In short
Sweden’s Cold War “stay-behind” resistance plan (Metro), built for a possible Soviet invasion. The episode describes anticipated invasion tactics (infiltration, sabotage, murders by Spetsnaz/Russian “illegals,” then land invasion), 1980s submarine incursions as rehearsals, and the network’s peacetime preparation: radios, dead drops, scouting escape routes, and limited sabotage while avoiding civilian reprisals.
Guest backgrounds
Historian Johan Wenström, author of The Stay Behind, Sweden’s Cold War Guardians, who argues Sweden’s neutrality was partly “for show” and that Sweden collaborated secretly with Western allies.
Key claims
The organization was set up in 1949 after Poland’s stolen elections (1947), the Prague coup (1948), and Stalin’s offer to Finland. It cooperated with MI6/CIA mainly for planning and radio hardware, but remained nationally independent. Leadership would exfiltrate to Britain with the royal family/government in exile; radio contact would maintain a chain of command under international law. It was civilian-led, with regional commanders and two-person cells (radio operator/organizer), plus a small national leadership.
Notable examples
ammunition delivered via a train-station box; “Sunday walks” used as reconnaissance cover; an “elk migration” survey cover story for photographing bridges/masts; a funeral where unidentified men attended; operatives carried cyanide capsules to prevent torture-driven betrayal.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VOSweden's Cold War Context
1:04 to 2:26
Explore Sweden's secret preparations against a Soviet invasion.
“We had throughout the 1980s, at least, regular submarine incursions in the Swedish archipelagos, which were, in fact, rehearsals for an attack on Sweden.”
The Stay-Behind Organization
2:26 to 3:21
Discover the clandestine resistance movement in Sweden during the Cold War.
“Sweden during the Cold War is often perceived as this vaguely left-wing pacifist country that couldn't really decide between NATO and the Soviet Union.”
Soviet Invasion Scenarios
3:21 to 4:48
Analyze potential Soviet invasion scenarios and Sweden's response.
“So it was very much a sort of realist, Western-aligned country well before its accession to NATO in 2024.”
Soviet Tactics and Swedish Defense
4:48 to 6:15
Learn about Soviet tactics and Sweden's counter-strategies during the Cold War.
“In one of my rare Swedish episodes, I did interview a Vigan pilot, and he did mention the fear of assassination of the fighter and bomber pilots by illegals or spetsnats as a precursor to an invasion.”
Formation of Stay-Behind Networks
6:15 to 8:07
Understand the establishment and purpose of stay-behind networks in Sweden.
“So the pilots were very much in the crosshairs of the Soviet Union during the Cold War.”
Independence of the Swedish Organization
8:07 to 12:35
Examine the independence of Sweden's resistance organization from foreign powers.
“study of the Swedish organization, the Swedish Stay Behind organization.”
Structure of the Resistance Movement
12:35 to 14:00
Explore the organizational structure of the Swedish stay-behind movement.
“And one of the prime movers behind setting up the resistance organisation is the independent Swedish state and the nation's soul to keep the nation's soul going under Soviet occupation.”
The Organization of Sweden's Stay-Behind Movement
14:00 to 23:00
Learn how the secret stay-behind organization in Sweden was structured and operated.
“I just want to talk about the organisation of the operation.”
Covert Operations and the Resistance's Logistics
24:10 to 28:00
Explore how the stay-behind organization managed logistics and weapon supplies without detection.
“Now, as far as the general Swedish public are concerned, they have no idea this organization exists.”
Sweden's Resistance Training and Strategies
28:00 to 43:24
Learn about Sweden's preparations and training for underground resistance against potential Soviet invasions.
“So you have to have many different options.”
Show all 12 chapters
The Untold Story of Sweden's Stay-Behind Operatives
43:34 to 46:20
Explore the sacrifices and motivations behind Sweden's secret Cold War resistance plan.
“The must-see galactic adventure comes home on Disney+.”
The Untold Story of Sweden's Stay-Behind Operatives
46:59 to 48:02
Explore the sacrifices and motivations behind Sweden's secret Cold War resistance plan.
“Star Wars The Mandalorian and Grogu is now streaming on Disney+.”
