Talk:Ivar Kreuger

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More information about this article... The following comments have been left for this page: To go into a debate about Ivars motives would be a total waste of time, what is the missleading information?. I cant se anything but facts about the scale of the group and the amount of his business. Besides if you want to delve into the darker sides of the "Kreuger crash" you have to delv into Bonnier and Wallenberg also and I guess that would not be very popular today. Reference is made to recent research by Dutch Jewish groups into the attitude and behaviour of the same Wallenberg (Jacob) who enriched himself very grandly on behalf of the Kreuger empire. Turns out Jacob Wallenberg was the specialist at Stockholms Enskilda Bank in negotiating with Hitler. ABout 40% of all stocks, bonds, gold, and other assets confiscated from Jews were moved out of Germany with the help of Mr. Wallenberg and his croonies. Hitler rewarded Mr. Wallenberg with the Iron Cross, plus excellent commissions. Messrs. Wallenberg and Stenbeck(Hugo) worked very hard to spread false rumors for months, in anticipation of the planned murder of Kreuger. Ivar Kreuger is the only known right handed person, who has shot himself using his left hand, which had a stiff trigger finger. Quite a feat!! Many authors were rewarded handsomely for writing false books, including doctoral thesis, to continue the rumors around Kreuger. Mary.415 01:59, 3 December 2007 (UTC) (edit)

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[edit] question

Most of the statements in this article are, if not intirely false, deliberately misleading, no wonder if you see the book written by his brother as only source for it. The brother, obviously biased, tried in the 1960s to whitewash the memory of Ivar Kreuger. For better comprehension I suggest to read the book "The Incredible Ivar Kreuger" by Allen Churchill. Kraxler 21:22, 4 October 2006 (UTC).

The author that knows most about Ivar Kreuger is the swedish banker and author, Lars-Erik Thunholm (1914-2006). He wrote the book Ivar Kreuger, published by T. Fischer & Co, Stockholm 1995. ISBN 91 7054 757 2. I don't think this book has been translated into english. He was the CEO for the company Swedish Match lots of years and spent his entire life in the same "world" as Ivar Kreuger. If you are looking for the "truth" read this book. That's as close as you can get.

One more hint: He was an extremly intelligent man. The only thing he was really interested in was his companies and to see them grow but he kept all of the key parts to himself.

The book refered to above does exist in English!. See reference list in the article.

[edit] new discussion

I believe one should not put lines like the one below on top of pages in articles about persons. This statement is entirely one angry newspaper editors opinion. The line is a serious accusation to someone that cannot defend himself. It looks like he was a swindler his entire life. He was a victime of the circumstanes of the time close to WW2 and may have been swindling to some degree the last couple of years 1931-1932, trying to save the empire due to dramatically negative actions from the bankers, but was definitly not a swindler all his life. All large companies in all times have been "swindling" from time to time. No company is perfect.

From the article: "He also operated one of the largest pyramid schemes ever, defrauding $400M from his investors. The Economist dubbed him "The World's Greatest Swindler".

If someone wish to keep the line, put it somewhere else below a headline, something about "media reports..." after his death. Before his death, when everyone that owned Kreuger shares, were increasing their private fortune, no one said anything negative.Lidingo SWE (talk) 09:47, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

One could compare the size of Kreuger & Toll Holding relative to other corporations 1930 with the Microsoft corporation today. Lidingo SWE (talk) 10:19, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

