Grandmother, Hitler and I (Mormor, Hitler och Jag)

A CONTRADICTORY PICTURE OF NAZISM IN THE SWEDISH UPPER CLASSES

As a child Carl Johan De Geer and his siblings seldom were in the same place or even the same country as their parents. During two years 1949-50 Carl Johan lived with his Grandmother, in a small flat in Stockholm, Sweden. His parent’s marriage was in constant turbulence until it at last disintegrated. His Grandmother gave his life stability. She saved him and she was the only person in his family who realised what children needed. Carl Johan and his siblings considered her to be a good person and they loved and adored her.

His Grandmother was also a Nazi. Not only did she admire Mussolini, who she had had lunch with, but also Hitler. She collected Nazi magazines. On Grandmother’s bridge nights with her friends she did not hide them. She was proud of them. They were laid in a place of honour so that everyone could see them. In 1959 when Carl Johan started Art School his Grandmother gave him all the volumes (1939-45) of Die Kunst in Deutschen Reich.

Carl-Johan did not know that he was ashamed of his Grandmother. He loved her. After the war other Swedish Nazis got rid of the evidence of their beliefs, but not his Grandmother. It was not admiration for Germany that made her a Nazi. She had ties to the British nobility and was quite fond of France. Maybe she was a Nazi because she had fallen for Hitler’s personal charm? She never liked to discuss politics.

A lot of things were so obvious to her that she did not bother talking about them. Religion was given. And her being a Royalist. She loved all kings and queens. Nazism was in that respect given to her, but it did not seem to be a very well thought through thing.

Carl-Johan never understood what went on in her mind and it was not until after she had died that he started to think about it and wonder: I loved my Grandmother. She was a good person. A Nazi cannot possibly be a good person. That is the paradox of this film.