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:00Johan Wennström:Welcome to Cold War Conversations, the home of real stories of the Cold War. The Colonel's cooked up a new$10 bucket of the day just for you. Monday, 10 wings for$10. Tuesday, 8-piece fried chicken for$10. Wednesday, 8 tenders for$10. Thursday, 10 wings for$10. Friday, 24 nuggets for... Ooh, you guessed it, didn't you? $10! The$10 bucket of the day deal.
0:28Heard on Cold War Conversations:Every weekday, only at KFC, it's finger licking good. Prices and participation variable. Supplies last. Not available on third-party ordering platforms. Tax extra.
0:35Johan Wennström:This episode is brought to you by ChatGPT. Hey, it's Bill Simmons from the Bill Simmons Podcast. Have you guys heard about ChatGPT work? It's the new way to use ChatGPT for bigger multi-step projects. And when you need more than just answers, give ChatGPT work access to your apps and files, and it can create real work documents like spreadsheets, slides, and structured reports. Get started at chatgpt.com by selecting work mode,
1:03Heard on Cold War Conversations:available on Plus and Pro plans. We had throughout the 1980s, at least, regular submarine incursions in the Swedish archipelagos, which were, in fact, rehearsals for an attack on Sweden.
1:23Johan Wennström:For decades, ordinary Swedes secretly prepared for the day Soviet forces might occupy their country. Farmers, factory workers, gamekeepers and travelling salesmen were recruited into a clandestine resistance network, trained to operate radios, use dead drops, scout escape routes and if necessary sabotage an invading army. Historian Johan Venström joins me to reveal the extraordinary story behind Sweden's stay-behind organisation. He explains why officially neutral Sweden quietly collaborated with MI6, the CIA and NATO, how the organisation preserved its secrecy and why the royal family and government might have fled to Britain.
2:07Johan Wennström:It's a gripping account of patriotism, secrecy, sacrifice and of hundreds of civilian volunteers who carried the burden of a war that thankfully never came to Sweden. I'm delighted to welcome Johan Wenström to our Cold War conversation.
2:26Heard on Cold War Conversations:Sweden during the Cold War is often perceived as this vaguely left-wing pacifist country that couldn't really decide between NATO and the Soviet Union. But in fact, we abstain from joining NATO in 1949 in order to protect our neighbour Finland from complete Soviet annexation. And instead, we collaborated in secret with the NATO powers. And the image of Sweden as this sort of third-way country was very much for show in order to protect our national interests and our national security and to protect this clandestine collaboration with NATO. And we also set up this clandestine resistance movement that I'm detailing in The Stay Behinds.
3:21Heard on Cold War Conversations:So it was very much a sort of realist, Western-aligned country well before its accession to NATO in 2024.
3:32Johan Wennström:And one of the many sections I enjoyed in the book is early on in the book, You set the scene with a scenario of what a Soviet invasion of Sweden might have looked like. Could you describe that scenario?
3:49Heard on Cold War Conversations:Yes. It's easy to think that a clandestine resistance organisation set up to fight a Soviet occupation, an expression of paranoia. But in fact, Sweden was very much exposed to the Soviet invasion threat throughout the Cold War, but certainly in the 50s and 60s. In the late 70s, after the invasion of Czechoslovakia and Afghanistan, the invasion scenario that was anticipated in Sweden looked very much like those invasions and also what we saw in Ukraine in February 2022, with a preceding wave of infiltration and sabotage and murders by Spetsnaz forces and Russian illegals, followed by a full-on land invasion.
4:50Heard on Cold War Conversations:and indeed we had throughout the 1980s at least regular submarine incursions in the Swedish archipelagos which were in fact rehearsals for an attack on Sweden and those in the know some of whom I interview in the book certainly anticipated this happening as late as the 1980s And one of them says in the book that we were simply saved by the bell, saved by the sudden end of the Cold War without the worst thing having happened.
5:26Johan Wennström:In one of my rare Swedish episodes, I did interview a Vigan pilot, and he did mention the fear of assassination of the fighter and bomber pilots by illegals or spetsnats as a precursor to an invasion. Definitely.
5:47Heard on Cold War Conversations:And I interview one of those vegan pilots in the book. The Soviets, they had to put our air force out of play, basically. They had to not only destroy runways and landing sites, but also, in fact, get rid of pilots and other high up military officers who were in a position to prevent or delay a Soviet invasion. So the pilots were very much in the crosshairs of the Soviet Union during the Cold War.
6:22Johan Wennström:With the stay-behinds, what was the intentions behind that?
