The cultural news has previously reported on the copyright to Bertil Almquist's image A Swedish tiger, created for an advertising campaign for the then State Information Board during the war year 1941. The image was and has remained a symbol of Sweden's silence during the war.

Now, the conflict over how the tiger may be used and parodied in modern times is relevant again. 

Comedian and writer Aron Flam is based on Almquist's tiger in the illustration on the cover of the book This is a Swedish Tiger. However, Flame's tiger is modified with a swastika around one leg and the other lift in a national social greeting. The book is about Sweden's disloyalty to Nazi Germany during World War II.

"A central symbol"

The cover describes Aron Flam as a satire on a historical campaign, but it has not been well received by the Djuramossa Contingency Museum, which owns the rights to a Swedish tiger. A police investigation is now underway against Flam for suspected copyright infringement. 

- Yesterday morning I received a text message from the office where my warehouse is located. They said it was the house search, says Aron Flam. 

According to the comedian, the police seized the copies of the book that were in the store. Now he risks damages and fines a total of half a million kronor.

Aron Flam says that even before the strike, he was contacted by the emergency preparedness lawyer. 

- They did not want me to continue using my tiger, but I think, just as I suspect they do, that this is the central symbol of the Swedish silence culture during the war but also forward - since then. It is very difficult to practice silent culture unless you mention it, he says.

"Important for Sweden's history"

The police investigation is still ongoing but Aron Flam does not plan to withdraw the book. 

- In my professional role, I joke about symbols. Symbols for religions, corporate symbols, political ideologies, historical symbols ... A Swedish tiger is some kind of mix of them and important in Sweden's history, he says. 

The Museum of Emergency Preparedness Maria Andrée and the prosecutor in the case declined to an interview with the Culture News. When Region Skåne last spring used a Swedish tiger as inspiration for a campaign to wash their hands carefully during the pandemic, Maria Andrée said:

- A Swedish tiger belongs to our history, to the emergency years. It is a crisis now, but not a war, and you are not allowed to change the picture.