairs in the wartime national unity government, where he was one of the most vocal advocates for maintaining good relations with Germany, albeit for geopolitical rather than ideological reasons (Johansson, Alf W., Den nazistiska utmaningen, 6 ed. [Stockholm: Prisma, 2006], 222Google Scholar).

20. Ekeberg, Birger, “Einar Stenbeck” (obituary), Svensk Juristtidning 34 (1949): 401–4Google Scholar.

21. Nial, Håkan, “Algot Bagge 80 år,” Svensk Juristtidning 40 (1955): 445–46Google Scholar; and Petrén, Sture, “Algot Bagge” (obituary), Svensk Juristtidning 56 (1971): 599–600Google Scholar.

22. Three days later, the newspaper Svenska Dagbladet reported on the first instance judgment in the case Tuchmann v. Seitz, remarking that it was “reportedly the first of its kind in the country” (“Maltprocessen i Borås gick emot tyska myndigheterna,” February 3, 1939, 16). A third judgment was delivered on February 7 by the district court in Gothenburg (“Avdömd rättstvist från Sudet-områdets införlivande,” Svenska Dagbladet, February 8, 1939, 15), but that case did not reach the Supreme Court.

23. A newspaper report in 1934, commenting on his actions as counsel in an unrelated matter, stated that Koci had emigrated to Sweden after World War I, been educated in Sweden, and married a Swedish woman “according to Protestant custom” (“Interpellation i skolstriden,” Svenska Dagbladet, February 15, 1934, 5). The background and extent of his involvement in the Aryanization cases—which stretched beyond that to which he was himself a party (see note 38)—remains obscure.

24. Supreme Court memorandum, 6.

25. This was hardly a coincidence. On the Deutsche Bank's involvement in Nazi economics at a more systemic level, see inter alia James, Harold, The Deutsche Bank and the Nazi Economic War Against the Jews (Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press 2001)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Simpson, Christopher, ed., War Crimes of the Deutsche Bank and the Dresdner Bank: Office of Military Government (U.S.) Reports (New York: Holmes & Meier Publishers 2002)Google Scholar.

26. Dennemark, Sigurd, “Om verkan här i landet av viss utländsk speciallagstiftning,” Svensk Juristtidning 35 (1950): 47–48Google Scholar. See further text at note 59.

27. Svensk författningssamling (SFS) 1934:464. Grönwall, Tage, “‘Kommissarisk förvaltning’ och därmed besläktade förvaltnings-former enligt tysk rätt,” Svensk Juristtidning 26 (1941): 956Google Scholar.

28. Royal Order of August 28, 1934, §§ 5–6.

29. Lemkin, Raphaël, Valutareglering och clearing (Stockholm: Norstedts, 1941), 63–64Google Scholar.

30. Supreme Court memorandum in Weiss v. Simon, 19.

31. For a contemporary analysis of this development and the importance of exchange controls on the Nazi economy see Schweitzer, Arthur, “The Role of Foreign Trade in the Nazi War Economy,” Journal of Political Economy 51 (1943): 322–37CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ellis, Howard S., “Exchange Control in Germany,” Quarterly Journal of Economics 54, part II (1940): 1–159CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

32. Submission by the claimants in Böhm v. Czerny, received by the Supreme Court (Nedre justitierevisionen) on September 6, 1941, 3.

33. Submission by the defendant in Böhm v. Czerny, received by the Supreme Court (Nedre justitierevisionen) on October 22, 1941, 2–3.

34. See judgments in Stern v. Bodack and Böhm v. Czerny.

35. Barkai, From Boycott to Annihilation, 99–101, 138. Like the clearing measures, the “flight tax” had originally been imposed by the Weimar regime to stabilize the economy, but was subsequently repurposed by the Nazi regime to form part of the plunder of Jewish assets.

36. Dennemark, “Om verkan här i landet,” 49, refers vaguely to the alleged existence of such successful negotiations. Cf. also Gregor Spuhler, Ursina Jud, Peter Melichar, and Daniel Wildmann, ‘Ariserungen’ in Österreich und ihre Bezüge zur Schweiz (Zurich: Chronos 2002), 160.

