Klas Lund
Birth nameKlas Henrik Pontus Lund
Birth date14 February 1968 (age 58)
Birth placeLidingö, Stockholm, Sweden
Known forFounder of the White Aryan Resistance, Nordic Resistance Movement and Nordic Strength

Klas Henrik Pontus Lund (born 14 February 1968) is a Swedish neo-Nazi and since 2019 the leader of the combat organisation Nordic Strength.[1]

Lund is a founder of White Aryan Resistance (VAM), and was leader of the Swedish Resistance Movement (SMR) from 1997, now part of the wider movement known as the Nordic Resistance Movement (NMR).

Biography

Lund was sentenced to four years in prison for the manslaughter of Ronny Landin in 1986, who had intervened in an attack against three immigrants in Nynäshamn. He was released after two years.[2]

In 1990, Lund and two others founded the White Aryan Resistance, an underground racist group that became a centre for some of Sweden's most militant far-right extremists.[2] He ran a skinhead office at Fryshuset which functioned as a recruiting base for VAM and where their magazine "Storm" was printed.[3]

In 1991 he was sentenced to six years in prison for a bank robbery in Vemdalen,[2] in which members of VAM used weapons from a heist against a police station in Lidingö. He has several convictions for illegal possession of weapons.[4] He founded the Swedish Resistance Movement and became its first leader in 1997. He was the leader of the group until 2015.[5]

In October 2004 he escaped from prison in Mariestad, where he was serving six months for illegal possession of weapons.[2] He was apprehended in March 2005, in Kristiansand, Norway.[6]

Nordic Strength

In August 2019 several leading members left NMR and established the paramilitary organisation Nordic Strength, with Lund as the leader. They considered the NMR's political strategy not sufficiently radical. The breakaway group describes itself as an elite combat organisation with tough physical requirements of its members.[7][8]

References

  1. ^ Baas, David (13 August 2019). "Oro för mer våld efter nazisternas splittring" (in Swedish). Expressen
  2. ^ Flood, Linda (21 December 2013). "Gun-Britts son blev offer för nazistvåldet" (in Swedish). Expressen
  3. ^ "Samordnat tillslag mot ledande nazister" (in Swedish). Expo. 25 November 2003. Archived 22 August 2010 at the Wayback Machine.
  4. ^ "Vit makt-organisationer i Sverige" (in Swedish). Göteborgs-Posten. 30 July 2011. Archived 12 April 2013 at the Wayback Machine.
  5. ^ "Nordiska motståndsrörelsen (NMR)" (in Swedish). Expo. 19 September 2022.
  6. ^ "Klas Lund gripen i Norge" (in Swedish). Dagens Nyheter. 23 March 2005.
  7. ^ Folkö, Robin & Leman, Jonathan (20 August 2019). "Nya nazistgruppens innersta krets – fälld för över 100 brott" (in Swedish). Expo. Archived 25 January 2021 at the Wayback Machine.
  8. ^ Kasurinen, Anton & Leman, Jonathan (27 February 2020). "Här är nazisternas nya högkvarter - ett tidigare församlingshus" (in Swedish). Expo. Archived 6 January 2022 at the Wayback Machine.