Talk:Ivar Kreuger

The Economist article

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'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)

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)

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)

As I've mentioned earlier the Ecomonist article contains a lot of fact errors and for example one source they use themselves are, quote: "One of the best, “Kreuger, Genius and Swindler” was written in 1961 by an American crime reporter, Robert Shaplen.". Claiming that this book is one of the best Kreuger books is simply a joke. 1961 is also the incorrect year, it was written earlier, but even if it would have been written in 1961, Kreuger documents were still classified in Sweden. The classification is unfortunately the biggest joke, why classify a bankruptcy? Simple, to cover up for the unnecessary bankruptcy and plundering of the companies that followed, which has been PROVEN (it has been proven that extremely valuable companies and assets were taken over for a fraction of the real value or simply for free, which must be considered plundering) after the de-classification. If they hadn't classified the material, the truth would have gotten out right away and they would never have been able to make Kreuger a "swindler" and steal his "worthless" companies and assets, which happens to still be among Sweden's largest companies and have been extremely valuable for Sweden's growth! K&T could also have avoided bankruptcy, but the people with money and power didn't want that, they wanted to make a huge profit themselves of course. In fact, despite the enormous and completely unnecessary write-downs of the assets (done by Kreuger's competitors so they could buy the assets super cheap!), K&T were able to pay -excluding pariticipating debentures- 91.5% of their debts! (see books I've mentioned on this page). In any case, for the strongest statements the Ecomonist article makes, it doesn't give any sources at all! After doing some research, The Ecomonist article is most likely a paid article/publication, hence the really extreme angle. It has possibly been paid by the publisher of Frank Partnoy who will release a new Kreuger book this autumn. Anyone willing to bet if Partnoy's book when released will have similarities to the Economist article? Which also begs the question, who inserted the Economist link to Wikipedia to begin with? A lot of people have also tried to contact The Ecomonist about this article to get the article removed or corrected, but of course without any answers at all. Because of all this, I'm petitioning that the Economist article is completely removed as a "source" from this Wikipedia article, it's as unreliable as "sources" come. --Gargamelik (talk) 06:26, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Frank Partnoy's book has now been released and "surprise surprise" it has the exact same angle as the Economist article, which I predicted before the book was released, so I think it's safe to say that this wasn't a coincidence and the Economist article is a paid fiction article that should be removed asap. I'm 99% certain Frank Partnoy has also been compensated in one way or the other (although I can't prove this of course) for writing this book, by people who don't want the truth to come out, because people still want to hide what happend to Kreuger's assets. --Gargamelik (talk) 23:59, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

That's a powerful assertion, which should not be made without evidence to back it up. You seem to dismiss Partnoy's work and attack his character simply because you don't agree with his conclusions.--Ff11 (talk) 22:55, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

I read the entire preceding exchange and what irritates me is that you, Gargamelik, keeps on telling Kraxler what to do as well as you citing again and again 2 books in Swedish. They may very well be valuable and accurate but just how many people using the English version of Wikipedia are able to read Swedish besides you? So why don't YOU rewrite the article including all important references to the 2 books you mention? Your problem would be solved and if you are correct the entry will be improved. With respect to Partnoy being paid: A conspiracy? They do exist of course but you don't give any evidence that he was paid to write what he did, only speculation. I just watched an interview with Partnoy on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, aired May 11, 2009, that's why I checked the Wikipedia entry. I put a hold on the book at the local library but it's still on order so I don't know when I'll be able to read it and evaluate the sources. I also take exception to your "evaluation" ('unfounded speculation' would be more accurate) of Kraxlers knowledge of finance etc. What is the point of that? What are you trying to prove with this? It's ad hominem. A parallel would be the people who dismiss Stern's climate report because he's an economist. It's irrelevant IMO and proves nothing about the validity, or lack thereof, of another person's arguments. You read a lot about Kreuger, including sources most of us are unable to read, so I suggest to you that you rewrite the article. What do you think? Gatorinvancouver (talk) 01:12, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Why is the neutrality of"Kreuger group loans to foreign states from 1925-1930" disputed? I haven't seen any argument here on the talk page. Whoever put that "caution" there (I suspect it was Gargamelik) should say why. Are the loan amounts disputed? If so, by all menas lets have some evidence and a correction. As it stands, I haven't got a clue why the neutrality is disputed and unless the evidence is forthcoming I think the caution for THAT section should be removed. Gatorinvancouver (talk) 01:22, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

I've been a fan of The Economist for decades but it certainly has happened that the "newspaper" (as they call themselves) was off the mark. In their article they cite the respected journal Foreign Affairs as source. You, Gargamelik, claims that it was all due to one angry editor. The BBC site quotes John Kenneth Galbraith, who according to you is mistaken. You accuse Professor Partnoy of having been paid ("though you cannot prove it" you stated) to come up with falsehoods. I find all this a little hard to swallow and request that you prove your points with acceptable and reliable sources. Otherwise I will remove the "neutrality is disputed" label.Gatorinvancouver (talk) 02:05, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

The Thunholm Book

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.

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)

Very interesting, Gargamelik! There really seems to be MUCH more research necessary to get the history of Kreuger sorted out. I wish I could get hold of all these books and find the time to read them.... Kraxler (talk) 22:26, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Another thing, since I was so sceptic about Thunholm's book, I've looked this up further and it has come to my attention recently that Thunholm actively tried to stop the only living witness Eva Dyrsén (Ivar Kreuger's sister's daughter) to state in 2000 what she had heard Dr Karlmark say 1932, "This is not a suicide. This is a murder", when preparing for the autopsy. Unfortunately influential people also heard the statement and therefore prohibited the autopsy through government contacts. Thunholm also tried to stop Lars-Jonas Ångström from publishing his book "Därför mördades Ivar Kreuger" (approximately: Why Ivar Kreuger was murdered) which was published in 1990. Thunholm published his own book "Ivar Kreuger" in 1995, what a timing and coincidence! In his book Thunholm "happens" to mention Lars-Jonas Ångström's book and says "artifice" about the whole thing. For this claim Thunholm gives no sources at all, while Lars-Jonas Ångström's book is very thick and contains actual sources and uses over 4000 actual documents from different archives. How you can even say "artifice" about all that proof? When looking at the course of events, it's not too far fetched to think that Thunholm was maybe writing this book as a reaction to Lars-Jonas Ångström's book and being compensated from "somewhere"? In any case, having read Thunholm's book and the fact that he tried to stop Eva Dyrsén and Lars-Jonas Ångström from publishing what they know, put the nails in the coffin about Thunholm and his motives. --Gargamelik (talk) 06:26, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

I've heard that Karlmark came up to Eva Dyrssen at the funeral (as she was probably sobbing) and said: I just want you to know one thing: Your uncle did not commit suicide, he was murdered. He might have said godfather instead of uncle, as he was indeed her godfather. (Dyrssen passed away in 2007) Metallion (talk) 23:38, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

The webpages you, Gargamelik, list as sources are IMO highly doubtful. The first one is a page (with no info listed about the author/s) in a South Sea island state. The second one seems like some kind of blog to me and the third one doesn't exist anymore (or people don't have access to it). I don't think these webpages fit the description I just read of what are "acceptable" webpages. Please give more reliable sources. Otherwise I suggest to remove the "neutrality disputed" label. I will not do it now. I am waiting first for your answer but I do feel very strongly - given the evidence I have seen here - that the label should be removed.Gatorinvancouver (talk) 01:50, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

"Sanningen om Ivar Kreuger" ("The Truth about Ivar Kreuger") by Torsten Kreuger published 1966

