Anna von Bayern — Perspective from Germany on Sweden’s Changing Image
Anna von Bayern examines how Germany sees Sweden — from seventeenth‑century “fear of the Swede” to today’s low‑information idealisation — and argues that Sweden has ceded control of its narrative. Because Sweden rarely asserts its profile on global stages such as the UN or the World Economic Forum, German media (often left‑leaning) selectively use Sweden as a canvas for domestic agenda‑setting: gender equality, welfare state virtues, open asylum policy, and above all Greta Thunberg as the metonym for Swedish environmentalism. Meanwhile, newer and darker trends — immigration challenges, crime,…