ABBA's Nazi Connection?

Late seventies and eighties Swedish pop group ABBA's Nazi connection is through no fault of their own. This connection centers on group member Anni-Frid Lyngstad. As a young girl growing up Norway, she was shunned and subject to ridicule as were all "Tyskerbarnas", a derisive post-war term for the children of Norwegian mothers and German fathers, also known as "Lebensborn."

Lyngstad was one of thousands of children produced by the Nazi Lebensborn program created by SS leader Heinrich Himmler. In this program, German soldiers were encouraged and rewarded for impregnating "Aryan" women in occupied Scandinavian countries to further the Master Race. And during the occupation, the mothers and children were given special treatment from the rest of the population. Thanks to Norway's collaborationist government headed by Vidkun Quisling, the program was a success. There were between 10,000-12,000 Lebensborn children in Norway alone. In Anni-Frid Lyngstad's case, she was the result of a liaison between her Norwegian mother and Alfred Haase, a married German sergeant.

After the war, Anni-Frid's mother and grandmother were branded as traitors in their Norwegian village. Hundreds of Lebensborn children were treated as if they were mentally retarded and put in insane asylums for years. Thousands of mothers and children were put in Norway's prisons and branded as retarded. Others were forced to leave the country. After Anni-Frid's mother died when she was two years old, Lyngstad and her grandmother were forced to immigrate to Sweden.

In 1999, a Lebensborn survivors group was founded. Anni-Frid was by far the most famous member of the survivors. In 2002, the group, including Lyngstad, first petitioned Norway's court system to grant them compensation for their years of torment and persecution, some of it institutionalized.

In the 1970s, Lyngstad, with the help of her then husband and band-mate Benny Anderson, located her long lost father after thirty years. During those years of separation, she had believed that her father had died in the war. The reality, however, was that Alfred Haase had lived in Germany and worked as a pastry cook unaware that he'd left behind a daughter in Norway. After the reunion, she said, "I can't really connect to him and love him the way I would have if he'd been around when I grew up."

Today, Anni-Frid Lyngstad lives in Switzerland and spends much of her time working with charities, particularly those dealing with drug prevention.

For more information on the Lebensborn program and the continuing legal battles, see this Associated Content article.

A special thanks to author Jerry Revelle for additional information on Anni-Frid Lyngstad.

SOURCES:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anni-Frid_Lyngstad

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,746573,00.html

http://www.thehistorychannel.co.uk/site/tv_guide/full_details/People/programme_1330.php