It has been stated on this page that Ivar Kreuger's brother is biased (although by someone who hasn't read his books), which implies that Torsten's book "The Truth about Ivar Kreuger" is not a reliable source. Of course Torsten was biased since it was his brother, but all serious, objective and independent research backup Torsten's claims and tons of experts put their good names on stake supporting him. In fact, after classified documents had been made available, "The Society for Debenture Owners of AB Kreuger & Toll" supports Torsten Kreuger to 100% with a 42-pages long summary in 1964, which conclusion can be summarized as "murder-robbery". And this comes from the society that should be the most critical towards Ivar Kreuger's "fake companies" and having been "cheated" by Ivar Kreuger! Torsten himself uses mostly actual documents and facts in his own book to backup his claims and he tried for over 40 years to clear his brothers name. Here are a few news papers that after Torsten's book was published in 1966, state that Ivar Kreuger's name has been cleared and that a scandal of enormous proportions has occured: Västerbottens-Kuriren, Borlänge Tidning, Stockholms-Tidningen, Handelstjänstemannen, Morgenposten, Nordvästra Skånes Tidningar, Borås Tidning, Karlstads-Tidningen, Berlingske Aftenavis, Berlingske Tidende, Farmand, Västerbottens Folkblad, Dagen, Norges handels og Sjöfartstidende, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Norddeutsche Rundschau, Deutsche Hochschullehrer-Zeitung. Welt am Sonntag (Germany's largest Sunday news paper) published 5 full-page articles about the book "The Truth about Ivar Kreuger", saying, quote: "The gigantic slander campain on Ivar Kreuger, the claim about the false Italian bonds, has been revealed as a lie". Notable is that all those news papers are Swedish, Norwegian and German news papers, not controlled by Kreuger's competitors. News papers controlled by Kreuger's competitors were completely silent. They were also completely silent when Lars-Jonas Ångström published the most comprehensive work about Ivar Kreuger ever made, (where he also came to the conclusion murder-robbery). Swedish media has to 90% been controlled/owned by Kreuger's competitors before Kreuger's death and even up to this date and it's still today practically impossible to publish a positive book about Ivar Kreuger in Sweden. It's very unfortunate that Kreuger's competitors were able to smear Kreuger by controlling media and spreading their own version to other parts of the world and make that the "de facto truth" to a lot of people and thus be able to steal the assets themselves, claiming they "saved the worthless companies"! --Gargamelik (talk) 06:26, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Torsten Kreuger owned the Berlingske Tidende, not "Kreuger's enemies"! Certainly he launched these (possibly invented) clearing stories which were than re-printed by syndicated newspapers. Kreuger operated (that is the historical consensus) a very large Ponzi scheme. All this new whitewash campaign is based on national pride, hearsay and "now released classified documents". Nothing really substantial. We should call only uncontroversial things a fact, and all the rest are theories. Just to begin with: If he was murdered, what was the motive for it? Business people (especially financiers) do not get murdered by their competitors. A suicide after the collapse of the scheme is at least plausible. Kraxler (talk) 18:10, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Kreuger's death

The article about Kreuger's death needs to be rewritten. It says that the French police came to the conclusion that he shot himself. The truth is that the French police came to the conclusion that Kreuger had been murdered. Although the gun and most of the other evidence and reports "disappeared" after the murder (and Kreuger's body was very quickly burnt without an autopsy - against the family's wishes), there are official statements where high French police officers states that Kreuger was murdered. The only expert who had an opportunity to make a superficial autopsy (when preparing for the real autopsy) of Kreuger's body was Dr. Karlmark who said "This is not a suicide. This is a murder". And as I've mentioned earlier, Kreuger was also never recorded in any suicide reports. It has also been proven that the gun wasn't bought by Ivar Kreuger because he was busy at a meeting at the time the gun was bought in "his name". There were also reports of Ivar Kreuger's "suicide" before the body was officially found. Evidence and Kreuger's diaries and documents "disappeared" and in Sweden they classified everything for 30 years to cover up for the company-robberies that followed. There are so many facts that support murder, I've previously mentioned a few books about this and Torsten Kreuger's book "Sanningen om Ivar Kreuger" (The truth about Ivar Kreuger) is also an interesting read. Kreuger & Toll was solid at the time, the Italian loan was also real, it just hadn't been made official yet, if Kreuger had lived another few weeks it would have been made official. Kreuger's "worthless" companies also still happen to be among Sweden's most valued companies to this date. Simply put: this is the world's largest murder-robbery of all time, unfortunately a well executed one. --Gargamelik (talk) 22:57, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Actually all of the most respected Ivar Kreuger sites online and the ones who have done the most research, states that it was a murder: http://www.politiskamord.com/, http://www.dsm.nu/ivar_kreuger.html, http://www.qikrux.com/kreuger/, http://www.bankrattsforeningen.org.se/ledaren25.html (approximate translation "The Bank Society"). How come Wikipedia has a dissenting view? --Gargamelik (talk) 08:32, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

"Kreuger sites" are unreliable because they are Kreuger sites! See WP:POV. The suicide was quite uncontroversial until a short time ago. Sensational books are certainly sources, but facts should be called facts, and theories should be called theories. It is not a question of what somebody believes, if something must be believed, it can not be called a fact, it's a theory!!!!! First of all: Post the finding of the French police here, to see if they said suicide or murder. All sources used to state that the official finding was suicide! Unless you post the official finding which says murder here, please refrain from saying otherwise. Scan the document and upload .jpg file. (Just a little story about the French police: Over decades the death of Jim Morrison {The Doors) in Paris was shrouded in mystery, because the death certificate could not be found. Murder, suicide, accident, voluntary disappearance, abduction - a lot of theories were put forward and earnestly defended and attacked, believed or not. After 30 years, somebody searched under D instead of M (like Morrison) and found the death certificate with photoes filed under his middle name "Douglas". It had always been there, the French police thinking that Douglas Morrison was a double surname...) Kraxler (talk) 18:24, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Just one more little detail: Under French law, autopsies are forbidden if there is no indication of "foul play"! Since the police found not a single trace of murder, the suicide being evident and obvious (including the motive), the French police could not make an autopsy even if they wanted. People in other countries, without knowing the circumstances, ask: "Why didn't they make an autopsy? Did they try to hide something?" and hang a whole conspiracy theory on this peg.... Sad, very sad.... Kraxler (talk) 13:31, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Lets put an end to this discussions about Kreugers death. Too many people have already earned too much money on speculations. The offical cause is suicide, End of story. Lidingo SWE (talk) 23:21, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Kraxler has now inserted "Ponzi scheme" into the top of the article, which in the current form seems to "summarize" Ivar Kreuger. Many of IK's companies are still among the largest in Sweden to this day, which I think goes completely against the "ponzi scheme" (which quote probably comes from Frank Partnoy whose interest in IK I have described earlier). I have read books from both sides, where one says IK was a fraud and the other says IK was legit, but since Kraxler and others seem to refuse to read "none-fraud" books which have support from actual documents, it's impossible to discuss and keep this article balanced. Starting- and summarizing the article by saying that IK's empire was a "ponzi scheme" and that he shot himself, is a disgrace. I have no idea what Kraxler's agenda is, but it's certainly not unbiased and objective. If Wikipedia was a serious organization, there is no way that people who aren't knowledgable about the subject -and aren't willing to study the subject deeper- would be allowed to write their own views in this manner. In any case, I've made my last edit in this article and discussion. Thank you and bye. --Gargamelik (talk) 11:47, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Financial issues

Quite right about his death. But I noticed, The "fake Italian bonds" are not in the article, why? It's an interesting episode. And the bonds were obviously faked, since a public administrator (the elected Italian government, yes, Mussolini was elected, and eventually was simply dismissed by the King) can not make secret loans. How could anybody claim repayment if the Prime or Finance minister dies or is defeated for re-election, and the bonds are nowhere registered? It's absurd.

Besides, the "loans" are badly explained. How were these loans made? Please cite specific sources for these loans, not just "reference literature". I had never heard about these "loans", on the other hand, he groosly overpaid the match monopolies. In fact, he "gave a loan" and the match monopoly was given as a "security" the proceeds from which were to be deduced from the loan. To recover the money would have lasted a hundred years under the circumstances, but the match monopolies were the basis for his Ponzi scheme. So the actual profits from these were not so important. Ponzi himself based his scheme on a much more absurd source of profits. That Hitler ceased to pay after Kreuger's death seems rather obvious, taking in consideration the general chaotic state of Kreuger's estate. Please do not remove the tags, it's very POV (showing Kreuger as an international abnegated benefactor) and it's disputed content. Kraxler(talk) 17:25, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

You got me totally confused now Kraxler. Above you had a long debate with Gargamelik justifiying the article as it stands. Now you are asking for the tags to stay. Would you please explain why?