6:29Heard on Cold War Conversations:The lesson that the Soviet Union drew from the Second World War was to never again fight a war on its own territory. So the Soviet Union wanted to move the entire scenario westwards of Norway to avoid the kind of catastrophic losses in their home territory that they experienced during the war. The lesson that the Western societies drew from the war and from German occupation during the war was that you have to prepare a resistance movement already in peacetime. You can't spend two or three years on improvising a resistance movement from scratch, which was the case in occupied France and Denmark and Norway and indeed Czechoslovakia.
7:25Heard on Cold War Conversations:When Sweden and other Western nations switched enemy after 1945 from Germany to the Soviet Union, one of the first things they did was to establish clandestine resistance networks. the sort of catch-all phrase for this phenomenon is stay behind but every organization was under national command they had a national designation the name was never stay behind with a capital s which makes one you know associates to a spectra from the james bond films and my book is is a case study of the Swedish organization, the Swedish Stay Behind organization. But it is actually the first qualified book to appear in English on the entire Stay Behind phenomenon.
8:24Heard on Cold War Conversations:And the Swedish organization was set up in 1949. After the stolen elections in Poland in 1947, the Prague coup in 1948, and the offer from Stalin to Finland only hours after the Prague coup to join in a friendship and security pact with the Soviet Union. So the political and military establishment in Sweden at the time really anticipated that Sweden could be next in line for political subjugation or even invasion, because of the Soviet strategy of moving the entire war scenario westwards, Sweden could very well have been hit on the first day in a wider confrontation between the Soviet Union and NATO.
9:19Heard on Cold War Conversations:So it was rightly perceived, I think, that Sweden, like other Western European countries facing the global threat of Soviet expansionism should establish its own resistance organisation. And in the Swedish case, it was designated Metro.
9:41Johan Wennström:Which is rather an unimaginative name for an underground organisation.
9:48Heard on Cold War Conversations:Really? I think it's rather suitable. I think of subways and other underground structures, It's the Metro in Paris.
9:57Johan Wennström:Yeah, but I'm thinking a code name is supposed to hide what this operation is about, whereas that sort of says it in capital letters. But anyway.
10:08Heard on Cold War Conversations:It seems to have fallen by the wayside after some decades. In the later iterations of this resistance organization, it had no name or was referred to merely as the resistance movement.
10:25Johan Wennström:You mentioned earlier secret collaboration with NATO. Did the Swedes receive international training from CIA or MI6?
10:35Heard on Cold War Conversations:I would know that Sweden, in fact, had a similar initiative during the Second World War. It was something called the Homeland Stewardship Entity, and it was established already in 1940. And some of the people who were involved with that initiative to create at least a primitive structure for a resistance movement against German occupiers went on to become very central figures in the Swedish stay-behind organisation during the Cold War. It is true that the Swedish Stay Behind organisation cooperated with both MI6 and CIA, but that was limited to, or should I say mostly limited to, planning, receiving hardware and making plans for radio communication during an occupation of Sweden.
11:37Heard on Cold War Conversations:In the mid-1950s, a Christian gifted shortwave radios to the Swedish organisation, illegally, of course. And I was actually fortunate enough to meet someone who at some point was the MI6 liaison in Stockholm with the Swedish Stay Behind organisation. And he said to me that his assistance was limited to replacement radio batteries and cartons of tax-free cigarettes. So the Swedish organisation, like it seems most other European stay-behind networks, they received advice and help from CIA and MI6. But these were not puppets of the Western intelligence services, as has often been suggested in the sort of myth-making around the stay-behind networks in Western Europe during the Cold War.
12:35Johan Wennström:Yes, indeed. One of the areas in the book that's quite clear, because obviously when you're looking into an organisation like this, some things can be a bit opaque, but what's quite clear is this feeling of needing to be very independent. And one of the prime movers behind setting up the resistance organisation is the independent Swedish state and the nation's soul to keep the nation's soul going under Soviet occupation.
13:07Heard on Cold War Conversations:Just to comment on what you said now, it's true that this was a wholly independent organisation. There was, in fact, an attempt in the early 1950s by the Americans and British to co-opt this network into a wider NATO structure under the command of CIA and MI6. But that suggestion was firmly rejected by the Swedes because they wanted to preserve it as a national defence organisation. Of course, a resistance organization that is run by a foreign power completely lacks any form of legitimacy and wouldn't be able to function effectively, I would argue, in a live scenario where it would perhaps be forced to appear before the general public.
