Tiger en svensk? Tystnader om tysk nationalsocialism i svensk press och i Svenska kyrkan 1933–1939

In English This inaugural lecture in the Royal Swedish Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities discusses the silence in Swedish press and in the Church of Sweden on National socialism, 1933-1939. This silence was neither common nor general, it was often concentrated to certain levels or matters. Silence could be compact, while the silent persons could speak on other levels, in other words, often in a theological language instead of a political one. It is being emphasized that the period 1933-1939 has a historical interest of its own, that cannot be reduced to prehistory. History must remain a moral problem, especially Church history. A moralizing history presents simplified solutions, but a moral historiography without moralism does not relativise.