Defense loan, A2, 420x594 mm

The Defense Loan was a bond loan that the Swedish government launched on three occasions during the years 1940-42 to encourage the population to buy bonds from the government. The money was used to upgrade Sweden's defense.
 The Nordic Company, NK, in Stockholm, had 2,000 employees at this time. One of them, Manne Lindgren, gave a speech to the staff to urge them to buy bonds.
 "For Sweden's defense, the Swedish state's defense loan is hereby presented to be used for expenses for the country's defense readiness. Our troops will be equipped and maintained. Weapons and other defense equipment must be acquired in increased quantities. On repeated occasions it has been announced that for this purpose a very significant borrowing must be made.
 500 million kronor is required for the next few months. Swedish men and women! Our defense needs your financial assistance.
 Sweden threatens no one. But we want to protect the most precious thing we own: our homeland, our ancestral freedom, our right to self-determination, our culture – a fruit of millennia of cultivation – our language, our homes, our children and our future. Everyone should feel it as a compelling duty to participate according to their ability in the defense loan that is now being offered.
 "This appeal goes out across the country. May it serve as a wake-up call and a call to collective action."
 The population bought bonds worth nearly 2.5 billion kronor, a much-needed addition to the rearmament of the then neglected Swedish defense.