2012-2016

The project is a historical study of Sweden's policy of neutrality as expressed in the field of popular culture during the Second World War. For the first time comics were used as a medium for illuminating explicitly political issues. By identifying the ideology and political messages of the domestic and foreign comic strips published in Swedish media, it can be shown how these comics, as an important part of popular culture, became a means of propaganda during the war. It is clear that the "battle for hearts and minds" covered all social classes, men and women, young and old. By analysing the content of comics, the project provides knowledge about explicit and implicit ideological messages and how they reached and influenced Swedes during the war through ostensibly non-political channels. Studies of traditional historical sources, such as sources related to publishers and governmental agencies at home and abroad, have shown how the comics were treated as a means of propaganda. In this way, the project provides a stronger political dimension to Swedish research on popular culture and raises questions about the role of popular culture in the psychological warfare of our time.

The project's main finding is that comics can be studied as historical sources to illuminate even explicit political issues.
A significant part of the project dealt with basic research about comics more generally and about the propaganda war in Sweden during World War II. As one important contribution, the project provides a survey of the comics published in the Swedish media during these years. As a result of this project we now know more about the origin of these comics, about the comic-publisher's networks, the propaganda centres in Sweden and the belligerent countries, and the diplomats who took part in the psychological warfare operations and what they thought and did about comics as a means of propaganda.
The analysis of the comics published in the Swedish media sheds new light on the history of Swedish counterpropaganda. It also demonstrates the rapid and dramatic changes in Sweden's policy of neutrality and how Swedish society was affected by politics in these years. In the beginning, the production of national comics was stimulated by the official programme of "Swedishness"-propaganda. With the political changes in 1942, the importance of Swedish comics declined in relation to comics from the United States. As part of a new "goodwill" policy towards the United States, the Swedish government regarded the import of American comics as a confidence-building measure that would pave the way for good relations with the US after the war. At the same time, US war propaganda began and the comics were assimilated into this propaganda. Hateful images of the enemy with racist elements, directed against Japan and Germany, became more significant in the production of American comics. From 1943 these comics were published uncensored in Swedish weeklies. In addition to pure propaganda comics of British war heroes, we also found comics propagating race hate. The brutalization of the war and of the belligerent countries' propaganda had an impact on comics in general. It also inspired Swedish cartoonists to create similar hate-filled cartoons.
But Sweden also received new ideas and a new world view from the American comics, among them new ideas about gender roles. American comics spread a positive image of the US and the United Kingdom, and prepared the ground for good relations with the West after the war.

The with this project confirmed value of comics as historical sources is a challenge to use comics in that way on a broader front, particularly for the study of modern history.
The project sheds new light on the propaganda war in Sweden in relation to Western powers' actions, and it also raises new issues. In recent years, new archives and historical sources, both nationally and internationally, have become available, and these shed new light on the belligerent countries' propaganda. This applies to their supporters and networks, but also to more structural issues, such as how, and with what results, foreign powers tried to take control of the Swedish media. It raises questions regarding the longer-term consequences for the Swedish partners of the belligerent powers, for example in terms of access to international markets.


The project results have been presented and discussed at a series of international conferences for historians and comics' researchers. Archive studies were conducted beyond Stockholm, Lund and Malmö, in Berlin and Helsinki, while there was also fruitful correspondence with archives in London and Washington.
For historians, I presented my research results at the 28th Congress of Nordic Historians in Joensuu, Finland, and at the Nordic gender and women historians meeting in Stockholm in 2015. For international comics' researchers and the "Nordic Network for Comics Research" (NNCORE), I presented my results in Helsinki in 2013 and two years later in Oslo, where as a keynote speaker I could present more specific results. Within the framework of the German comics' research community, I presented results from the project for the German Society for Comics Studies (Comfor), at the 2014 Comfor-meeting in Berlin, and in 2015 in Frankfurt am Main.
Contact with a British research team led by Jane Chapman, professor of communications at the University of Lincoln, who had begun studying comics as "Cultural History Records" almost simultaneously with my project, resulted in a joint conference of comics as historical sources. It was conducted in October 2015 in Visby, Uppsala University - Campus Gotland, with support from the foundation Riksbankens Jubileumsfond. Closer cooperation also occurred with comics' researchers in Serbia, when it turned out that the Serbian comics during World War II had an unexpectedly prominent spot in Swedish weeklies.


