Christian Günther

Christian Ernst Günther (5 December 1886, in – 6 March 1966) was Swedish Minister for Foreign Affairs in the unity government that was formed after the Soviet attack on Finland in November 1939, and would remain in function until World War II had ended in 1945.

Günther, whose father had been Swedish diplomat, and whose grandfather briefly had been prime minister, had entered the Civil Service at the age of 30, and was eight years later transferred to the foreign ministry from the position as personal secretary of the prime ministers Hjalmar Branting and Rickard Sandler. In the foreign ministry, he advanced in the 1930s to the position immediately beneath the foreign minister Rickard Sandler, as under secretary of state for foreign affairs, and was then accredited as ambassador to Norway, where he intended to stay until retirement.

Günther's main achievement was to defend Sweden's neutrality in the Second World War, thus escaping the fate of occupied Norway and defeated Finland. The dominant historiography for decades after the war ignored the Holocaust and used what it called the "small state realist" argument. It held that that neutrality and cooperation with Germany were necessary for survival, for Germany was vastly more powerful; concessions were limited and were only made where the threat was too great; neutrality was bent but not broken; national unity was paramount; and in any case Sweden had the neutral right to trade with Germany. Germany needed Swedish iron and had nothing to gain—and much iron to lose—by an invasion. The nation was run by a unity government that included all major parties in the Riksdag.

Christian Günther was hardly a typical representative for the diplomatic corps. Although a perpetual student of law, his ambitions were rather that of a writer's – of drama, lyrics, and a few novels – not without some success. Unanimous testimony describes him as a man of unassuming ways, high intelligence, and a bohemian personality, with a significant lack of ambition, who made his visits in the office as brief as possible. He was passionate for harness racing and had the nerves of a habitual gambler.

Günther represents the last generation of cultural Scandinavists, sympathetic to the relative political liberalism in Denmark and Norway, that was influenced from French and English thinking, contrasted to les Ancient régimes of Austria, Prussia, and Russia; but beside that, he was virtually ignorant of the English speaking world. Like many Liberal Swedes, he was untouched and rather alienated by Finland's political and cultural development after 1809, signified by a high regard for the Gustavian Constitution of 1772, fervent anti-Germanic fennomania, and the bloody aftermath of the Civil War.

...
Wikipedia