I haven't got much experience editing Wikipedia and I might have wasted a lot of effort and time by posting a number of comments in the relevant (or so I thought) sections above. I also checked the websites Gargamelik claimed were reliable (or something to that extent). IMO they are anything but and (above) I said that the tags (the second one, i.e. the list of loans, has nothing specific about the objection) should be removed. I was going to do it after waiting some time. Now I'm not so sure anymore as I have no desire to waste a lot of time getting into more or less fruitless discussions such as IMO yours and Gargamelik above.

Please tell me what happened? Why did you so forcefully defend the present version above and now you want the tags to remain. Has the version changed and if so is this the reason?

I won't change anything in the article (at least for now) but please have a look at my posts above. Most importantly I will not waste my time getting into some "editing war".

Thanks. Gatorinvancouver (talk) 01:18, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

The Italian bonds, printed out in Stockholm and saved in Kreugers private safebox in Stockholm, were actually never used as Mussolini did not want to make a deal with the French bank (Kreuger controlled) that was involved. The whole deal was thus called off. However Kreuger refered to these bonds several times during the chaotic period 1931-1932 when he realized that the company was getting closer to a total bankrupcy. The situation was confirmed after the Kreuger crash in 1932 by Johannes Hellner, member of the Swedish supreme court, when he went down to Italy and talked directly with Mussolini and met him april 15, 1932. It´s all described in the book by Lars-Erik Thunhom, The Match King, translated into English by George Thiel, in chapter 14, on pages 278-279 (Swe-version). Most of the capital for the loans to different countries came from American banks. The loans gave Ivar a total control of the match industry in these countries. The NPOV-sign should be removed. Lidingo SWE (talk) 09:35, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

I agree they should be removed even though I haven't had a chance yet to read Partnoy's book. (It's on order at the local library and I will read it and check the sources he used as soon as I get it. But he's a professor at a university and I doubt he made everything up, especially in exchange for money as claimed by Gargamelik above.) However, I won't do anything - at least for the time being. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gatorinvancouver (talk • contribs) 01:22, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Gatorinvancouver (talk) 01:23, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, but you do not explain anything. The "Italian Bonds" were printed in Stockholm? That's hilarious. So, the fake is confirmed, because you admit that they were part of a deal that was not made. Nevertheless kreuger "referred" to them, as a security, when he needed cash? That is called FRAUD... Besides, the "loans" are not really weel explained yet. Please research the connection of the "loans" with the local match monopolies, and cite numbers how long it would have taken to recover the "loans", then you will see the structure of the Ponzi scheme. Kraxler (talk) 20:35, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Back to the "Italian bonds" issue (Thunholm book, page 214-216 and page 278-280): Ivar Kreuger had slowly gain control of the Italian match production during the early 1920'th and in 1929 he had reached 35% of the total market. (35% of the shares in the main company, FRF-Fabbriche Riunite di Fiammifiere, that had 80% of the match production market). The plan was to take over the entire match business in Italy by offering the Italian goverment a loan, had started ín early 1926. The negotiations at that time was handled by Mr. Boselli. Mussolini himself was also involved. In 1930 the real negotiations started and in october 1930 Kreuger met with the Italian finance minister, Mr. Mosconi and Mr. Boselli. The meeting was held in Florence in a villa owned by Count Mr. Constantini. Kreuger's offer was to give Italy a 50-year loan valid from july 1932 of US$75 million at an interest rate of 5,5%. (The loan should be payed back within 50 years). In return Kreuger would get a total control of the Italian match market. However, these negotiations was never completed and no money was transfered to Italy. The security for this loan, that never existed, "the Italian bonds", was printed out by Börtzell's printshop in Stockholm, with direct instructions by Ivar Kreuger himself. This was confirmed by the printshop owner after the Kreuger crash. The value of the papers found in Kreugers safe in his office after the crash was:

• 42 bonds, each with a value of £500 000 (sterling), in total £21 million (sterling)
• 5 other type of "bonds", each with a value of £1,533 million (sterling)

The Italian signatures on the bonds were supposed to be the signatures of Mr. Mosconi and Mr. Boselli. However when Johannes Hellner, member of the Swedish supreme court, visited Italy in 1932 after the crash and met with these people 15 april 1932, both of them claimed that these signatures were false. How "false" or completely wrong, have not been confirmed. Ivar must have got a copy of the signatures during the negotiations in 1930 on some papers and how well the printshop copied them, as they must be transfered in som way to a printing plates, have not been discussed. The value of the "false loan" never showed up in the Kreuger's accounts, but Ivar pretended the money had been transfered to Italy, and was probably planning to continue the discussions with Italy in 1932. However the crises in the Kreuger company got worse in the beginning of 1932 ..... The "Italian loan" and bonds were used by a lot of journalists in 1932 as a reference to prove that Ivar was a fraud from start to the end. They forgot the Kreuger-company development in manufacturing plants from (1912)1917-1932. According to Thunholm, Kreuger was too fast in the expansion from the time he founded STAB (Swedish Match) in 1917. Lidingo SWE (talk) 14:00, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Lidingo, the signatures were "false," as you admit yourself: "Ivar must have got a copy of the signatures during the negotiations in 1930 on some papers and how well the printshop copied them, as they must be transfered in som way to a printing plates, have not been discussed." Hahahahahahahaha, very funny. If I take the finance minister's signatures and append them to some money bills I ordered to be copied, I would go to jail, don't you think? Very funny, how some people try to whitewash a crook with not so good rhetorics.

Gatorinvancouver, I appended the POV tags, because some of the Swedish editors of these articles have added a lot of info composed of halftruths, text-out-of-context, and unfounded conspiracy theories in a deliberate attemt to whitewash the reputation of a man who may have started as a bona fide businessman, but who became "the greatest swindler of all times" (according to The Economist, before Madoff). Kreuger's financial juggling is history, but some people prefer the conspiracy theory. That's ok with me, if things are named and sourced correctly. The "loans" to foreign countries are not explained at all, just numbers. That these were payments involved in the acquisition of match monopolies, including bribes, and that the loans should not be paid back, but deduced from the proceeds of the match business, is not written in the article. It would show beyond rhetorics the character of the Ponzi scheme... Kraxler (talk) 18:06, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Kreuger group loans to foreign states from 1925-1930

Why is the neutrality of this section disputed and where is the evidence for it?

It does not mention the Italian bonds about which there seems to be a dispute.

I suggest if no evidence is forthcoming to remove the 'neutrality is disputed' label.

Gatorinvancouver (talk) 14:28, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Other business

"with the basic intention of preventing a new war breaking out"

This cannot stand because nobody but those were directly involved know what the intentions were. Or it has to be rephrased to "with the stated intention of preventing a new war breaking out"

"To what extent the governments in both Sweden and the USA were behind the deals is not clear, but they were probably involved in some way"

Where is the evidence for this? There is no reference for it and should be deleted if a reference cannot be provided.

I cannot see any reason why the 'neutrality disputed' label is there? I suggest it should be removed.

Please have a look above entitled "The Economist Article". I wrote three paragraphs of what I think are pertinent observations. The section doesn't have a 'neutrality disputed label' (is that what people denote as POV?) but the acrimony (e.g. angry editor; Partnoy being paid for making false statemnts; etc.) is not on sound footing IMO.