I have again removed the Economist articles, it's closer to science fiction than the real story. --Gargamelik (talk) 05:27, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry to have to contradict you, Lidingo. When he transferred the responsibility for the construction business to Paul Toll and started his financial and match business about 1912, he began swindling and continued until the end. His motives might have been excusable or understandable, but all his business transactions from then on had a fraudulent touch or were outright criminal according to the law. He never had anything even one tenth the size of Microsoft, since he spent all the assets whenever he got them, and had only numbers on pieces of paper, but no money to show. And, yes, the people who got the Kreuger & Toll stock which paid 50% interest a year, after 2 years (in theory) got their money back, and could not really complain of their original stock's total loss of value in 1932, but the much larger portion of people had invested and re-invested their money in more stock (the classical pyramid, or snow-ball scheme) and lost their life's savings in the middle of the depression. So, we better let the introductory sentence stand, as it is the plain truth, and not just the "angry opinion of one person". Finally, he himself chose not to defend himself, since he could have "explained" everything in the courts of law, instead of shooting himself. Kraxler (talk) 17:27, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Kraxler: There are many fact errors in your text, for example K&T didn't pay 50% in interest/per, that's FUD (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear%2C_uncertainty_and_doubt). I suggest you read those two books: "Därför mördades Ivar Kreuger" (ISBN 91-7055-019-0) and "Kreuger-Mordet: En utredning med nya fakta" (ISBN 91-630-9780-X). I also suggest that you read: http://www.dsm.nu/kreuger/mordet.htm, http://www.bankrattsforeningen.org.se/kreuger.html and http://www.politiskamord.com/. Please read those and then we can have a real discussion ;) --Gargamelik (talk) 04:10, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Your conspiracy theories are not supported by the facts. And K&T stock paid 50 % interest, according to Allen Churchill in his book The Incredible Ivar Kreuger. Read this book, and then you will understand what happened. This is an encyclopedia, so if something is doubtful, you have to mention all sources and have the reader decide, you can not favor one or other theory, see Wikipedia:POV. His suicide is not disputed by any official source, but you can mention the conspiracy therories as such in a special paragraph if you like, if you can cite a Wikipedia:reliable source for it. Kraxler (talk) 16:19, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Kraxler, I don't want to come of as rude, but I'm asking you to PLEASE not edit Wikipedia articles that you have no understanding of, don't write on Wikipedia just for the writing's sake. The book you mention as your only source was written in 1957. The whole Kreuger case was classified for 30 years and no documents were available in 1957 at the point the book were written. If you read the books I mentioned, you will find tons of actual facts and documents that were released after the classified documents were made public. "Därför mördades Ivar Kreuger" (ISBN 91-7055-019-0) (1990) and "Kreuger-Mordet: En utredning med nya fakta" (ISBN 91-630-9780-X) (2000). And the 50% number is a misconception. 50% of what? The 50% figure you mention is based on the nominal value, while new share issues being between 400-600%, so the actual dividend was a very moderate 5-6%. I've again removed the inaccurate Economist article, but this whole Wikipedia article needs to be re-written. --Gargamelik (talk) 17:53, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

I did not edit the article, I just reverted POV vandalism. DO NOT PRESS YOUR POINT OF VIEW ON OTHERS! Follow the instructions I gave above. Write your conspiracy theories, giving reliable sources. No hagiography, no whitewash, facts or quotes from reliable sources, please. Besides, you think The Economist does not understand economy? Sounds rather starnge. Kraxler (talk) 18:06, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

I have given reliable sources several times in this article, while you are citing one book from 1957 when no classified documents were available. Why are you giving so much credit to one journalist's sensational writing? If you read the Economist's article it's obvious that they haven't done enough background checking, it's just sensational writing that YOU are now pressing to others. A few questions, how old are you, where do you come from, what's your education and what's your interest in Ivar Kreuger? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gargamelik (talk • contribs) 18:23, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

You have written NOTHING in the article, you have edited only the TALK PAGE, this is not the place to give sources, write a paragraph in the ARTICLE, with the sources named!!!!! I have no interest at all in Ivar Kreuger, my interest is in Wikipedia. As I said, I have not written the article, it was somebody who cited reliable sources. Sorry, but you have not even understood the difference between the article itself and its talk page, and you want me to believe that you understood high finance? Don't vanmdalize the article, rewrite it if you like, with sources, but do not vandalize it. Kraxler (talk) 18:32, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