37. See Schweitzer, “The Role of Foreign Trade,” 336.

38. The letter was dated June 23, 1941 and, despite making explicit reference to the Weiss case, handed in to the Supreme Court on October 22 of that same year by the defendant in Böhm v. Czerny.

39. Spuhler et al., ‘Arisierungen’ in Österreich, 160.

40. Nordlund, Sven, “‘Tyskarna själva gör ju ingen hemlighet av detta.’ Sverige och ariseringen av tyskägda företag och dotterbolag,” Historisk tidskrift 125 (2005): 634–37Google Scholar; Åmark, Klas, Att bo granne med ondskan: Sveriges förhållande till nazismen, Nazityskland och Förintelsen, revised ed. (Stockholm: Bonniers 2016), 191–92Google Scholar.

41. Contemporary sources used the term ordre public either in a broad sense, encompassing public law in general (see in particular Malmar, Folke, “Svensk rättspraxis. Internationell privaträtt 1931–1935,” Svensk Juristtidning 22 (1937): 375Google Scholar, or in a narrower sense including only fundamental rules. Here the term is used exlusively in the narrower, more modern sense.

42. Nordlund, “Tyskarna själva,” 637.

43. Ibid., 638, 640. Cf. however ibid. 637, where Nordlund states that “none of the cases offers proof that the courts reacted to the German Aryanization measures from other than legal perspectives.”

44. Bergier, Jean-François, Bartoszewski, Wladyslaw, Friedländer, Saul, James, Harold, Junz, Helen B., Kreis, Georg, Morton, Sybil, Picard, Jacques, Tanner, Jakob, Thürer, Daniel, and Voyame, Joseph, Switzerland, National Socialism and the Second World War, Final Report of the Independent Commission of Experts Switzerland—Second World War (Zurich: Pendo, 2002): 409–12Google Scholar; Spuhler et al., “Arisierungen” in Österreich, 158–59.

45. Habicht, Max, “The Application of Soviet Laws and the Exception of Public Order,” American Journal of International Law 21 (1927): 250–3CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Schmidt, Folke, “Asylrätt för flyktingars förmögenhet,” Svensk Juristtidning 29 (1944): 612–15Google Scholar.

46. E.g., Malmar, “Svensk rättspraxis,” 375; Grönwall, Tage, “Utländska skiljedomars giltighet i Sverige,” Svensk Juristtidning 24 (1939): 373Google Scholar.

47. Otto Erich Heynau v. Böhmische Unionbank (Bundesgerichtsentscheid [BGE] 68 II 377 E. 3, 381), quoted from Bergier, Bartoszewski, Friedländer, et al., Switzerland, National Socialism, 412 (translated there).

48. Most vehemently by Dennemark, “Om verkan här i landet,” 46. See also Schmidt, “Asylrätt,” 615; and Gihl, Torsten, “Staters immunitet vid främmande domstolar: Anteckningar kring ett rättsfall,” Svensk Juristtidning 29 (1944): 264–65Google Scholar.

49. Dennemark, “Om verkan här i landet,” 46–47. Similarly Schmidt, “Asylrätt,” 615. Cf. however Hjerner, Lars A. E., Främmande valutalag och internationell privaträtt: Studier i de främmande offentligrättsliga lagarnas tillämplighet (Stockholm: Stockholm University, 1956), 470–71Google Scholar, who considered the position “unfortunate” and noted that the fear of foreign retribution appeared exaggerated.

50. Malmar, “Svensk rättspraxis,” 375; and Grönwall, “Kommissarisk förvaltning,” 955.

51. Grönwall, “Kommissarisk förvaltning,” 953.

52. See the Supreme Court's memoranda in cases Trostli v. Koci and Hanselmann, Stern v. Bodack, Weiss v. Simon, and Pemsel v. Altschul, 25, 5, 5, and 14 respectively.