Gatorinvancouver (talk) 14:42, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

External Links

Long time readers of this article should notice that POSITIVE external Kreuger links have now been completely removed from the article and only NEGATIVE external links have been inserted. This article is in NO WAY OBJECTIVE and there are definitely persons editing this article with no intention to keep it objective. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.230.103.24 (talk) 02:32, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Kraxler POV

I'm going to start a new topic here, dedicated to the user "Kraxler" and based on Kraxler's actions in the "Ivar Kreuger" article over the past couple of years. By now it's obvious that Kraxler should be reported for constant vandalism of this article. Kraxler's only interest in this article is to make sure that the article supports Kraxler's own views, no other views are allowed and are always deleted. The problem is that Kraxler's knowledge of Ivar Kreuger and Kreuger & Toll is far less than satisfactory for a discussion and to edit this article. Kraxler's "contributions" are based on emotions and not facts and actual knowledge of the subject. Kraxler has now again vandalized others' contributions and inserted Kraxler's own same views. Kraxler's last reason/comment for deleting other peoples' contributions were: "don't start that crap again, the suicide is official". This statement is completely false. The suicide is not official. France register all suicides, but Ivar Kreuger was not registered for suicide and never were, nor by the police or any other French official. Please feel more than welcome to look that up.

Kraxler has for a long time been destroying other peoples' contributions to this article based on nothing; people have then encouraged Kraxler to read more books about Ivar Kreuger and Kreuger & Toll from different angles to get a deeper understanding of this article, so far this has not happened. In this article there are two sides to the story, both backed with good arguments and the article should therefore be written considerably more objectively. Kraxler has chosen to blindly push his own side of the story and delete all other opinions and lots of facts supporting the other side of the story. Wikipedia articles should always strive to maintain neutrality, the complete opposite of what Kraxler has been doing to this article for years. Kraxler is vandalizing this article based on Kraxler's own beliefs of what is "right". Opinions are one thing, but I'm completely appalled to see Kraxler time after time delete facts not supporting Kraxler's own beliefs. I would not normally post a topic like this, but it's my firm belief that Kraxler blocks all discussions and progress of this article. I request that this text remain here until Wikipedia moderators have looked over this article and Kraxler's "contributions" and interest in this article. --Factsarea-z (talk) 23:50, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia articles are NOT to be founded on arguments, but on sources. Post your sources here, and everything is ok. The suicide is official, yes. Read the 1932 newspapers, I suggest. Here, on the talkpage, be my guest to argue about it. Things like "France register all suicides, but Ivar Kreuger was not registered for suicide and never were, nor by the police or any other French official. Please feel more than welcome to look that up." are not helpful, please tell me exactly where to look it up. However, on the article page, most of what is written there, was contributed by a few Swedes who seem to know something about the subject. Besides, other users are in the process to rewrite the article, stating their sources. Kraxler (talk) 18:10, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

P.S. Welcome to Wikipedia, Factsarea-z, I saw you joined day before yesterday, and already venture to state an opinion on what happened here during the last two years. Did you by any chance read the discussion above? Or did you skip it, as irrelevant? Kraxler (talk) 18:16, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Do you mean the 1932 news papers owned by Ivar Kreuger's competitors who continued to take over all of the shareholders' assets? And who immediately wrote that it was a "suicide" without waiting for any investigation/autopsy? You do realize that news papers/media companies are companies like any other companies? They are not magic truth companies because of their positions as opinion builders. In this case you are directly saying that companies owned by Kreuger's competitors are better "sources" than the French government. I've read this discussion page and I've also checked out the editing history for this article. Among a lot of other things, take a look at this phrase inserted by you: "described by some as a Ponzi scheme". This is the exact same rhetoric Fox News and other use to push their own view without saying that it's their own view explicitly, "described by some", "some people say", "some say" etc. [[1]] Do you think this is good Wikipedia writing? --Factsarea-z (talk) 15:48, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, you are just an angry reader, and suspicious news consumer. You have never edited anything on Wikipedia. Besides, there is nothing on your user page to give me a hint as what kind of person you are, except a strange quotation and an IQ number (yours?).

You got it wrong anyway. I did not add that phrase "described by some", I had (based on published sources) said "Ponzi scheme", but somebody took exception, and watered it down to "described by some as a Ponzi scheme". That's ok with me, you see, the general guideline is to avoid controversial content, and so it stands. And, yes, it is general Wikipedia policy to say "described by some", "some say" or so, if you can give at least one reliable published source. The source is mentioned as a footnote, but with your IQ you should have spotted it.

You did not state your source for "France register all suicides, but Ivar Kreuger was not registered for suicide and never were, nor by the police or any other French official. Please feel more than welcome to look that up." So I renew my question: Where can I look it up???? Kraxler (talk) 20:34, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

You forgot "think of the children"[[2]] in your rhetoric. The general guideline is to avoid controversal content and you seriously don't think it's controversial to start an article with "described by some as a Ponzi scheme"? Ivar Kreuger did so many things in his life; lots of his companies still stand today and are huge and profitable, same with his quality buildings, yet the article starts off summarizing his empire as a Ponzi scheme. Still this is not controversial to you? To me this is as controversial as it gets and your logic is unreasonable, which is why I have requested that Wikipedia administrators take a look at this article. IK not being registered in French suicide archives from 1932, is mentioned in at least two of the books in the sources. However, they are both in Swedish and you are not Swedish nor Swedish speaking, which is necessary to understand Ivar Kreuger and Kreuger & Toll because the vast majority of original documents are in Swedish. I'm a Swede and I have a problem with how Ivar Kreuger is portrayed in this article. I'm not a fanboy[[3]] in either direction, I know fully well that IK took big risks and bought his own stocks to hold up the share price, but there is way more to that story and I would like both sides to be displayed equally -naturally with facts- and then readers can decide what to believe in. I believe some call this "objectivity". I'm also very critical to sources in general; regardless of the source, you should always be very critical and examine if the source is somehow biased. In IK's case, many "sources" origin from his direct enemies, who were very powerful and owned banks and media empires. Keep in mind that there were historical amounts of money and assets changing hands in this story. In these cases it is extremely important to see what is actual facts and what is "described by some". Anyway, does a more objective approach to this article sound fair to you or do you only want your (cemented) opinion to be displayed? Your wiki-page says nothing about you either, it's just a lot of links to articles that you have edited, which makes me wonder if you are familiar with the concept of quality versus quantity. I'm also very interested of what your interest in Ivar Kreuger is, how your opinion can be so cemented and how you can police it when you have so -excuse my blunt phrasing- little knowledge of Ivar Kreuger and Kreuger & Toll? What's your angle? --Factsarea-z (talk) 23:17, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

"IK not being registered in French suicide archives from 1932, is mentioned in at least two of the books in the sources"???? Very funny. You ask what is my angle, I will tell you: I'm a historian, and a former mathematics champion. On one side, I know the difference between a primary source (in this case, the French police files) and empty rhetoric (in this case, "mentioned somewhere by someone"). Did you perceive that you did not even state the title of the book where it is mentioned? On the other side, I know what "controversial" means, and how it applies to Wikipedia. That he ran a Ponzi scheme is the opinion of a vast majority worldwide, which is contested by a minority in Sweden. Either opinion may not be the truth, but these opinions are there. The introduction says "described by some" exactly to give the Swedes the benefit of the doubt. I'm still waiting for somebody to demonstrate how Kreuger's financial empire really was built. As I said, some users have read a book published by Frank Partnoy (in English), and are trying to rewrite the article, let's be patient.

