Abstract
Why did a Swedish general practitioner involve himself in the Norwegian resistance during World War II? How did he contribute during different stages of the war? How did he explain the reasons for his involvement beyond his policy statement “I have always been an anti-Nazi”? The objectives of this paper are: To give an overview of his contributions, and to investigate to what extent he provided ideological explanations for his involvement. - Dr Hummel is mentioned in Norwegian war literature as one of the key persons for the resistance across the Mid-Swedish - Mid-Norwegian border. This paper is probably the first to give focus mainly on Hummel’s involvement during the war. The main sources of the study are Hummel’s day-to-day reports addressed to cooperating partners on both sides of the border as well as to Norwegian exile authorities based in Stockholm; he also communicated intelligence to Swedish military authorities. The texts are studied in the historical contexts of the Nazi-German attack on and occupation of Norway, of Swedish neutrality policies and Swedish anti-Nazi movements. The findings provide an overview of Hummel’s actions at the different stages of the war and his reflections related to the daily secret operations. Contrary to my expectations, another finding shows that Hummel expresses few or no ideological explanations for his explicit anti-Nazist political point of view. His anti-Nazi actions seem to be regarded as an obvious fact which do not require any further verifications. An approach related to critical discourse analysis is utilized in order to understand Hummel’s texts as contributions to complex discursive practices in which he is involved, these again are contingent upon the different phases of the war. His secret work is action based, related to humanitarian aid, to organizing couriers who risk their lives to provide anti-Nazi information and equipment for secret agents in Norway. The result is discursive practises that emphasize concrete operations towards jointly defined goals, which do not need any further explanations, thus he shows his political position through action. Hummel may relate to and be inspired by the ideological discourses in the Swedish anti-Nazi groups, but he does not participate in this sort of exchanges.