53. See Supreme Court judgments in cases Forsikringsaktieselskapet Norske Atlas v. Sundén-Cullberg (NJA 1929, 471), Banque Russe du Commerce et de l'Industrie v. Aktiebolaget Göteborgs bank (NJA 1931, 351), Ruditzky v. Aktiebolaget svenska handelsbanken (NJA 1932, 217), Münchener Rückversicherungs-Gesellschaft Aktiengesellschaft v. Brand- och livförsäkringsaktiebolaget Skåne (NJA 1932, 225) and Amilakvari et al v. Stockholms enskilda bank (NJA 1938, 567). Cf. also the later ruling in Scheel v. Aktiebolaget Oljecentralen i likvidation (NJA 1947, 705) concerning nationalization in Estonia.

54. Naturally, there were some variations caused by the particular circumstances of each case. The types of assets concerned varied among the cases, as did the way in which the Nazi administrators had attempted to gain control over them and that in which the original proprietors had (sought to) dispose of them. For example, in abovementioned Salomon v. Deutsche Bank, the Supreme Court appears to have considered it of some importance that not only were the assets located in Sweden, but also that the contract had been concluded there (Nial, Håkan, Internationell förmögenhetsrätt [Stockholm: Norstedts 1944], 135–36Google Scholar, Michaeli, Wilhelm, Internationales Privatrecht [Stockholm: Nordiska bokhandeln 1948], 81Google Scholar).

55. Michaeli, Internationales Privatrecht, 78–79, Gihl, “Staters immunitet,” 264–65; and Jägerskiöld, Stig, “‘Förmögenhetsrättslig asylrätt’?” Svensk Juristtidning 30 (1945): 90Google Scholar. See also Malmar, “Svensk rättspraxis,” 374–75.

56. Bagge, Algot, “Den amerikanska guldklausullagstiftningens internationella verkningar,” Tidsskrift for rettsvitenskap 50 (1937): 158–210Google Scholar.

57. Hjerner, Främmande valutalag, 380–85; and Nial, Internationell förmögenhetsrätt, 123. See also Jägerskiöld, “‘Förmögenhetsrättslig asylrätt’?” 90; and Dennemark, “Om verkan här i landet,” 46–47.

58. Cf. in particular Dennemark, “Om verkan här i landet,” 46.

59. Ibid., 47; Nial, Internationell förmögenhetsrätt, 135.

60. See most explicitly Schmidt, “Asylrätt,” 614.

61. Case Hopf Products Ltd v. Paul Hopf (NJA 1944, 483).

62. See Schmidt, “Asylrätt,” 623–24; and Gihl, “Staters immunitet,” 259.

63. See Bogdan, Michael, Svensk internationell privat-och processrätt, 8th ed. (Stockholm: Norstedts, 2014), 78–79Google Scholar, 113, 150, 278 (cf. however ibid., 311 in fn. 72, where the author refers to inter alia Horovitz v. Lehner, but remarks that the cases cited are all “in one way or another very peculiar”); and Hellner, Michael, Internationell konkurrensrätt: Om främmande konkurrensrätts tillämplighet i svensk domstol (Uppsala: Iustus, 2000), 227–30Google Scholar, 243.

64. See, for example, the Court of Justice of the European Union, case C-402/05 P and C-415/05 P Kadi and Al Barakaat v. Council and Commission, ECLI:EU:C:2008:461; and the European Court of Human Rights, application no. 5809/08 Al-Dulimi and Montana Management Inc v. Switzerland, judgment of June 21, 2016, and further inter alia Cameron, Iain, “European Union Anti-Terrorist Blacklisting,” Human Rights Law Review 3 (2003): 225–56CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Guild, Elspeth, “The Uses and Abuses of Counter-Terrorism Policies in Europe: The Case of the ‘Terrorist Lists,’” Journal of Common Market Studies 46 (2008): 173–93CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

65. Schmidt, “Asylrätt.”

66. Ibid., 620.

67. Schmidt, Folke, “Asylrätten för flyktingars förmögenhet,” Svensk Juristtidning 30 (1945): 391Google Scholar.

68. Jägerskiöld, “‘Förmögenhetsrättslig asylrätt’?”

69. Schmidt, “Asylrätt,” 620.

70. Ibid., 623.

71. Ibid., 620–21.

72. Bogdan, Svensk internationell privat-och processrätt, 79.

73. Cf. however Jägerskiöld, “‘Förmögenhetsrättslig asylrätt’?” 89 fn. 1, who claims that the asylum analogy was used in a legal memorandum lodged with the courts as early as the winter 1941/42 in case Application by Dampskipsinteressentskapet Garonne (NJA 1942, 65). The Supreme Court bench in that case included justices Dahlman and Petré, who would subsequently participate in the deliberations in the 1942 Aryanization cases. However, even this memorandum could not have informed the 1941 Aryanization judgments.