If you could post a copy of the original French police files which "did not register the suicide", that would help enormously. Until then we will stick by the historical facts as shown in the published sources identified in the article as such. After all, there is absolutely no mention of murder before Torsten's book in the early 60's. This type of thing is called a conspiracy theory, and there are quite a few people who believe in it. The problem with this theory is that there is no evidence to support it, only rhetoric. Kraxler (talk) 17:03, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

A historian is not a person with little knowledge of many things, a historian is a person doing research every day for like 30 years within a very specific set of field(s) and almost always working for some institution, then you can call yourself a historian. You have read one, two, three books about IK? You claiming to be a historian is an insult to all real historians. For unknown reasons you are also boasting that you are a former mathematics champion, yet you do not understand interest rates of nominal values discussed in this Discussion. People like you are harming Wikipedia, not helping it. IK not being recorded in French suicide records is mentioned in ISBN 91-7055-019-0 and ISBN 91-630-9780-X in the Sources, alas I believe only one of them is available in English. "That he ran a Ponzi scheme is the opinion of a vast majority worldwide" the vast majority of people also believe in God and many of them the "official" history of Christianity and Jesus (dead, buried, resurrected etc) because they have been told so for almost 2000 years. People have been told that IK committed suicide for soon 80 years, based on very loose circumstances and propaganda from his competitors and enemies. The content of Frank Partnoy's book was actually predicted before the release of the book in this Discussion and its credibility is below zero, it's obviously a propaganda book. "The Association of Debenture Owners of AB Kreuger & Toll", are the people who should be the most upset about the bankruptcy and IK's fraud, (because they are the ones who lost all the most money), yet they cleared IK from fraud in 1964 after classified documents were made public. And you are wrong, there were plenty of people questioning the "suicide" back in 1932, but they had no control over media, IK's competitors had that. If you don't understand the concept of media's role in directing the public opinion (especially back in those days) and also not the concept of classifying a chapter 11 of a company and IK's estate, then there's no point in talking to you (which is pretty much my original statement to begin with). Look, this is an extremely complicated case and I'm definitely not claiming to be an expert of IK, but it's obvious that you don't know enough of this subject either, hence you don't belong to this article and should leave it alone. --Factsarea-z (talk) 12:26, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for your verbal assault on my person, it makes me certain that you are a fundamentalist unable to debate an issue. To make your point, you disqualify the persons you talk to instead of offering any argument, repeating nonsense many times. I'm sorry for you.

And, by the way, please post a copy of the French police files here, the ones that "did not register the suicide" and which must have been given as source in the Swedish books. Just scan the page in .jpg-format and post it here, there is no copyright problem with public files. For further info on how an encyclopedia works, I suggest you read the Wikipedia:Guidelines and Wikipedia:Manual of Style. Kraxler (talk) 16:06, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

I suggest you look up the word "fundamentalist" in the dictionary. I want a balanced two-sided view, your goal (and what you are doing) is pushing your view and removing everything from the other side, hence you are the fundamentalist and not me. And how am I supposed to show you documents that show that Ivar Kreuger is not in the French suicide records, when he is not in them? I can't show you documents that don't exist. Instead, can you please post documents that shows that Ivar Kreuger is in the French suicide records? --Factsarea-z (talk) 20:18, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

One can argue till the cows come home what a "Ponzi scheme" means. In a strict sense it was not IF Ponzi Scheme means the only "income" are new investments.

Ivar's life was far more complicated than that. (Unfortunately I know because I've been working on a major revision of this article and read more about Ivar than I had ever wanted.) But one thing is true: He was in constant need of cash and much of it was raised on financial markets. When they dried up because of the Depression Ivar's fate was sealed.

So one can be justified to call it a Ponzi Scheme, though I would not because Ivar also controlled many industrial firms and two thirds of match production in the world when matches were a necessity, his companies had large real estate holdings, he had a mine, controlled pulp mills and had some bona fide (in addition to bogus) banks, Ericsson Telephone (where his fate was sealed) etc.

I intend to include something to this extent (with sources) in my eventual revision of the article.

As it is: It's awful and has lots of misleading and/or false "information".

You might be able to appreciate why this is taking me so long. (And I'm still waiting for another book from the library.)

"The content of Frank Partnoy's book was actually predicted before the release of the book in this Discussion and its credibility is below zero, it's obviously a propaganda book." Factsarea-z: Please give a source for your statement that the content was predicted before publication as this sounds like total nonsense. Furthermore you obviously haven't read the book. It has a bibliography of "major sources" that is 6 pages long. Robert Shaplen's book was written 50 years before Partnoy's. I'm almost finished reading it and he comes to many of the same conclusions as Partnoy. So is his credibility below zero as well? If so why? (Because you don't like the conclusions?) Gatorinvancouver (talk) 18:02, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

The content is predicted right here in the discussion section (look under The Economist article discussion). The reason for the Partnoy book is because in light of new documents, books and Internet, there have in recent years been a "new wave" of people questioning the 1932 mainstream media view of what really happend to Ivar Kreuger, especially when there are so many question marks and that in the aftermath the assets were actually stolen and then classified for 30 years. Naturally people wonder: what happend?! (There has never been a public discussion in Sweden what happend to Ivar Kreuger and Kreuger & Toll, despite a record number of Swedes being made completely broke. Sweden is basically being run by three families, all were involved in 1932). There have in the last 1-2 years (to present) been a "reply" to this "new wave", from several papers/magazines in Sweden, who have also basically run the same/Partnoy's story (and "friendly" companies have done the same in the US). If you are somewhat interested in this specific area, you don't have to be too conspiratorial to suspect that there's an ongoing paid publication campaign: it's systematic, it's the same content and it's also the same media companies/organizations as in 1932. It has been more or less silent about Ivar Kreuger for many years, all of a sudden lots of affiliated magazines/news papers are running the same stuff. Occam's razor tells us that powerful people don't want this discussion and are most likely trying to hide where the money went; I don't care the slightest about that, but I do get upset when they paint Kreuger as 100% crook. Yes, he took big risks, yes, he bribed many persons, but he also did many good things and introduced many groundbreaking ideas and business affairs. --Factsarea-z (talk) 20:18, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

• "Occam's razor tells us that powerful people don't want this discussion and are most likely trying to hide where the money went", that's ridiculous. Please check at Occam's razor what it is.
• "People have been told that IK committed suicide for soon 80 years, based on very loose circumstances and propaganda from his competitors and enemies." That is even more ridiculous. That Kreuger committed suicide was the stated by the French police. Please tell me one case (besides Kreuger...) in which the official conclusion by the police was murder and the newspapers (any of them) printed suicide. Kraxler (talk) 15:15, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Proposed removal of Swedish sources at the bottom

Very few outside Sweden know how to read Swedish and chances of obtaining the books are almost nil for those not in Sweden.

There is a Swedish Wikipedia page and the sources would be more appropriate there. (But I do not edit in Swedish) Gatorinvancouver (talk) 22:21, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

This seems unreasonable, what languages are you allowed to use then? Books that are easy to obtain from local libraries or university libraries must be permitted. Anyone with a serious interest in a subject must accept that important documents cannot be overlooked just because they are written in a inconvenient language.LRO 12:16, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

Proposed removal of questionable "external links"

I'd remove all of them except the BBC link but might suggest others.

http://runeberg.org/authors/kreugiva.html Project Runeberg "bibliography" can't even present it in alphabetical order? http://www.ivarkreuger.com/kreuger.htm leads to some very dead links and others that may, or may not, be useful. http://www.qikrux.com/kreuger/ has some very questionable links. (I only took a sample.) It's also the source of the unsourced claim made here some time ago and still made on the Swedish page about him being the 'first prince of global finance'. (Shouldn't that be J.P, Morgan?)

Gatorinvancouver (talk) 22:30, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Since nobody objected, and I herewith second your proposal, we may presume consensus. So, go right ahead, Gatorinvancouver! Kraxler (talk) 18:32, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

I object. For example http://www.qikrux.com/kreuger/ is well-written, has many sources and has an interesting view on Ivar Kreuger. It also ranks in the top results for "ivar kreuger" in Google, so Google deem it highly relevant. Again you want to remove everything not supporting your own view. --Factsarea-z (talk) 20:29, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Go right ahead, Gatorinvancouver. Do not worry about the objection by a non-editing nonsensical sockpuppet-user. Kraxler (talk) 19:46, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Factsarea-z http://www.qikrux.com/kreuger/Bakgrund.htm It doesn't even "know" that the the loan under the Young Plan was the one listed under Germany and then with a wrong amount as Young loan. May I suggest it turns up near the top of Google because its name sounds like an "official" site

Gatorinvancouver (talk) 02:56, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Ongoing revision of the article

I am about one third through and will try to continue next weekend. I'll be busy during the week. Gatorinvancouver (talk) 01:07, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Please add more comments about your edits. What is the substantial change etc? Best regards Ulner (talk) 22:04, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Please see Help:Edit summary which explains recommended practice. This makes it much easier for other editors to understand the reason why an edit is made, the substantial content and to evaluate the edit to see if it is appropriate or not, if it is possible to improve etc. Best regards Ulner (talk) 22:05, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

I am disgusted at what you have done. I lost hours of work because when I revert all the embedded links, references and other formatting is gone.