13:56Heard on Cold War Conversations:So that was very important that it was founded as a national organization and it was kept independent.
14:06Johan Wennström:I just want to talk about the organisation of the operation. So how is this structured and how many people are actually involved in the organisation?
14:20Heard on Cold War Conversations:It was structured along the lines of the familiar lines of Maoist guerrillas and equivalent organizations. In the book, I speak about different generations of this stay-behind movement, the first, second, and third generation. And that is, of course, a very conscious wink to the Bader-Meinhof gang and the various generations of the Red Army faction. because the stay-behind organization functioned in the same way. It was made up of a network of regional commanders who didn't know each other and never met face-to-face and below them a vast network of cells containing two men each, one radio operator and one organizer.
15:15Heard on Cold War Conversations:and they also never met face-to-face. They were supposed to communicate via dead drops and be able to take a lot of initiatives on their own, at least when it came to sort of tactical planning. The strategic control of the organization would be upheld via the radio transmissions that I referred to earlier. The plan was to have the leadership of the stay-behind organization escape to Britain together with the royal family and a government in exile and continue the struggle for Sweden's survival from an exile headquarters in the south of England. And the concept of upholding contact through radio with the remaining stay-behind forces in Sweden was extremely important because they were very concerned with following international law.
16:15Heard on Cold War Conversations:because international law, of course, gives some measure of protection to resistance organizations. And one of the criteria for resistance organizations protected by international law is that they have a clear chain of command. And that would be upheld via radio transmissions to the individual cells, in fact. That was a function of the radio operator in the individual cell. And there was a very small national leadership consisting of representatives of the two major labor market organizations in Sweden, a military representative in the first iteration of the resistance movement, the head of Swedish intelligence at the time.
17:06Heard on Cold War Conversations:sort of John le Carre-esque figure who was a religious historian before he became Sweden's spire chief. But the point was to keep people from meeting face to face below sort of the small national leadership. And whenever people were called up for exercises and invited to attend courses at headquarters in Stockholm in sort of resistance techniques and tradecraft. They were placed behind curtains or flimsy wall structures in order to keep them apart. And they communicated with each other with code names. I understand that they even took coffee breaks in private during these exercises in order to maintain secrecy.
17:59Johan Wennström:Yeah, it's incredible. That did amuse me, these walled cubicles, because I just imagine that means they have to go to the loo one at a time during these coffee breaks as well. I mean, it's complicated how they would operate that. So who were they recruiting into the organisation at that lower level? Who were they looking for? What type of people?
18:25Heard on Cold War Conversations:This was an entirely civilian structure. People who were involved from the intelligence service and the military, they were there in a capacity as advisors. The rest of the organization was completely civilian in nature. And they look for people who were quite ordinary, who had ordinary jobs, who knew their local terrain. We're talking about farmers, gamekeepers, factory workers, small business owners, traveling salesmen, people like that who you might not notice at first glance, but who are very centrally placed in their local environment. and know a lot of other people who might be persuaded to join the resistance in the event of an occupation.
19:21Heard on Cold War Conversations:And they had to train, these ordinary Swedes, they had to train to become covert radio operators and saboteurs. And of course, it was a challenge for most of them, I would say. It's also fascinating to me that they never received any material rewards for doing this. They were motivated solely by love of nation, patriotism, and they sometimes gave decades of their lives to this enterprise, which I think is quite touching, in fact, and inspirational.
20:02Johan Wennström:There must have been quite a high degree of political vetting of these people as well.
20:08Heard on Cold War Conversations:no more than making sure that they were not communists or national socialists. But it didn't matter if they were social democrats or not. The vetting was more about sort of character traits. Is this a reliable person? Is this someone who can keep quiet? Someone we can count on? Someone who can plausibly travel around in his local environment, scouting possible sites for headquarters or dead drops or landing zones. So yeah, I've actually met now quite a few of these people who are still with us. And they are very much the same type of man. It's the strong, silent type.
20:56Johan Wennström:Yeah, yeah. It was interesting looking at how the governing board was set up that included like representatives from the Trade Union Confederation as well. So it was attempting to be a representation of all parts of Swedish society rather than just an upper class or right wingish operation.
