The Lindberg Brothers: Two SS Men, One Jew, and a Shattered Finnish-German-Austrian Family

Kirjoittajat

• André Swanström Åbo Akademi https://orcid.org/0009-0005-2540-6060

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.37449/ennenjanyt.178292

Avainsanat:

Masculinity, Waffen-SS, fighter pilots

Abstrakti

The article describes the diverging paths of Kim, Lars, and Dian Lindberg, sons of the famous  Finnish opera singer Helge Igor Lindberg. Kim and Lars played a pivotal role in the formation of the Finnish Volunteer Battalion of the Waffen-SS, and they acted as intermediaries between Finnish and German political and military interests. Helge Lindberg’s domineering and demanding personality primed Kim and Lars to be susceptible to the National Socialist ideology. During WWII they sought military masculinity, as defined by the contemporary Nazi ideal, combining it with cosmopolitan impulses infused by their family background and upbringing. The notion of protean masculinity, as elucidated in the writings of Thomas Kühne, meant that Kim and Lars could play with elements from the international world of movie stars without compromising their National Socialist soldierly masculinity. Dian, the Jewish half-brother, chose a different path. He struggled to liberate himself from the effeminate image, which contemporary German and Austrian society cast upon the Jewish male.