Johan Fritiof Enbom (7 September 1918 – 11 September 1974) was a Swedish railway worker who was accused and convicted of being a spy for the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

in the 1950s. Born in

Luleå Luleå ( , , locally ; ; ) is a Cities in Sweden, city on the coast of northern Sweden, and the County Administrative Boards of Sweden, capital of Norrbotten County, the northernmost county in Sweden. Luleå has 48,728 inhabitants in its urban ...

, Enbom was a former worker at the Swedish State Railways in Boden, and later the local editor for the Communist newspaper '' Norrskensflamman''. He was exposed by his own careless talk—often under the influence of alcohol—to the owners of the house in

Stockholm Stockholm (; ) is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, most populous city of Sweden, as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in the Nordic countries. Approximately ...

where he had lodged since he moved there from Boden. The family told the

Swedish Security Service The Swedish Security Service ( , SÄPO , , formerly , RPS/Säk, until 1989) is a Sweden, Swedish Government agencies in Sweden, government agency organized under the Ministry of Justice (Sweden), Ministry of Justice. It operates as a security ...

after the Christmas holidays of 1951, and Enbom was arrested on 16 February 1952. During interrogation, he confessed that he—from February 1943 to April 1951—had met around 25 times with Soviet employers. Enbom had provided a large variety of intelligence, most of it from public sources, but also secrets about armaments in

Boden Fortress Boden Fortress () is a modern fortress consisting of several major and minor forts and fortifications surrounding the city of Boden, Norrbotten, in northern Sweden. The fortress was originally intended to stop or delay attacks from the east or co ...

and nearby fortifications. He was sentenced to lifetime

hard labour Penal labour is a term for various kinds of forced labour that prisoners are required to perform, typically manual labour. The work may be light or hard, depending on the context. Forms of sentence involving penal labour have included inv ...

, but was released after ten years. Enbom had, according to a police investigation, collected material about the defence locations of northern Sweden. Enbom had then given this information to the Soviet Union. In hindsight it has been proven that most of the information that Enbom gave to the Soviet Union was public and could be easily found by anyone interested. Enbom also said that he was the last chain in a large chain of Soviet spies who gave secret information.Agrell 2003, s. 194 Most investigators that view the case today have concluded that Enbom largely lied or made up most of his stories about his spying or at least his role in the spying on Sweden for the Soviet Union. Lund University professor Wilhelm Agrell, on the other hand, has concluded that Enbom provided

KGB The Committee for State Security (, ), abbreviated as KGB (, ; ) was the main security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 to 1991. It was the direct successor of preceding Soviet secret police agencies including the Cheka, Joint State Polit ...

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

References

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