Modern Naziism in Sweden can be traced back to a lack of post-WWII denazification. Nazi groups have persisted with some continuity since the first one was founded 1924.[4] The Nordic Resistance Movement, now the leading organization in Nordic Nazism, was born out of Sweden’s extreme right wing. The groups early membership came from other neo-Nazi groups, namely White Aryan Resistance (VAM), the neo-Nazi newspaper founded by Klas Lund, Folktribnunen, and National Youth, which would eventually turn into NRM’s youth wing. National Youth was founded to be a more “respectable” and elite type of right-wing extremist, different from the skinhead “hooligans” who dominated the scene at the time. The Sweden Democrats, Sweden’s far-right political party, gave them a small donation as they were starting out.[5]
Klas Lund came into public consciousness as a white supremacist figure in 1986. Eighteen year-old Lund and several other skinheads beat a man to death for trying to stop them from harassing a group of young immigrants. He founded the Swedish Resistance Movement (later the Nordic Resistance Movement) in 1997, to further his goal of creating an elite, fanatical vanguard to push Nordic Naziism forward, and eventually overthrow the Nordic democracies that are currently in power.[6] The organization officially changed its name from the Swedish Resistance Movement to the Nordic Resistance Movement in 2016. When referring to all activities undertaken prior to 2016, this profile will use “SRM.” For all activities after 2016, this profile will use “NRM.”
SRM differentiated itself by being more radical than other groups, and by having a strict hierarchical structure with numerous leadership positions. This structure largely persists to this day. Individuals are not selected for leadership democratically, but by proving their loyalty to the organization. SRM argued that they needed a strong hierarchy so that they could readily replace the government when the time comes.
The group is organized into “nests,” each of which include “combat groups” made strictly of full members. Membership to SRM/NRM is exclusive, with three tiers. Supporting members, the lowest, contribute financially and may remain anonymous. Affiliates, the next level up, are formal members on a voluntary basis. To become a full member, the highest tier, one must pass strict physical and devotional criteria. New recruits are interviewed and vetted thoroughly to clear out “weaklings and cowards” before they are allowed to join. They practice martial arts to prepare physically and mentally for any threats, and must unquestioningly support everything the SRM/NRM does or promotes. The organization also developed an ethos that does not shy away from violence, hence the martial arts training, discussion of an inevitable “race war,” and tacit approval of violent actions by members.[7]
The gender makeup is overwhelmingly male: 83% of active members are men, and 17% are women. Over half of active members have been convicted of crimes, and over 60% of those were violent crimes or weapons offenses. Average membership age ranges from 31-35 years old.[8]
On October 12, 1999, a Swedish union organizer named Björn Söderberg was murdered outside of his apartment by members of SRM’s youth organization. He had tipped off a syndicalist newspaper that his colleague on the board of a local union was an active neo-Nazi, costing the man his job and position at the union. Three men were convicted on charges related to the murder, and the extreme right garnered national attention.[9]
In 2000, SRM created a web portal where they sold publications, white power music, and various magazines. They also continued printing their newspaper Folktribunen, and in 2003 began publishing a second newspaper, Nationellt Motstand, as well. During this time, SRM did not use the “Nazi” label for strategic reasons, despite citing prominent Nazis as philosophical inspiration and promoting Nazi viewpoints. In the early years, they referred to their active members as “patriots.”[10]
In 2003, former members of the Norwegian skinhead group the Boot Boys formed a branch of SRM in Norway. Following a high-profile murder by the group in 2001, the new Norwegian branch receded due to the imprisonment of several leading figures.[11] In 2005, the Swedish Resistance Movement took credit for the vandalization of an LGBTQ-oriented restaurant in Stockholm. That year, the European non-profit Expo published research connecting SRM to several violent attacks against people who were LGBTQ, immigrants, or political opponents.[12] In 2006, SRM leadership decided to “come out of the closet” about their Nazism, and began openly using the National Socialist label, instead of the “patriot” euphemism.[13]
In 2008, a Finnish man known only as “Mikko” began developing a relationship with SRM leadership. He was previously involved in Nazi-oriented online forums, and in the summer of 2008, he was invited to Sweden for SRM’s March of the People demonstration. He was arrested at the demonstration for fighting against counter-protestors and received a “fight diploma” from SRM’s leadership. After continuing to develop a relationship with SRM leadership, he eventually was given permission to start a Finnish branch. Esa Holappa, a far-right associate of Mikko, was appointed as leader, and was one of the few members who operated openly under his own name, unlike in other SRM branches. The Finnish Resistance Movement immediately became the most militant Finnish Nazi organization. The Finnish branch was historically more decentralized than other SRM branches, encompassing a greater range of ideology compared to the strictly enforced conformity of the Swedish branch.[14]