74. Public inquiry Statens offentliga utredningar (SOU) 1999:20, Sverige och judarnas tillgångar (Stockholm: Fritzes 1999), 73–84.

75. SOU 1999:20, 76–80.

76. Ibid., 82–83.

77. Royal Letter to the Clearing Board, dated November 25, 1938 (SFS 1938:662).

78. See the literature review in Jörgen Westerstråhle, “Frågan om domstolarnas judiciella lagprövningsrätt i Sverige,” attachment 3 in SOU 1941:20, 114–28, and in modern scholarship Åhman, Karin, Normprövning: Domstols kontroll av svensk lags förenlighet med regeringsformen och europarätten 2000-2010 (Stockholm: Norstedts juridik, 2011), 37Google Scholar; Sunnqvist, Martin, Konstitutionellt kritiskt dömande: förändringen av nordiska domares attityder under två sekel (Stockholm: Jure, 2014), 284Google Scholar. The matter was however still debated in the decade following World War II; see Undén, Östen, “Några ord om domstolskontroll över lagars grundlagsenlighet,” Svensk Juristtidning 41 (1956): 260Google Scholar, with answer by Petrén, Gustaf, “Domstols lagprövningsrätt,” Svensk Juristtidning 41 (1956): 500Google Scholar.

79. NJA 1942, 65.

80. Stridbeck, Ulf, “Kvarstadsbåtarna—ett politiskt drama på rättens scen,” Kritisk Juss 21 (1995): 147–61Google Scholar.

81. Ibid., 156.

82. Johansson, Den nazistiska utmaningen, 217–36.

83. Svenska Dagbladet, November 11, 1938, 3.

84. Ernst Leche, “Tysk lagstiftning under kabinettet Hitler,” Svensk Juristtidning 18, 1933: 364–70.

85. T.G., “Blodets lag,” Svensk Juristtidning 20 (1935): 598–99.

86. E.L., “Tysklands Reichsgericht ang. äktenskapsskillnad t. f. av rasolikhet,” Svensk Juristtidning 20 (1935): 94–96Google Scholar; G–ll, “Förbudet mot äktenskap mellan judar och arier,” Svensk Juristtidning 21 (1936): 131–32Google Scholar; and Grönwall, Tage, “Stortysk äktenskapsrätt,” Svensk Juristtidning 23 (1938): 604–19Google Scholar.

87. “Brott och straff,” Svensk Juristtidning 23 (1938): 731Google Scholar; “Repressalier mot judarna i Tyskland,” Svensk Juristtidning 24 (1939): 91–92Google Scholar.

88. Grönwall, “Kommissarisk förvaltning.”

89. I.S., “Tyska rättsvetenskapsmän mot judendomen,” Svensk Juristtidning 21 (1936): 652–53Google Scholar; Kinberg, Olof, “Första internationella kriminologiska kongressen,” Svensk Juristtidning 23 (1938): 719–21Google Scholar.

90. This observation is in line with the Fraser's conclusions regarding the scholarly discussion in the Anglo-American world (Fraser, Law after Auschwitz, 84–97).

91. Kinberg, “Första internationella kriminologiska kongressen,” 720.

92. See notes 68–71.

93. Spuhler et al., ‘Arisierungen’ in Österreich, 154; Bergier et al., Switzerland, National Socialism, 412, 460–61.

94. Graver, Judges Against Justice, 74–89.

95. Fraser, Law after Auschwitz, 84–107.

96. Modéer, Kjell Å., Det förpliktande minnet: Juridiska fakulteten i Lund 1666–2016 (Stockholm: Santérus 2017), 272–73Google Scholar. The pressure to Aryanize Swedish enterprises is further discussed by Nordlund, Sven, “Alkibiades eller Akilles? Ariseringen i Sverige och reaktionerna på detta,” Historisk tidskrift 125 (2005): 575–607Google Scholar.