Here is an extract from a message from ThaddeusB:

"To answer your questions, per WP:BOLD you are welcome to make bold changes to any article at any time. If someone disagrees, then you did to work out a solution via talk, but if you edits you want to make are unlikely to cause objection than you should just make them. You don't need anyone's permission to act here. --ThaddeusB (talk) 00:07, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Please justify what you have done by linking to the relevant rule.

If you can revert it without the lost editing please do so now. (I consider what you have done vandalism.)

I might just leave the whole thing. I got better things to do.

"The edit summary box can hold one line of 200 characters"

If you had any idea about the subject you would know that this is impossible.

Gatorinvancouver (talk) 23:15, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Hi! It should always be possible to revert back to an old version with the exact formatting as before. I put the text back, and all embedded links, etc should be back as well. Ulner (talk) 23:19, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

I think you should avoid language like "I am disgusted at what you have done". The reason for my deletion is that the section is of low quality in some respects at the moment. Newlines are everywhere, and this results in very bad formatting which makes the article impossible to read. To make the article possible to read I deleted the complete section - it should be easy to put it back in a corrected way without newlines. My edit was intended to improve the encyclopedia and make the article possible to read in the current state. Ulner (talk) 23:29, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Regarding your edits I think it is easier if you try to give some short edit summaries. In this way it is easier to collaborate and give helpful input on your edits. Best regards Ulner (talk) 23:29, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

The edit summaries can be like "added new section about Kreuger as fraud" or "polished the section AAA" or "deleted external link AAA". By dividing your edits in different smaller parts it is also easier to give edit comments. While it is not necessary to give edit comments it makes it easier to collaborate. Best regards Ulner (talk) 23:33, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

The preceding was my answer to your accusation re etiquette.

Gatorinvancouver (talk) 00:24, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

"I think you should avoid language like "I am disgusted at what you have done". "

Please do not lecture me. I might be old enough to be your grandfather. Besides, your action DID DESTROY hours of my work. I give to Wikipedia time and money because I believe in it and if you look at my editing history you will see the proof in the form of numerous small edits of spelling mistakes, grammar, double words etc. In other words, I care about Wikipedia.

I do not know how to delete a section, so I erased the garbage. This was before my editing work of hours and hours. (It might not be your fault that I lost it because it's possible that when I migrated to the message page I did not save my edit.)

Please delete the now empty section for me. Thank you.

I will redo my work next weekend if I have a chance and I'll do the work in Wordpad instead of the page at Wikipedia. (To the extent possible.)

And btw "The edit summaries can be like "added new section about Kreuger as fraud": Did you not see "tentative conclusions"? Are you unaware of how controversial the topic is to this day? The heading says exactly what I tried to do: Draw some TENTATIVE conclusions because in spite of everything I have read about the man I do not feel qualified to come to a definitive judgment and if you had bothered to read the text before deleting it you would have seen that.

Regards, Gatorinvancouver (talk) 23:56, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

It is always possible to redo a certain edit, so it is impossible that my edit destroyed hours of your work. My examples of edit summaries were just examples - even if they are short they can give a good summary of your edit. My deletion of the text was only concerned with the formatting, not the contents, to keep the article in a good shape for some possible reader. Best regards Ulner (talk) 00:18, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

You don't get it, do you?

I would NEVER post a mess like that and it was your message that was the cause for losing hours of (unsaved, apparently) work.

And since you write to me in several places I want to make sure this is public. That's why I am reproducing it here. (Another violation of Wikipedia etiquette?)

Congratulations! You are a fine bureaucrat. And you are still lecturing me.

Thanks for demobilizing me.

I've had it with this article. I wasted way too many weeks on it and now you keep me busy teaching me about etiquette.

As a matter of fact, I've had it with editing Wikipedia. (A robot once destroyed a whole page on my own talking page I was working on for an edit for this very article.) Ciao,

This was written in response to your message. Gatorinvancouver (talk) 00:27, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

I don't understand what you are talking about. Since you are planning to stop editing Wikipedia, I guess it doesn't matter. Ulner (talk) 00:37, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

That's correct: You do not understand what I am talking about.

Let's just leave it at that.

As to not editing anymore:

Only fools do not change their opinions. And I did within minutes of having written that.

I put too much work into the section already to just forget it. I will rework and re-post it next weekend.

I'll even put a summary there to make you happy. It'll be: A tentative evaluation of Ivar Kreuger as financier. Happy?

And just in case you get carried away with the importance of following all these procedures you are so fond of citing: Check out how many are actually following the page. It was about 30 or 40 a little while ago, IIRC.

I must also say that I had planned to work on several other sections of this article that really need to be reworked, e.g. a table of the loans.

In view of the bureaucratic obsessions of some here and other sources of frustration I will at the very least postpone this endeavor.

It seems like a thankless task.

Please tell us though if you have done any editing of the article, other than deleting?

If so, where are your contributions?

Gatorinvancouver (talk) 04:30, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Let me first say that I'm happy that you contribute to the article and work to improve the encyclopedia. Still, I get very annoyed about your totally incorrect accusations that I've destroyed hours of your work, and your choice of language is inappropriate "I am disgusted at what you have done.". My deletion can and was undone with a simple mouse click - and I've also explained that the reason for my deletion was to keep the article nice-looking for presumtive readers. Furthermore, I tried to encourage you to give edit summaries so other people together with you easier can continue improve the article - which is easier if they understand more about the ideas behind your improvements - but you begin talking about "bureaucratic obsessions". Editing Wikipedia is a collaborative effort - and this means that we all have to get along.

Since you are continuing to edit, I don't understand what you mean with "I would NEVER post a mess like that" and "it was your message that was the cause for losing hours of (unsaved, apparently) work.". I did a deletion which did not permanently delete any material from the page! I have no idea what you mean by "a mess like that". I don't understand what you mean by "demobilizing me" either.

Note that you refer to the "rule" WP:BOLD for your right to make changes to the article, but at the same time others (me) are not allowed to make changes to the article according to your opinion. This is a collaborative effort to create an encyclopedia together, and this means that anyone should be allowed to make changes if they think their change improve the encyclopedia.

See Wikipedia:Ownership of articles for more ideas how to collaborate to create and encyclopedia. An important condition that WP:BOLD is a good rule is that it always is possible to revert any changes to the previous version of the article. This means that my change in no way destroys any work done by others if someone choose to put the old text back. Best regards Ulner (talk) 08:59, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Some possible help: To go back to an old version of a article (i.e. revert changes of others) follow the steps here: [4]. This makes it possible to change the article back to the exact contents of any previous time. Ulner (talk) 15:58, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

I have better things to do than argue with you. I did NOT deny you the right to edit. The problem started with your first message telling me that I should include summaries of the edit. I clicked on checking "new message" -BEFORE saving hours of my work- and lost all my edits and formatting. So while it is not your fault, you are the cause.

You do not understand apparently because you do not want to as I have told you above the same thing.

"The mess" refers to what you deleted and it WAS NOT (how often do I have to tell you?) what I would post. I know how to revert but one cannot revert to unsaved changes, can one? "So your advice "it always is possible to revert any changes to the previous version of the article. This means that my change in no way destroys any work done by others if someone choose to put the old text back" shows that you do not even read carefully my comments here. But you continue to lecture (NOT help IMO) me.

I quoted some administrator about bold changes and DID NOT deny you the right to edit. (Do you think I am an idiot who has no idea what Wikipedia is about?)

