White Aryan Resistance (Sweden)

The name of the group was derived from the US white supremacist organisation White Aryan Resistance (WAR). According to Stieg Larsson, a researcher of white supremacist organizations, the group was rather styled on the then already defunct US white supremacist group The Order, led by Robert Jay Mathews.[1] VAM was founded by Klas Lund, other leading members were Torulf Magnusson and Peter Melander, editor of the group's magazine Storm. The organisation's symbol was the "Wolfsangel" with a sword in the center. VAM has been implicated in many serious crimes in Sweden.[2] According to a report prepared and jointly published in November 1999 by Sweden's four largest daily newspapers, Aftonbladet, Expressen, Dagens Nyheter and Svenska Dagbladet, many former members of the organisation are members of present-day neo-Nazi organisations.[3]

After VAM and a prison sentence, Klas Lund founded the self-declared Swedish Resistance Movement in 1997, which later became the Nordic Resistance Movement. Another VAM offshoot was the now-defunct National Socialist Front which was formed in 1994.[2]