The project's main ideas are available via the online magazine Katapult, available in German and English so as to reach a larger international audience. In Sweden, public lectures related to the project were held on Gotland and in Uppsala, especially within the framework of The Swedish Comics Association. In 2013, the project was also presented at a conference in Lund about the Swedish Comics' Archive. The international Visby Conference in 2015 was open to the public and made an impact in the local media.

Until now, only a small part of my research has been published. In addition to the already mentioned overview article in Katapult, "Comics on Struggle for Hearts and Minds. Swedish Comics During The Second World War", there is one article published in Germany: "»Comics« in der deutschen Zeitungsforschung vor 1945", which deals with the German approach to comics and how research on the German press has focused on the comics' advocacy skills. There has been significant interest in Swedish media: two German dissertations even discussed the great success of American comics in Sweden. During the war, Sweden became, for Germany, an important channel to the world outside the German sphere of influence. This was even the case for German knowledge about American comics in general.
Several of the above mentioned conference contributions will be published in conference volumes in 2017. In Germany there will be two articles, one about the triumph of American comics in Europe in the 1930s ("US Comics erobern Europe. Zur Geschichte eines Kulturexports von der Jahrhundertwende bis zur Mitte der 1930er Jahre", Comfor-conference volume). This article will discuss the background of the American sales campaign in Europe in the 1930s and about national differences, how the American comics were received in European countries, as well as why American comics during the war eventually only reached the Nordic countries. For the Comfor-conference volume, planned for 2017, there will be an article about Swedish comics during the programme of "Swedishness"-propaganda: a process that meant there was strong stimulation for Swedish comics, and comics about the Great Swedish History had a significant impact on their readers ("Swedishness Propaganda. Schwedische Comics und die Verteidigung Schwedischer Neutralität 1942/43"). For the conference volume from the Nordic gender and women historians meeting, planned for 2017, there will be an article about the new image of women that developed from American comics coming to Sweden ("Strong, independent and sexy. Image of women in Swedish comics during World War II").

In addition to the articles mentioned above, there is a major article in preparation, which will summarize the project's main results. It is being prepared for the journal Scandia. The journal Historisk tidskrift will publish an essay about comics as historical sources, since that is a result of the project. It is desirable that all research findings are quickly disseminated, but in many cases there is a year between paper publication and the articles being made available on the Internet.
If that is not the case, the project's findings will be published here:
https://uppsala.academia.edu/MichaelScholz

Publications

Comics on Struggle for Hearts and Minds. Swedish Comics during the Second World War/ Comics im Kampf um Herzen und Köpfe. Propaganda während des 2. Weltkrieges” i: Katapult. Magazin für Kartografi & Sozialwissenschaft (Cartography and Social Science) – Online-Magazin, april 2015
http://katapult-magazin.de/en/artikel/article-katapult/fulltext/comics-on-struggle-for-hearts-and-minds/

»Comics« in der deutschen Zeitungsforschung vor 1945, i: Deutsche Comicforschung VOL. 11 (2015), Leipzig 2014, s 59 – 84.

US-Comics erobern Europa. Zur Geschichte eines Kulturexports von der Jahrhundertwende bis zur Mitte der 1930er Jahre (Comfor-konferensvolym - under utgivning)


”Svenskhetspropaganda. Schwedische Comics und die Verteidigung schwedischer Neutralität 1942/43”). Konferensvolymen från Comfor och universitetet i Frankfurt/M., planerad för 2017.

Stark, oberoende och sexig. Kvinnobilden i svenska tecknade serier under andra världskriget. Konferensvolymen från Nordiska genus- och kvinnohistorikermötet i Stockholm 2015, planerad för 2017.

Under utarbetning:

Svenska och ”osvenska” tecknade serier i andra världskrigets Sverige.

Nya rön om tecknade serier som historiska källor (för Historisk tidskrift)


Övriga publikationer med anknytning till ämnet tecknade serier som historiska källor, som utkommit under projektperioden

Serieön Gotland, i: Från Gutabygd 2015 (Turism), Visby: Gotlands Hembygdsförbunds förlag,  2015, s 143-164.

The First World War and the German Revolution of 1918–1919 in East German Comics, i: European Comic Art, Vol 8, nr. 2 (Autumn 2015), 34-60.