21:18Heard on Cold War Conversations:Yes, yes, definitely. It was originally founded by the Social Democratic Prime Minister. And the trade union, as well as the Employers' Confederation, were extremely important to this organisation, partly as recruiting pools for the organisation. but most importantly as representatives of the Swedish populace it was very common in Sweden during sort of the post-war era that representatives of the employers, the organisation and the major trade union were placed on the boards of public agencies because the functionaries of these organisations they not only represented almost every working Swede But they had also been elected in a democratic fashion.
Read the full transcript
22:08Heard on Cold War Conversations:And so they were perceived as, and rightly I think at that time, perceived as representatives of the common citizen, which gave public agencies a kind of extra legitimacy. And it was the same thinking with the Swedish Stay Behind organization. And also given the starters of these two organizations, the Employers Organization and the Trained Union Confederation, given the starters of these organizations in Swedish society at the time, they could also have functioned as a kind of, you know, almost a civil unity government in the absence of the elected political leadership, if that had been eliminated or if they had been forced to escape to Changeling.
23:00Johan Wennström:Cold War history deserves to be remembered, and by listening to the next few adverts, you help us to do exactly that. Thank you.
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23:15Johan Wennström:What are you waiting for? Hop on. The must-see galactic adventure comes home on Disney+. This is the way. Our only chance is to work together. I like this kid. Always wear your seatbelt.
23:31Heard on Cold War Conversations:Star Wars, The Mandalorian and Grogu.
23:34Johan Wennström:Now streaming on Disney+. Read PG-13. This episode is brought to you by ChatGPT. Hey, it's Bill Simmons from the Bill Simmons Podcast. Have you guys heard about ChatGPT work? It's the new way to use ChatGPT for bigger multi-step projects. And when you need more than just answers, give ChatGPT work access to your apps and files and it can create real work documents like spreadsheets, slides, and structured reports. Get started at ChatGPT.com by selecting work mode available on Plus and Pro plans. Now, as far as the general Swedish public are concerned, they have no idea this organization exists.
24:18Johan Wennström:As you said, this is a civilian organization. So how do you get weapons and explosives and all the paraphernalia to them without anybody thinking, this is a bit strange, what's going on here?
24:35Heard on Cold War Conversations:Well, both strange even to the people who knew that they were involved in this organization. I interview someone in the book who one day received a phone call from his local train station, which had received a mysterious box with his first name on it, which turned out to contain ammunition for submachine guns. And he hadn't really expected to receive that. But that was obviously one avenue. But I also know that people who were involved on the national level in a staff function, they traveled around the country and met local operatives and handed out or exchanged equipment. I'm not sure actually to what extent this was explosives or weapons or ammunition.
25:26Heard on Cold War Conversations:Certainly it was a part of it. But the Stay Behind movement was very mindful of not doing anything that could have serious repercussions for the Swedish civilian population. They were very mindful of the example of Lidice in Czechoslovakia during the war, where an entire village was razed by the SS as a revenge for the assassination of Reinald Heydrich. so they really prioritized sort of intelligence gathering and keeping up the radio link with the Swedish government in exile and by extension Western allies I think probably the fighting aspect of the stay behind movement would have come into play towards the end of an occupation in connection with the liberation of Sweden, as indeed it did in Denmark and Norway.
26:33Johan Wennström:One of the roles of the resistance organisation was to assist in getting people out of the country. So scouting out landing sites and that sort of thing. Can you just elaborate on that for me?
26:49Heard on Cold War Conversations:Yes, the government and the royal family had to be exfiltrated from the country in order to fulfill their constitutional duties. And the leadership of the resistance organization, the national leader and the sort of staff members at the tactical level, they were supposed to be exfiltrated as well. And one of the tasks of the resistance organization was to prepare this escape, either through using civilian airplanes or actually walking VIPs out of Sweden to the Norwegian Atlantic coast in order to be picked up by a submarine or something. and appropriate routes, walking routes, were also scouted by the stay-behinds.
27:44Heard on Cold War Conversations:You have to maintain several options for exfiltration in case it's for some reason impossible to fly an airplane or indeed if the seaway is blocked. So you have to have many different options.
28:06Johan Wennström:I'm presuming Sweden has national service at this point. So as far as training on how to use these weapons, that's not needed because they've already been trained on them through the army.