You are correct that I don't use Wikipedia very much and I'm not 100% familiar with how it works, but I can assure you that I understand finance better than you do. I can also speak and read Swedish which is necessary for reading and understanding all documents regarding this case. Someone very irresponsible has started the Ivar Kreuger article with a very controversial quote from The Economist claiming that as "fact" or a "source". I'm of course not trying to vandalize the article, I'm trying to un-vandalizing it and more people than me have reacted to this part of the text. I know quite a bit about Ivar Kreuger, history and economy, but I don't want to write this article myself since I still don't think I know enough. Ideally it should be done by one or several persons with a really deep understanding of economy, history, Ivar Kreuger and the fairly newly revealed documents and facts. I'm under the impression that it is not against Wikipedia's rules to just remove text without adding something if the text you are removing is inaccurate? Am I wrong? It's also hard for me to add a source for the removal if I'm not writing anything new on the page. You come here as a Wikipedia police defending a standpoint that you don't seem to know anything about and that you don't understand. What you do is very dangerous for the truth and real facts and I don't believe this is what Wikipedia is about; if you don't understand something, or have the full story, then you shouldn't act. Might I suggest that in the future you only write and edit articles that you have a very good understanding of and not just Wikipedia-police for the policing's sake? Please think about this for a moment. --Gargamelik (talk) 19:22, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Somebody with enough understanding of this matter has written the article citing sources. The quote from The Economist is cited as such. Please respect other users' contributions. There is no "absolute truth" that can be stated on a talk page to justify the deletion of parts of articles. That is vandalism. Don't do it anymore! Your personal opinion is not what counts, neither my own, what counts is the consensus about the facts (suicide, swindler), and dissenting views (conspiracy theory), both stated in the article with reliable sources. Just do it in the approved encyclopedic manner, this is an ENCYCLOPEDIA, not a teenage-blogspot. Kraxler (talk) 20:28, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Someone from San José (69.110.228.48, Revision as of 11:28, 30 December 2007) has unfortunately read the Economist article and without doing any more research than that, quoted them and inserted it into this article and this is now an established "fact" and the "truth"? Is that what you call "someone with enough understanding of this matter"? How would I go about correcting this? Or is it impossible and the Economist is the truth? The Economist article is only quoting sources prior to the classified materials being released. I have already posted several other sources that include actual real documents that used to be classified, information the Economist doesn't have in their article. What do I need to do more? And for your information, France keeps a record of the names of all people committing suicide and Ivar Kreuger's name is not in that list. It has also been proven that he didn't buy the gun he "shot himself" with, it was bought by another person in Ivar Kreuger's name (Source: "Därför mördades Ivar Kreuger" (ISBN 91-7055-019-0)). So the suicide, swindler theory should really be the dissenting view and conspiracy theory. --Gargamelik (talk) 02:09, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Addition: actually when reading the references, reference #1 is directly supporting my sources and directly contradicting the Economist article reference #2. I suggest that you very throughly go through the information found at the site of reference #1, all pages exist in english. Who has the most trustworthy references, the Economist or the site at reference #1? --Gargamelik (talk) 02:09, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

The site at ref nr 1 is not "reliable" according to the rules of Wikipedia, it is maintained by somebody with a certain point of view (Wikipedia:POV). Nevertheless, it might be as much the truth as anything else. I will see what to do next week, I'm really busy now. Kraxler (talk) 00:00, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Please do, I'm not sure if the author of that homepage has read all the sources he mentions on his homepage (http://www.qikrux.com/kreuger/sources.htm) but I recognize quite a bit of his text from several of the books. --Gargamelik (talk) 01:57, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

The reference book # 1 is written by Lars-Erik Thunholm (1914 - 2006), a Swedish banker as well as author. He was the manager for SEB and during many years manager for the Swedish Match, the company created by Ivar Kreuger. His research before he began writing this book (the most important books of his life) was enormous and he had access to all information about the Kreuger crash etc. The book includes both negative and postive sides of Ivar, well balanced and many important "small" facts that shows that Kreuger was a serious buinessman all along to the count down for his corporation that began sometime in 1931 when Ivar began to behave strange or desperate. These critical time which led to his suicide most certainly also had other reasons than just money, in my opinion. Anyway, his empire comprised more than 200 companies and most of the companies still exists one way or the other. Lidingo SWE (talk) 21:49, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