I deeply resent the waste of my time you are causing with these petty arguments.

The only reason I will redo my work of yesterday is because I have put in an enormous amount of time. After that, I will probably not edit anymore here because of petty bureaucratic arguments such as yours. That's what I meant by "demobilizing". (Amazing that you do not understand such simple things but know by heart every rule at Wikipedia.)

All you need to do is go up on the talk page and see for yourself all the acrimony connected with this topic.

I am an old man and life is too short for such things and you may take the credit, or not (I really don't care) for having stopped one person contributing substantive material.

I repeat my question: Have YOU edited anything in the article other than deleting whole sections BEFORE talking about it? I don't think so because I do not see your name among editors. Correct me if I am wrong by linking to your edits.

And by the way, you go on and on and on about the wrongs you accuse me. Does that conform to Wikipedia's etiquette or are you a tad self-righteous?

As I said the ONLY reason I will redo the work is because of the time I spent. After that I will count the editing experience at Wikipedia - thanks to you - as an interesting experience. No doubt you will not take responsibility for it and it doesn't make a difference to me. Gatorinvancouver (talk) 18:46, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Now I finally understand - by clicking on "checking new messages" (after my message to your talk page) you lost hours of your work. This was very unfortunate and this was not my intention with writing my message. My intention was to give some helpful advice regarding edit comments. Concerning your question: I have not edited anything in the article (to my knowledge) before, but I may start to edit the article in the future. Ulner (talk) 21:31, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

This article needs a lot more work and the links to Called To Account in the footnotes do not work

Somebody else will have to do the needed improvements as I've had it. I will add a few details eventually but otherwise I am giving up this thankless task.

In the footnotes the link to Called To Account at Google books does not work and I do not know how to fix it. (The link is there and my guess is that there is something wrong with the spacing. It appears several times.)

Gatorinvancouver (talk) 20:07, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

I've fixed the problem with the spacing. Ulner (talk) 22:57, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

And now that you have started to do constructive things here: Why don't you make a real beginning with the most important thing IMO, that is merge and reconcile the sections of Kreuger Crash and Was Ivar Nothing But A Crook.

Lots more needs to be fixed but go ahead and actually do something for Wikipedia, other than making petty arguments, and start by fixing these 2 sections. Possibly the previous section, i.e. The end of the Kreuger empire, should also be merged into Was Ivar Nothing But A Crook as well.

Just suggestions. Things I would have done. Gatorinvancouver (talk) 01:55, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Pronunciation of "Kreuger"

Kraxler says "Who says so?" I answer, Kreuger family. In this article you will see that the Swedish Kreuger family name originated from a Johan Kröger (died 1739) from Germany and that the name is pronounced as Kröger, and the closest sound in Swedish for the "eu" in this case would be "œ". It is pronounced like the word "fleur" in French. This is all in the above article. So I have done my research, thank you. Skol fir (talk) 19:14, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

If you need more convincing evidence, then read this article: Transcribing Names with Foreign Origin in the Onomastica Project. It is written by Joakim Gustafson, a Swedish language expert from Stockholm, SWE.

(Citation: Gustafson, J (1995). Transcribing names with foreign origin in the Onomastica project, Proceedings of ICPhS 95 2: 3 18-321.)

In this paper, he writes,

The use of different spellings seems to be more popular in Sweden than in the other four languages examined in this paper. In Swedish only 81% of the first names have a single spelling compared to 97% in Italian, where a sequence of names is used to make the name unique. Swedish first names have up to 24 different spellings, Italian names have up to 6. The different spellings do not always follow ordinary orthographic conventions. One practice that has been observed is the insertion of "h"("Bhlom"), another the use of "x" instead of "ks" in names ending with "son", for example, "Ericxson". Some other popular replacements are: s>z, k>q, k>c, å>aa, ö>oe, ö>eu, i>ie, f>ph, v>fv, v>w.

The spelling of the names must be normalised in order to simplify the automatic transcription.

I could provide more arguments if you like, but that should do for now. Skol fir (talk) 03:40, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

I checked into the History of the pronunciation guideline for "Kreuger" in this article. The first attempt to show the pronunciation was by Gatorinvancouver ([ˈiːvar ˈkrøːɡǝ]) in this edit from April 28, 2010. It was then arbitrarily changed by Kraxler on April 29, 2010, based on a rather weak argument that the pronunciation at the German Wiki page appeared to be coming from a Swedish editor (Anonymous, by IP address only). The "Swede" made some crazy statement that it should be different from the German and the Dutch. What a bunch of hogwash! He only wanted that to be true because he was Scandinavian, of course!

Since the ancestor of the Kreuger family was a Kröger, we can keep the same pronunciation as stated in the article for the Kreuger family. That is either [ˌiːvaɹ ˈkɹœgəɹ]—as in my recent edit—or even better...[ˌiːvaɹ ˈkɹøːgəɹ], which is like the German long ö. I lean toward the latter, which was actually already inserted correctly by Gatorinvancouver, as I noted above. The "œ" sound in Swedish is more like a German short ö, which is wrong for Kröger, where the ö is long (in German, at least). I consulted the Wikipedia:IPA for Swedish and Norwegian for the IPA symbols and sounds in Swedish. If anyone has any other ideas about this, please chip in. :-)

--Skol fir (talk) 10:03, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

 Fixed based on statement above. --Skol fir (talk) 10:58, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for your research, that should settle it. By the way, I myself had forwarded the ö-version of the pronunciation to Gatorinvancouver, who worked at the time on the article and added it, based on the Kröger ancestry. The "Swede's" pronunciations, added to other articles in the German Wikipedia, were quite correct, so I assumed he knew something about this one too. I might have been too credulous on this one. Kraxler (talk) 20:49, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

Kraxler, it is good to know that you were the original contributor of the "ö-version" of Kreuger for this article. Now, I do not need to convince you anymore! I did not realize that before, based on the sequence of edits. However, if you had not questioned me about my choice of pronunciation, I would not have completed such a thorough investigation. Now we are all richer for it.

I don't know how the average Swede pronounces this name. However, I think that Ivar Kreuger himself would want to pay respects to his ancestor Johan Kröger and to keep that pronunciation in the original name, even if the spelling was changed by the three sons of the first generation. I think these sons had their own reasons for changing the spelling from ö to eu, and it appears to be a common replacement anyway, as the article above indicates. Maybe they wanted to "swedify" the spelling (without of course changing the pronunciation). I cannot know what they were thinking, but it makes sense that at some times in history, Swedes did not want to be associated with anything German, although that is obviously no longer the case, or is it? :-) That is a topic for another discussion.

What I also found out in my research is that at least one Swedish documentary about Ivar Kreuger pronounces it the same way as that anonymous "Swede", i.e. with a "yː" sound, like the German long "ü" sound. Listen to this clip of Kreuger och Boliden - En Dramatisk Historia, at 20 sec. into the clip. You will hear this "yː" sound for "Kreuger." ...but this is only one example, and this speaker might be following a general misconception, like the "Swede" at the German Wiki page. Then everybody who watches TV thinks that is the right way (like brainwashing) because people stop thinking for themselves. I don't trust the TV announcers to have all the answers! In the same clip, at 45 sec., Olle Lindqvist pronounces it the correct way, as [ˈkɹøːgəɹ]. I would trust him more, because he has the title "Obducent, Rattsmedicin Uppsala," meaning that he is a medical doctor, performing duties as a coroner or pathologist. "Obducent" in Swedish translates to "carry out a postmortem."

So, until there is a massive revolt by the Swedish people against my viewpoint, I stand by my choice of the German long ö sound, based on the history of the Kreuger family in Sweden.