During the early 2010’s, the broader Nazi movement in Sweden (beyond just SRM) saw a small amount of growth in followers, activities, and visibility. In 2015, the other prominent neo-Nazi group in Sweden, the Party of the Swedes, dissolved. This left SRM as the most important neo-Nazi group in Sweden, and the main hub for such ideas. The Norwegian and Finnish branches serve a similarly central function to the neo-Nazi movement in their respective countries.[15] Most of SRM’s activities during this time period came primarily from the Swedish and Finnish branches, whose members perpetrated several violent attacks. They incited riots at protests, music festivals, and Helsinki Pride, got into violent altercations with left-wing militants, and assaulted journalists and political opponents. Many of these altercations ended in serious injuries, arrests, and criminal charges.[16]
In 2010, Haakon Forwald, best known as a former member of the Swedish black metal band Dissection, re-founded the Norwegian branch of NRM. He began as the only Norwegian member of SRM in Sweden, but after several failed attempts to contact the former leaders of the Nordic branch, he was given permission to take on leadership himself. The website initially only contained articles from the Swedish site translated into Norwegian, but the group’s activity slowly increased. After 2016, they began engaging in more public-facing activities. However, the Norwegian branch remains largely dependent on the Swedish parent organization, with many of their activities populated by Swedish membership.[17]
In 2012, the second murder associated with SRM was committed. Two Swedish SRM members stabbed Joakim Karlsson eight times in the chest outside of a grocery store in Vallentuna. A CCTV recording showed how the victim was stabbed, kicked and trampled upon. Only one of the perpetrators was arrested, while the other remained on the run, and remains on Interpol’s most wanted list as of 2022.[18] As of November 2024, there is no update on whether the other perpetrator has been captured and detained or is still on the run.
In 2013, Henrik Jarsbo, a former member of the Danish National Socialist Movement (DNSB) founded the Danish branch of SRM. While the website became the most developed of any branch, there was little activity otherwise. By 2016, the website was shut down.[19]
In 2014, the Finnish branch of SRM began organizing vigilante patrols in Helsinki in response to reports of multi-ethnic gangs in the city.[20] SRM members took advantage of an election loophole to elect a member of SRM to a municipal council seat in Ludvika, and another as a substitute in Borlänge. Swedish elections allow citizens to vote solely for a party, or to vote for a party and for particular candidates to represent that party. Eighteen SRM members voted for the Sweden Democrats and put Pär Öberg as a write-in candidate; since Sweden Democrats only put 5 candidates forward but won 7 seats, Pär Öberg was automatically chosen to fill a spot.[21] The election of militant Neo-Nazis sparked national outrage.[22] This generated considerable excitement among the organization, and Pär Öberg became the head of SRM’s new parliamentary wing. They registered as a formal political party in July 2015.[23]
SRM experienced significant growth during this time. The influx of refugees in 2015, primarily escaping from Syrian Civil War, led to increased interest in xenophobic organizations and ideas across Scandinavia. Many people feared the migrants would decrease the availability of jobs and change Sweden’s culture. NRM’s membership and members’ willingness to demonstrate in public increased, and third of active members in 2015 were new recruits.[24]
Simon Lindberg was appointed the leader of SRM in 2015, after Klas Lund resigned.[25] He implemented a notable shift in strategy from Lund, taking the group in a much more public-facing direction. Under Lindberg’s leadership the group has emphasized maximizing growth, public visibility, and political representation, and has significantly loosened restrictions for membership.[26]
In 2015, several Nazi groups from across Europe and alt-right groups from the U.S. gathered in St. Petersberg to create a joint strategy. While there, RIM offered several groups paramilitary training, including NRM. Several members have reportedly taken this offer up, and others (particularly in the Finnish branch) fought against Russia alongside the Azov Movement.[27]
In 2016, the Swedish Resistance Movement officially changed its name to the Nordic Resistance Movement (NRM). The name change was declared in association with chapters in Norway, Finland, and Denmark, signaling their shift to represent “protecting the Aryan race” in all of Scandinavia. However, the Swedish branch remained central to the organizational structure, with nation-specific (Norway, Finland, etc) leadership acting as subordinates to the overarching NRM leadership.[28]
A 2017 report by European non-profit Expo named NRM as the primary force responsible for a rise in neo-Nazi activity in Sweden in 2016.[29] On November 12, 2016, the group organized a march in central Stockholm, which Expo estimated had 600 participants.[30] In December 2016, the third murder associated with NRM occurred. Members of NRM-Finland attacked an anti-racist activist for openly disapproving of the group during a rally in Helsinki, violently beating him and kicking him to the ground. NRM-Finland’s web page then posted a video of the activist lying on the ground, and called the attack a “disciplinary measure,” and honored the perpetrator with an award. The activist died six days later from head injuries, and one NRM member was convicted for aggravated assault.[31] This spurred the Finnish district court to enact a temporary ban in NRM-Finland, which the group continually appealed.[32]
