22 Apr The Last Sentence
(2012) The movie The Last Sentence is based on the WWII era life and career of Torgny Segerstedt, the editor-in-chief of the Swedish newspaper Göteborgs Handels- och Sjöfartstidning, the Gothenburg Trade and Maritime Journal.
On February 3, 1933, just days after Adolf Hitler became the Chancellor of Germany, Segerstedt wrote in his newspaper that “Herr Hitler är en förolämpning.” “Hitler is an insult.”
Before the week was up, Herman Göring, at the time German National Minister and eventually head of the German Air Force, sent the newspaper a telegram of protest, which it published along with an editorial response by Segerstedt. He did not back down and even suggested that perhaps the telegram might have been a crude joke. Göring had described himself as a sincere friend of the Swedish people. (Two years earlier his beloved Swedish wife Carin had died.) Segerstedt suggested that the majority of the Swedish people had no sympathy for Germany’s current direction, a mockery to the law.
The Swedish government wanted to do everything possible to maintain its neutral status. The Prime Minister and even the King met with Segerstedt and tried to convince him to lay off. King Gustav V told him, “If Sweden gets into the war, it will be your fault.”
The movie also examines Segerstedt’s personal life … his flagrant love affair with the Jewish wife of his business partner. This was too large a part of the story as far as I was concerned. I was more interested in what was happening in Sweden.
Segerstedt never let up. He did have “the last sentence” and died just twenty days before Hitler committed suicide.
Filmed in black and white and directed by noted Swedish director Jan Troell, The Last Sentence is based on the 2007 biography by Kenne Fant. In Sweden, it was released as Dom över död man, “Judgment on the Dead.”
I have noted this film as a “Favorite.” For me personally, it was a rare visual of the dress, the actions, the social life of these upper class Swedes during the years up to and during World War II.
The Last Sentence (English Subtitled) at amazon.com
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