Johan Wennström Archives - Aspects of History

Johan Wennström

The Cold War historian reflects on Sweden’s secret cooperation with NATO, the craft of archival research, and ongoing work on stay-behind networks and Olof Palme.

Johan Wennström

What first attracted you to the period or periods you work in? I have always been interested in postwar history, particularly the Cold War-era in my own country, Sweden. It was a dangerous time, marked by pragmatic and secret cooperation with Nato to protect the...

A Spy in the Archive: How I Pieced Together a Stay-Behind Network

The author reveals how he reconstructed Sweden’s secret Cold War stay-behind network from fragments in archives, diaries and interviews.

Johan Wennström

When I first met historian Andrew Roberts, who wrote the foreword to my forthcoming book The Stay Behinds: Sweden’s Cold War Guardians, he asked: "How do you even research a stay-behind network?" Highly secret stay-behind groups were established across NATO-aligned...

Johan Wennström

Dr. Johan Wennström is a research fellow at the Swedish Defence University and author of the forthcoming book The Stay Behinds: Sweden’s Cold War Guardians (Osprey/Bloomsbury 2026). He is also a researcher at Uppsala University. Previously, he spent nine years as a doctoral student and researcher at the Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN).

Johan Wennström

Books Click on any of the books covers below to either buy or get more information on Amazon Articles Click on the links below to read the full article [dpdfg_filtergrid custom_query="advanced" use_taxonomy_terms="on" multiple_taxonomies="name_of_author"...