A World Gone Mad: The Diaries of Astrid Lindgren, 1939-45

by Astrid Lindgren

Germany and Russia have divided the country between them. It seems simply incredible that such a thing can happen in the twentieth century.

But Finland expects more, of course: it wants the world to come together and do something more positive. And our newspapers are publishing appeals for us to be part of it, though they don’t say so directly. Lots of Swedes are keen to go as volunteers.

The most terrible thing of all was when the Russians drove Polish women and children ahead of them towards the

Finns. Some of the Finns couldn’t bear to shoot them, so they surrendered voluntarily – and now they face court martial in Finland.

In Britain, they’re evacuating the children – some of them all the way to Australia, Canada and New Zealand.

Human stupidity is simply colossal.

At the moment it actually feels perfectly in order that there are rooms everywhere whose sole function is to protect human beings if other human beings happen to start chucking bombs at them.

If only we could hope to hear our grandchildren ask one day: ‘Shelter – what does that mean?’

Germany and Russia were originally mortal enemies, or at any rate, their respective ideologies were absolutely alien to each other. But they’re allies now, all the same.

Misery knows no borders,

We currently have fighting in the Russian forests, the Libyan desert and on sunny Hawaii. And it all started because the Germans wanted Danzig. It makes one feel quite light-headed to think about it.

So that was Benito Mussolini! Could it be Hitler next please?

scrapped, here and abroad, but the utterly desperate wounds left by the war aren’t going to be healed by a drop of coffee. Peace can’t give mothers back their sons, or the little children of Hamburg and Warsaw back their lives.

And will Bolshevism, with all the terror and tyranny it implies, be given free rein in Europe? Those who have already lost their lives in this war could turn out to be the most fortunate.

One story goes that when the Germans were planning to introduce the Star of David in Denmark, on the same model as in Germany, the king of Denmark said that in that case, he would be the first to wear it. And they never did bring in the Star of David.

There’s another story that when the Germans proposed to raise the swastika at Amalienborg, Christian said that a Danish soldier would instantly lower it again. ‘Then that Danish soldier will be shot,’ said the German commander-in-chief. ‘I am that Danish soldier,’ said the king.

I’m currently having really good fun with Pippi Longstocking.

They’ve enough people at home to kill already, without importing any from Sweden.

And yesterday I went into a bookshop and bought myself a copy of Pippi Longstocking, that jolly funny book, which would never have existed if it weren’t for my sprained foot at the end of winter 1944. Not that it would really have mattered, of course!