On September 30, 2017, on the Jewish holy day Yom Kippur, NRM-Sweden organized a demonstration that was intended to pass by a synagogue. A Swedish court blocked them from passing by the synagogue, shortening their legal demonstration route. When they were unable to diverge from the court-ordered route, NRM members fought with the police. Thirty-five participants were arrested, including NRM-Sweden leader Simon Lindberg.[33]
NRM’s Iceland chapter was founded in 2017, although its first demonstration wasn’t held until September 2019 in Reykjavik. The Danish branch of NRM was also re-founded in 2017, under new leader Martin Durvad. The Danish and Icelandic NRM branches are the smallest.[34]
In 2018, NRM reached the peak of its support.[35] Buoyed by their growth in support, they launched an election campaign and ran candidates on their own tickets in the 2018 parliamentary elections in Sweden. However, they received only 0.03% of the total votes, and even in the local municipality of Ludvika, where NRM has the greatest support, they only received 1.3% of the total votes. NRM leadership had been predicting huge wins, and their failure in the election caused rifts within the organization. Many began to question Lindberg’s strategy of public-facing action. The Swedish Defense University and Expo interviewed local civil servants and security officials about NRM’s activity, who reported a decline in NRM’s base activism and local influence following the electoral defeats.[36] NRM attempted a second political campaign in the 2019 general EU elections but received only 644 total votes.[37]
In August 2019, prominent NRM members attempted a coup of the organization, hoping to return Klas Lund to power. They were unhappy with the electoral defeat and disapproved of Lindberg’s strategy, wanting to return the organization to its more radical, violent, and elitist roots. While Lindberg managed to retain power, many prominent members from several different national branches left NRM to form the splinter group, Nordic Strength. Nordic Strength is currently present in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark.[38]
In November 2019, NRM organized an attack against Jewish targets on the anniversary of Kristallnacht. They desecrated 84 Jewish cemeteries in Denmark with green paint, and other Jewish institutions and businesses were vandalized with Star of David stickers and antisemetic graffiti. While it was meant to be anonymous, two NRM leaders were convicted in connection to the attack, and messages on their phones were found from central NRM leadership. The event caused some NRM-Denmark leaders to defect.[39]
In 2020, NRM-Finland’s appeals against their ban finally reached the Finnish Supreme Court. The court officially ordered the shutdown of NRM’s Finland chapter.[40] The group set up a new Nazi organization, “Kohti Vapautta!” (Towards Freedom!) in anticipation of the ban. However, even while the 2020 court proceedings were still underway, officials were discussing banning KV as a follow-up organization as well.[41]
NRM’s response to the 2020-2021 COVID-19 pandemic was to incorporate the onset of the violence into their existing conspiracy theories, accusing the media and the UN of trying to scare people into uniting into a global federation.[42] Additionally, they staged actions protesting vaccination, claiming the vaccine is not properly tested.[43] However, despite being critical of government responses, the central organization did not follow the example of many other right-wing movements in denying the existence of the virus. NRM-Sweden canceled a rally they had been planning out of concern for “contaminating hundreds of nationalist-minded people,” and Simon Lindberg encouraged listeners of their podcast not to take unnecessary risks.[44]
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 raised concerns among scholars of far-right extremism that the fight could become a training ground for groups to practice their military skills and build networks — similar to jihadists exploiting the conflict in Syria, or even white supremacists in the 2014 Ukraine conflict. However, these fears have largely not materialized. The influx of foreign fighters has been much smaller than anticipated, and NRM was quoted as saying that “neither side is worth fighting for and dying for.”[45]
In April 2024, NRM targeted a migrant camp outside of Stockholm. NRM members harassed residents of the camp and used sledgehammers and crowbars to attack shelters. The group posted video of the attack on the camp on social media, describing it as a “clean-up operation.”[46]
The U.S. State Department designated the NRM as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) organization in June 2024.[47][48]This designation followed years of the group's participation in racially and politically motivated violence targeting immigrants, LGBTQ+ individuals, and political opponents.[49]
The NRM continues to be linked to international networks of white supremacist groups, including extremist organizations like the Russian Imperial Movement. The group has continued to operate despite its ban in Finland, and it has used cryptocurrencies to fund its activities, avoiding conventional financial systems. The designation of U.S. State Department aims to curb NRM’s ability to raise funds and conduct operations internationally.