28:17Heard on Cold War Conversations:Yes, definitely. Sweden still is very much of a gun culture, in fact. We have a lot of hunters still. And of course, at that time, we had large, I would say, popular movements that were engaged in professional shooting contests, etc. And almost every male of fighting age had done compulsory military service. So I would say the most Swedish men at the time were very familiar with weapons, really. And also, there were many weapons abound in society. They were not hard to come by. So it was maybe not necessary to have these large gun caches hidden away in peacetime, because you could always find a gun in Sweden.
29:07Heard on Cold War Conversations:It was trickier with illegal radio equipment and whatnot.
29:11Johan Wennström:Were there any lists of people who were thought to be collaborators who would have been on any assassination list for these units? Are you aware of that at all?
29:25Heard on Cold War Conversations:No, I've never heard of that, actually, that they were tasked with assassinating collaborators. You can never know, of course, in a live situation what would have happened. The Danish resistance certainly assassinated collaborators during the German occupation. But it's not something that I've heard of specifically.
29:50Johan Wennström:I know the British auxiliary units were trained in hand-to-hand combat. Was that similar with the Swedes?
29:59Heard on Cold War Conversations:I can't give you a definite answer on that because I don't know, probably not in most cases, because most people who were involved in the organization, they were normal people with normal jobs. and probably took enough time out of their lives to rehearse clandestine radio transmissions, to scout their local environments for appropriate sites for evacuating people or setting up sort of local headquarters. And I know for a fact that the training that they did receive in Stockholm at headquarters was concerned mostly with how do you construct a dead drop? how do you load a dead drop other kinds of tradecraft avoid being followed etc i tend to chalk that up to the sort of more more glamorous myth about the stay behinds rather than the more prosaic but not less exciting reality absolutely because it's interesting you talk about stockholm
31:04Johan Wennström:central rail station being used for it was this training for dead drops where there's It slips in the walls.
31:11Heard on Cold War Conversations:Yes, because the Stockholm train station is very close to what was for many years the headquarters of this organization in Stockholm, which incidentally was just a block away from my apartment on the same street where I lived during the writing of this book. I just discovered that by chance one day. One day that, you know, one of the doors that I pass on my way to work every day was actually the headquarters of this very organization. Wow. Wow. Incredible. Yes, it is incredible.
31:49Johan Wennström:So how many people were there in this organisation in terms of, I guess what I'm looking at is people who would have been in the front line, you know, actually in position, transmitting, monitoring, finding landing sites, that sort of stuff?
32:05Heard on Cold War Conversations:I think I have to look at this in two ways. We have the organization that is prepared in peacetime, the people who know that they have been recruited into the stay-behind movement. And they were probably a few hundred people. But one of their tasks was to identify people in the local environment who could probably be trusted to be recruited during a live occupation. So we have to also consider the sort of invisible wartime organization, if you understand what I mean. And that probably consisted of between 2 ,000 and 3 ,000 people, which is quite a lot for a small country like Sweden. And it's a large enough organization to do a lot of damage to an occupying superpower, as we've recently seen in Iraq and Afghanistan and today in Ukraine.
33:15Johan Wennström:One of the things I enjoy the book is some of the anecdotes you've got in here. One of the ones that I particularly like was the mystery of the Sunday walks. Can you just explain that?
33:27Heard on Cold War Conversations:Yes, there are many people of adult age in Sweden now who remember rather mysterious Sunday walks or other types of excursions with their parent up until the 1980s. walks that always seemed to end in some very strange plays that didn't really resemble where people go for a stroll on Sunday afternoons. And it seems like many of their parents were in fact involved in the organization and used family members as a kind of chaperone when reconnoitering their local environment. or indeed conducting meetings in public places. I particularly write about the oldest daughter of the first national leader of the Stay Behind organization.
34:29Heard on Cold War Conversations:Her name is Elizabeth. And she was used from a very early age as a kind of chaperone or beard for her father when he was traveling domestically and abroad in the service of the resistance movement to convey an appearance of a normal family trip or a normal family outing. And of course, that was tactically justified, of course. But some of these children as adults have had to reinterpret their entire relationship with the parent and have very mixed feelings about the fact that they were used during the Cold War in this way. It's just one example of what I call the human cost of this very important enterprise.
35:25Johan Wennström:I think one of my favorite ones you've got on here is the Elk migration cover where a guy convinces his employer to sponsor a survey of elk migration routes. And in fact, he really wants to reconnaissance radio masks and railways and things that need to be sabotaged.