--Skol fir (talk) 00:08, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

The Swedish wikipedia has [kry:´gər] as pronunciation. And it is a featured article! Maybe you are wrong after all, and the family changed not only the spelling, but the pronunciation as well. As a historian, I agree with you that some mistakes have been copied so many times that people believe firmly in their correctness, and it is difficult to set things right by digging deep enough into the original sources. On the other side, it should be possible to get more info on this, especially since there seems to be a Swedish miniseries on Kreuger, and maybe there are original news reels from Kreuger's lifetime... Kraxler (talk) 18:13, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

I understand your point about following the Swedish wiki version, since that is obviously written by another Swede (maybe the same one who decided that the German version should have [ˈkry:gər]). Then what do we do about this quote from Kreuger family: "Johan Kröger married Helena Schultz in 1710. However she died the same year. His second wife (name unknown) had at least three sons that changed the spelling of the last name from Kröger to Kreuger but with the same pronunciation (eu like in the French word fleur)..." ? Was this person wrong as well?

The person who added that statement originally was User:Lidingo. If you look at that edit, he did not justify it with any proof. However, if you look at his User Page, you can see that he is a...

• Swedish citizen.
• Native speaker of Swedish
• M. Sc. Mechanical engineering KTH, Stockholm.

So, he must have had a reason for putting in that detail. Maybe he read a reference book, like a biography of Kreuger. There are several reference books mentioned at the end of the Kreuger family article. We can ask Lidingo directly, by going to his Talk Page... I will try to do that.

--Skol fir (talk) 23:23, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

I just noticed that the link to Ivar's cousin Henrik, in the section The building contractor and his innovations, shows a different spelling, Kreüger. When you read this article, Henrik Kreüger, you see a note (note #4) which mentions a difference in spelling between Kreuger and Kreüger (the second one has the German ü, and is probably then pronounced as [ˈkry:gər], while the plain Swedish u sound (without the diacritic) is closer to the French "eu" in "fleur." So, Kreuger is then pronounced [ˌiːvaɹ ˈkɹøːgəɹ]. I think this is the answer, although I still have to consult with Lidingo, if I can reach him.

• Update: message has been sent to Lidingo...see User_talk:Lidingo#Pronunciation_of_Kreuger.

--Skol fir (talk) 04:56, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for settling the matter with your edit on Dec. 2, Kraxler. I cannot provide any more evidence than I already have, since I was not able to obtain a copy of the miniseries about Kreuger. I will be content with the [ˈkry:gər] choice because it is equally plausible, and I don't want to start an edit war on such a minor point. However, I would like to have Lidingo's response, if he is still available, because he is the one who put in the fact that the spelling and NOT the pronunciation was changed by the sons of Johan Kröger. I am just curious when it was decided to change the pronunciation as well. Have a nice day! --Skol fir (talk) 18:54, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I got disconnected yesterday. Here is my explanation. First, Webster's Biographical Dictionary has "Krüger" as pronunciation. It has been edited throughout decades in the 60s to 80s, and judging by other entries, was well researched. Second, the Swedish TY announcer says clearly "Krüger", and in my opinion, the forensic pathologist pronounces somewhat blurred (possibly a regional-dialect speaker), but not really "Kröger". These are the sources. All other statements are opinions or conjecture, based on more or less plausible data, but nonetheless probably WP:Original research. I'm very sorry, Skol fir, but (after having given it some thought) the above cited linguistic research does not actually mention the name "Kreuger" which disqualifies it under the OR rule if explicit sources state otherwise. So, we should go along with "Krüger", but could change again if new sources appear. And, yes, I would like to hear Lidingo's opinion on this debate too. Kraxler (talk) 13:39, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Don't be sorry, Kraxler. We are all just searching for the truth, and I am happy when we find it. So, I also looked in the Merriam-Webster's Biographical Dictionary today [special trip to the main library in town] and found the Kreuger entry. The pronunciation is listed as you said: "[ˈKrü·ˌger], as in the German word Rübe, not like the word Hütte. I see what you mean about the pathologist. He did have a strange dialect. I also believe that if Ivar Kreuger wanted to make a fuss about the pronunciation of his name, he would have done it sooner. It's too late now! --Skol fir (talk) 21:12, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

The e in the unstressed second syllable of "Kreuger" is probably a Schwa sound, as in German "Krüger" or "Kröger". The sign ə is listed at the bottom of the Swedish IPA-list. Kraxler (talk) 17:31, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

The only reason that I included the option /gær/ for the unstressed syllable was that in the article Swedish phonology, it was noted under "Vowels" that the sounds "/ɛː/, /ɛ/, /øː/, and /œ/ are lowered to [æ] and [oę], respectively, when preceding /r/." I assumed that the "e" was an /ɛ/ sound, not a Schwa. If you look at the same Swedish phonology, it states that the "æ" sound is also found in fersk [ˈfæʂːk] "fresh". Also, in the clip of Kreuger och Boliden - En Dramatisk Historia, that I already referred to above, you can hear that the TV host clearly pronounced the "r" at the end of Kreuger, which to me sounded more like the Swedish word fersk. In Swedish, the suffix -er appears as "1) One of two suffices for indefinite plural for nouns of the third declension (common and neuter); the second one is -r; 2) Suffix for present tense, active voice, indicative mood for one of the groups of Swedish verbs." -- from the Wiktionary: Use of -er.

You might also want to listen to this native Swedish speaker at Learn Swedish: Part 1 - Useful Swedish words (T=4:40). Here she pronounces the Swedish word "eller," which means "or" (Eng.). The sound of the "er" is clearly more like my interpretation, /ær/. So you see that Kreuger could have the same ending, as I heard from the TV host above.

Following your reasoning, on the other hand, we have the German word "Keller," where the first "e" is more like /ɛ/, while the second unstressed syllable has the /ɐ/ sound. Since we are talking about a foreign name in Swedish, and since Swedish does not generally end a proper name in "er," your suggestion is acceptable. What I also found most interesting (in the Swedish phonology article) is that an "Unstressed /ɛ/ is realized as [ə], i.e. a basic schwa. This feature is common to most varieties of Swedish." Well, that seems to also agree with your suggestion, but may not apply to the "-er" ending in Swedish, as seen in the previous example I gave of the word "eller."

I leave it up to your judgment, and would not object if you change it to /gɐ/, which is the German representation of [ger]. --Skol fir (talk) 21:57, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

I don't believe that Kreuger used the German pronunciation of "Krüger", but something a bit more Swedish. I will look (or rather hear) into this later... Kraxler (talk) 00:35, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Section titled "The building contractor and his innovations" -- nonsequitur

The section titled "The building contractor and his innovations" has this sentence:

"In 1917 the company was split into two separate companies: Kreuger & Toll Construction AB, with the majority of shares owned by Paul Toll."

As you can see, this names only one company. There is another company named a couple of sentences later on, but one cannot assume that the next-named company is the other one split off from the original company. The names of BOTH off-shoot companines should be included in the sentence I quote above. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 152.121.19.254 (talk) 06:23, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

As somebody who has done a lot of editing of this Wikipedia entry I can only say: Please do the necessary research and edit the article according to your findings.

At present the article is still highly imperfect and needs a lot more work .... beside the never ending trivial edits of the army of bots, just kidding ....

I got turned off because of what I perceived to be petty bureaucratic arguments (see above, if you must) but something inside me wants to carry on with the work I did and I will eventually.

When I worked on the article I tried to preserve as much as possible of previous entries. It doesn't mean that I am in a position to endorse everything.

This man played an important role in history. Lets try together to make this Wikipedia article a truly well informed summary of his life.

Gatorinvancouver (talk) 23:29, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

Here should be the place

Not sure where to put this congrats but here since so many are deeply involved in what is frankly, an awesome article about a sheer phenomenon. Hope my cleanup hasn't hurt any, Manytexts (talk) 02:22, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

It needs further cleaning up and I haven't had the energy so far. Particularly, the section The End of the Kreuger empire should be merged with Kreuger The Gambler. The Loans section could also do with some improvements.

It's sort of on my list to do in the future but if you are up to it, why not have a go at it? Gatorinvancouver (talk) 21:43, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Tks, for directions. Will do when have time again - will have a go esp if you can use my efforts after, cheers Manytexts (talk) 11:59, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

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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)

Last edited at 01:59, 3 December 2007 (UTC). Substituted at 19:13, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

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