Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
The Swedish government saw a strong naval defense against a possible Soviet invasion as a high priority during World War II, and like with the rest of Sweden's military the Royal Navy lived through an enormous enhancement, ending up as the second-strongest naval power of the Baltic Sea after the Soviet Union.
Sweden maintained its policy of neutrality during World War II.When the war began on 1 September 1939, the fate of Sweden was unclear. But by a combination of its geopolitical location in the Scandinavian Peninsula, realpolitik maneuvering during an unpredictable course of events, and a dedicated military build-up after 1942, Sweden kept its official neutrality status throughout the war.
During 2013 several Russian Air Force exercises over the Baltic Sea aimed at Swedish military targets have made the future of the Swedish Armed Forces a hot topic and several political parties now want to increase defence funding. [48] [49] [50] In August 2019, the government announced a bank tax to fund the military spending. [51]
The Act increased the yearly budget of the Swedish Armed Forces from 118 million SEK to 148 million, roughly 1.5% of the Swedish GDP. [1] The budget of the Swedish Air Force received the largest increase in funding, bumping its previous allowance of 11 million crowns to 28 million.
The actual military budget from 1936 to 1939 increased many times over. In 1936, military spending was $37,000,000; 1937, $50,000,000; 1938, $58,575,000; and in 1939 it was at $322,325,000. After the war began, military spending peaked in 1942 at $527,575,000 in one year alone.
The Oxford companion to world war II (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995) Elting, John R. Battles for Scandinavia (Time-Life Books 1981) Haarr, Geirr. The Gathering Storm: Naval War in Northern Europe, September 1939 to April 1940 (2013) Haarr, Geirr. German Invasion of Norway: April 1940 (vol 1 2012); The Battle for Norway, April-June ...
Throughout World War II, Sweden held the largest infantry army of the Nordic countries with more than 1,000,000 soldiers. When the war broke out in 1939, Sweden had one armoured division consisting of merely 13 light tanks, only 3 of which were considered to be modern (the remaining 10 had been in service since the 1920s).
Storlien, Sweden, 1940, German transit traffic Storlien, Sweden, 1940, German transit traffic, alpine riflemen. The matter of German troop transfer through Finland and Sweden during World War II was one of the more controversial aspects of modern Nordic history beside Finland's co-belligerence with Nazi Germany in the Continuation War, and the export of Swedish iron ore during World War II.