35:47Heard on Cold War Conversations:Yes, yes. And he was a white collar employee for a local insurance company. and he convinced his employer to have him go up in a Cessna plane to monitor sites where elks can become dangerous to traffic. But at the same time, he took photographs of, well, appropriate sort of bridges and masts to blow up in the event of an occupation. And I actually checked this out because Swedish insurance companies were in fact doing these elk surveys at the time. So it's very plausible.
36:25Johan Wennström:Great, great. There's one more anecdote I just wanted to cover, and it's the one with a former operative called Torsten Dies, and a group of elderly people who are not known to the family turn up at the funeral.
36:40Heard on Cold War Conversations:Yes, yes, this was a former military officer who died in the mid-1990s or late 1990s. And at his funeral, a group of mysterious gentlemen turned up and they didn't want to introduce themselves. And they couldn't really explain how they knew the deceased. And they slipped away after the main service. That, of course, raised a lot of questions for his children. And I think that the explanation is that he was probably a rather high-ranking member of this secret organisation.
37:19Johan Wennström:I've commented on some of the more amusing sides of this, but there's many serious sides to the story of this organisation. And I think the most serious bit is in training, they're told that something is their best friend. Can you just explain that?
37:37Heard on Cold War Conversations:Yes, a cyanide capsule. which, of course, you were meant to bite down on in case of capture.
37:48Johan Wennström:I guess some of that was that you can't betray any secrets if you're dead. But was that to also potentially limit exposure to civilians around reprisals from the Soviets?
38:00Heard on Cold War Conversations:Yes, that's a very good point, because they were very mindful of the risk of family members being rounded up and tortured so that a stay-behind operative would divulge his knowledge of the organization. And to avoid that, you could use, for instance, a cyanide capsule. You're right, Ian. There is a very solemn side to this enterprise. And they were very mindful of civilian casualties. At the same time, they were very keen to, as you said, keep the flame of the nation alive and to keep up the defense spirit in the general populace and not let ordinary Swedes be corrupted by fear or opportunism.
38:56Heard on Cold War Conversations:It's, of course, a very difficult task, but it's not a given that the civilian population will support continued resistance after an occupation is completed because of the possible repercussions for civilians. So a resistance organization has to be mindful of those risks, but they can't be completely slavishly guided by those risks either.
39:26Johan Wennström:The organisation, it's formed in the 1940s and it's operational until the early 1990s. How does it evolve?
39:35Heard on Cold War Conversations:Actually, it didn't evolve very much. It was always primitive in its modes of communication. For instance, this use of dead drops, for instance, is a very primitive form of communication, but extremely useful and perhaps even more useful today when everyone is walking around with a smartphone in their pocket and knowingly or not are sending out signals, geographical data. They did upgrade their radio equipment. There was a batch of British-made radios being given to Sweden in the mid-1950s and that was in use until 1970. and that was replaced by a Swedish-made radio and that second one was in turn replaced by a new British-made radio imported illegally into Sweden at the height of the investigation into the assassination of our Prime Minister, Olof Palme, in fact.
40:43Heard on Cold War Conversations:And they were very scared of being caught having illegal radio equipment. And they debated during the 1990s, as new technologies emerged, such as mobile phones and email, whether or not to keep going with these sort of antiquated radios. But they decided wisely, I think, that it's best to stick to the old and tried methods.
41:11Johan Wennström:How long was the resistance organization expected to be able to operate?
41:18Heard on Cold War Conversations:forth. Every Swede has a standing order since the early 1940s never to give up resistance against an occupier. That's a very open question.
41:32Johan Wennström:It is. And there's one quote you have in the book, which I really like, which is, when asked how long a resistance might last, one senior British staff member famously replied Greek resistance against the Ottoman Empire lasted 600 years.
41:49Heard on Cold War Conversations:Yes, exactly. And that's part of Lord Robert's foreword. And that sums it up, I think. Resistance never stops.
41:59Johan Wennström:It's time for a short break. These adverts help preserve more extraordinary Cold War stories. Thanks for listening and supporting our work. Starting or growing your own business can be intimidating and lonely at times. Your to-do list may feel endless with new tasks and lists can easily begin to overrun your life. So finding the right tool that not only helps you out, but simplifies everything as a built-in business partner can be a game changer. For millions of businesses, that tool is Shopify. Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world and 10 % of all e-commerce in the US.