I meant the first reference link, not the first reference book. However, I will read Thunholm's book so we can discuss it. --Gargamelik (talk) 01:57, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

I moved the controversial part farther down, the introduction should be short and to the point. Controversial content, as a Wikipedia general rule, should not be written in the article, and although there is quite a lot of evidence for the swindling, and the pyramid scheme, there are disagreeing voices, which makes it somewhat controversial. I think, the article is ok now, but certainly can be expanded and improved, if somebody reads all the new publications, and would be able to write clearly and technically well-founded, favoring neither side with opinions (Wikipedia:NPOV). Kraxler (talk) 19:58, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree to what Kraxler changed. There is also probably a lot more to be filled in about Kreugers business, ecpecially the economic transactions. But that requires an economic knowledge at top level and experiences from large corporations. The book written by Thunholm has come very close in the description of Kreugers business, that's at least what an authorized public accountant told me (65 years old, and in the business his entire life. His favourite book is the Thunholm book - Ivar Kreuger). Kreuger represented the high risk taking while on the other hand Wallenberg-group represents, and still today, the solid stable not very exciting economics) but there is a lot more to tell. Unfortunately these accountants does not write on Wikipedia. On the internet in general, there is too much amateurs writing about Kreuger and they tend to concentrate on the murder theory and the mystery about it all. That is not interesting, he most likely killed himself, he is dead and it's far to late the find out more about that. The interesting part is how his companies were designed and how he run the business, risk taking etc. Swindler? maybe, but which company owner in the world does not try to use "all the trix in book" to get advantages over his competitors? That behaver was invented when humans started trading more than 5000-7000 years ago. I hope someone with economic expert knowledge will show up and contribute to what I think is missing in the article to get it more professional. For example, there must exist a lot of documents from bankers, people in general etc., about the Kreuger business in USA which is just briefly described in Thunholms book. Lidingo SWE (talk) 21:50, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

I finally had time to read Thunholm's book "Ivar Kreuger". The book is quite good up to around page 250, where Thunholm tells us about Kreuger's business. However, the last 50 pages are plain, naive and almost deliberately(?) misleading. Thunholm is telling the reader about the "murder" and he's also actually defending how the estate and assests were split up after Kreuger's death. Here are some serious flaws in the book:

• Thunholm never mentions that sacks with Kreuger's notes and his private diary were burned by Hugo Stenbeck. He just writes something like "too bad they were missing". Was Thunholm not aware of this?
• Thunholm never mentions anything about "The Royal Commission", that was run by Hugo Stenbeck and indirectly by Wallenberg.
• Thunholm states that the estate was done fairly and that the readers can be sure of this because the estate and accounting was done by Price Waterhouse "one of the world's finest revision firms"! Price Waterhouse in this case, is Price, Waterhouse & Cie in Paris (PWCP), not Price, Waterhouse & Co in London. PWCP was most likely chosen by Wallenberg because of it's name similarity to the real firm, so it looked good. No one was told about that it wasn't the real accounting firm. The boss of PWCP was Mr Seatree who didn't speak swedish, so they had to rely on translators and Wallenberg's information. If you take a closer look at PWCP it's not very pretty. Except for running a very dubious accounting firm, Mr Seatree was also running a nightclub in Paris where his partners' wives were the hostesses. There are also documents of fraudulent accounting in other cases where accountants had to spend time in prison. After one week of going through Kreuger's companies, PWCP were able to say that Kreuger and K&T were completely undermined and there were fictitious assets. After ONE week! Other than this, PWCP had no legal right to handle the accounting, since they were hired by "The Royal Commission", and that commission had no legal rights at all. (The Royal Commission was appointed by Wallenberg, where they first went to the king and government where they said "we are appointed by K&T to handle the estate", they then went to K&T and said "we are appointed by the king and government to handle the estate". After that they could do what they wanted. Apparently Thunholm actually believes that PWCP was the real Price Waterhouse, and if he believes that and that is the logic behind his thoughts, well, then I understand why Thunholm thinks the estate was done properly. I consider mixing up the accounting firms a big mistake and if you write a book about Ivar Kreuger and you miss this fact, you can't have done your research properly. This is where I lost the respect Thunholm had built up during the first 250 pages.
• Thunholm never mentions that Wallenberg got/took (for free) the whole Deutsche Unionbank with proven assets, unknown how large, but most likely considerable.
• Thunholm mentions that Kreuger at several points brought up that he suspected there was an organized syndicate of K&T stock sellers and there were illegal activities going on against K&T. Thunholm doesn't go deeper than this than just saying something like "unfounded" about Kreuger's suspicions. So how come at least two persons in Paris got long prison sentences in Paris after Kreuger's death? Thunholm fails to mention this, is Thunholm again not aware of this? Despite K&T's excellent reputation at that time, K&T stocks fall much more than other stocks, why?
• Somewhat related to the syndicate story, is Mr Gumprecht and the Kreuger owned bank "Banque Saint Phalle Corporation", which was quite a large bank and handled various transactions that Kreuger wanted to keep confidential. Thunholm never mentions the story of Mr Gumprecht and the bank and how very large assets and transactions disappeared.
• Thunholm never mentions the Högman story or that one or several of the Directors of K&T were most likely guilty of fraud against Kreuger.
• Thunholm never mentions how Sjöström was arrested after Kreuger's death, but were protected by influential people who managed to declare him sick and sent to a hospital. Sjöström got "amnesia".
• Thunholm never mentions that influential people went to great extents to prohibit an autopsy of Kreuger (why prohibit an autopsy?) and the corpse was thus burnt without a proper autopsy.
• Thunholm never mentions that Kreuger himself wanted an external revision of all his companies.
• Thunholm mentions the "fake" Italian bonds, but he pretty much just write that they were fake, no background or details are given. Kreuger had up to this point NEVER faked a large loan to a country, why would he have done that "after" his death? After Kreuger was dead, Hellner (who was close to Wallenberg) was sent to Italy to see if the loan was fake. The protocol from that trip exists, but is revised. However, the original document also actually exist. Here is what was revised: 1. It was deleted that Mussolini was aware of the errand and had time to prepare his employees, which was very important since there were a lot of money on the table. It's not every day you can make half a billion. 2. It was deleted that Hellner had given Mussolini exactly how much they knew and what they had found and not found, Hellner is actually putting the words in Mussolini's mouth. 3. It was deleted that Mussolini actually confirmed that negotiations had been made with Kreuger about a monopoly, but that those had been cancelled by Ivar Kreuger (Mussolini doesn't mention that the negotiations were brought up again). 4. Hellner's observation about Mussolini's change of attitude, when Hellner suggest that they together should construct an evidence that there were no realities behind the bonds, have also been deleted, and also Mussolini's reply/quote "I will do everything you wish". 5. Mosconi's (the Italian Finance Minister) confirmation that he and Boselli had met and discussed with Kreuger in Florens in Count Constantinis villa, and there negotiated about a monopoly and state loan was also deleted.

It all comes down to who do you trust, Ivar Kreuger who had up to that point never lied about a state loan/monopoly, or the dictator and fascist Benito Mussolini? Actually Mussolini doesn't even have to lie, the words are put in his mouth and all he has to say is "I will do everything you wish". It's not every day you can make half a billion in half a day. This was how Kreuger became "the world's greatest swindler" and I still find it unbelievable that people today still trust Mussolini (also considering his track record) over Kreuger. There are of course a lot more that Thunholm doesn't bring up, those are just a few I reacted on and I've also probably forgotten some. Actually Thunholm's book contains some details when it comes to Kreuger's business, but around 1929 and to Kreuger's death, Thunholm is grossly overlooking a lot of facts, actually so many facts I had to look him up: http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lars-Erik_Thunholm

Apparently Thunholm has been CEO and chairman for many years for SEB, the bank that benefitted the absolutely most from Kreuger's death/estate and which is owned by Wallenberg. What are the odds that Thunholm is friend with Wallenberg and/or doesn't want to offend them? --Gargamelik (talk) 12:35, 14 June 2008 (UTC)