Johan ''Fritiof'' Enbom (7 September 1918 – 11 September 1974) was a

Swedish Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...

railway worker who was accused and convicted of being a spy for the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

in the 1950s. Born in Luleå, Enbom was a former worker at the

Swedish State Railways The Swedish State Railways ( sv, Statens Järnvägar) or SJ, originally the Royal Railway Board ( sv, Kungl. Järnvägsstyrelsen), was the former government agency responsible for operating the state-owned railways in Sweden. It was created i ...

in Boden, and later the local editor for the Communist newspaper '' Norrskensflamman''. He was exposed by his own careless talk—often under the influence of alcohol—to the owners of the house in Stockholm where he had lodged since he moved there from Boden. The family told the

Swedish Security Service The Swedish Security Service ( sv, Säkerhetspolisen , abbreviated SÄPO ; until 1989 ''Rikspolisstyrelsens säkerhetsavdelning'', abbreviated RPS/Säk) is a Swedish government agency organised under the Ministry of Justice. It operates as a ...

after the Christmas holidays of 1951, and Enbom was arrested on 16 February 1952. During interrogation, he confessed that he—from February 1943 to April 1951—had met around 25 times with Soviet employers. Enbom had provided a large variety of intelligence, most of it from public sources, but also secrets about armaments in Boden Fortress and nearby fortifications. He was sentenced to lifetime hard labour, but was released after ten years. Enbom had, according to a police investigation, collected material about the defence locations of northern Sweden. Enbom had then given this information to the Soviet Union. In hindsight it has been proven that most of the information that Enbom gave to the Soviet Union was public and could be easily found by anyone interested. Enbom also said that he was the last chain in a large chain of Soviet spies who gave secret information.Agrell 2003, s. 194 Most investigators that view the case today have concluded that Enbom largely lied or made up most of his stories about his spying or at least his role in the spying on Sweden for the Soviet Union. Lund University professor Wilhelm Agrell, on the other hand, has concluded that Enbom provided

KGB The KGB (russian: links=no, lit=Committee for State Security, Комитет государственной безопасности (КГБ), a=ru-KGB.ogg, p=kəmʲɪˈtʲet ɡəsʊˈdarstvʲɪn(ː)əj bʲɪzɐˈpasnəsʲtʲɪ, Komitet gosud ...

agent Vladimir Petrov with a lot of secret information from Sweden about its defence. Endom died in 1974 in Stockholm.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Enbom, Fritiof 1918 births 1974 deaths People from Luleå Swedish communists Swedish newspaper editors Swedish people convicted of spying for the Soviet Union Swedish prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment Prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment by Sweden