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43:33Heard on Cold War Conversations:Star Wars The Mandalorian and Grogu is now streaming on Disney+.
43:39Johan Wennström:What are you waiting for? Hop on. The must-see galactic adventure comes home on Disney+. This is the way. Our only chance is to work together. I'd like this kid. Always wear your seatbelt.
43:55Heard on Cold War Conversations:Star Wars The Mandalorian and Grogu
43:58Johan Wennström:now streaming on Disney+. Read PG-13.
44:04Heard on Cold War Conversations:I think this is a very moving story on a human level. Because a lot of these people gave years, even decades of their lives, to a cause that never materialized. Sweden was never invaded, thankfully. but in the meantime the stay behind operatives they carried the psychological burden of knowing that whether or not a Soviet occupation would be successful would be partly up to them it was a huge sacrifice even though nothing happened in the end and they were motivated solely by national sentiment and I think that's an amazing human story
44:56Johan Wennström:And have they ever been sanked by the Swedish state for their service in any way?
45:03Heard on Cold War Conversations:No, not at all. In fact, the Swedish state has, until the release of my book, been reticent about the stay-behind phenomena, partly because I think that the state itself has not really been sure of what this was, whether it was legal or not. But my book has really rehabilitated this movement. One of the main things in my book is that I discover a secret government decision from the mid-50s to fully legalize this organization. And a lot of people have bought and read this book. This is being recorded in August 2026, and the book has hitherto sold in Sweden only 12 ,000 copies, which is a lot for a Swedish nonfiction book.
45:52Heard on Cold War Conversations:So it has become very much a book for the general populace. And this is the first book to present the Stay Behind organisation in a fair light. And I like to think that my book goes some way towards offering these people thanks.
46:16Johan Wennström:The book is called The Stay Behind, Sweden's Cold War Guardians. You've been listening to Johan Wenstrom. There'll be links in the episode information for you to purchase the book and support the podcast. If you want to learn more about this episode, don't miss the extras such as curated videos, photos and other content. Just look for the link in the episode information. Special thanks to the generous efforts of our financial supporters who keep the show on the air. if you'd like to join this select band go to coldwarconversations.com slash donate the cold war conversation continues in our facebook discussion group just search for cold war conversations on facebook thanks very much for listening and see you next week
47:32Heard on Cold War Conversations:Star Wars The Mandalorian and Grogu is now streaming on Disney+.
47:38Johan Wennström:What are you waiting for? Hop on. The must-see galactic adventure comes home on Disney+. This is the way. Our only chance is to work together. I like this kid. Always wear your seatbelt.
47:54Heard on Cold War Conversations:Star Wars, The Mandalorian and Grogu.
47:57Johan Wennström:Now streaming on Disney+. Read PG-13. This episode is brought to you by ChatGPT. Hey, it's Bill Simmons from the Bill Simmons Podcast. Have you guys heard about ChatGPT work? It's the new way to use ChatGPT for bigger multi-step projects. And when you need more than just answers, give ChatGPT work access to your apps and files, and it can create real work documents like spreadsheets, slides, and structured reports. Get started at ChatGPT.com by selecting work mode available on Plus and Pro plans.
From the publisher
For decades, ordinary Swedes secretly prepared for the day Soviet forces might occupy their country. Farmers, factory workers, gamekeepers and travelling salesmen were recruited into a clandestine resistance network, trained to operate radios, use dead drops, scout escape routes and, if necessary, sabotage an invading army.
Historian Johan Wennström joins me to reveal the extraordinary story behind Sweden’s Stay Behind organisation. He explains why officially neutral Sweden quietly collaborated with MI6, the CIA and NATO, how the organisation preserved its secrecy, and why the royal family and government might have fled to Britain. We hear of mysterious Sunday walks, ammunition delivered to railway stations, aerial “elk surveys” concealing reconnaissance missions and the cyanide capsules for use if an operative was captured.
It is a gripping account of patriotism, secrecy and sacrifice—and of hundreds of volunteers who carried the burden of a war that, thankfully, never came to Sweden.
Buy the book and support the podcast here https://amzn.to/4gJADz2
Curated episode extras https://coldwarconversations.com/episode473/
Swedish Fighter pilot episode https://coldwarconversations.com/episode386/
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