Le Nord : revue internationale des Pays de Nord - 01.06.1939, Page 476
THE IMPORTANCE OF SWEDEN’S IRON-
ORE IN THE PRESENT WAR
By Gerard De Geer,
Mining-Engineer; member of the Swedish parliament.
TO-DAY it is often maintained that Swedish iron-ore, or
rather Swedish ore-exports to Germany, has an enormous
influence on the outcome of the war. It is emphasized in
this country, but especially abroad, that the control of Sweden’s
ore-exports may become a problem of serious character. As in
most cases, when dealing with presumptions and hypotheses,
which are not borne out by arguments founded on facts, exag-
gerations are made. The purpose of this article is to throw a light
on this question, particularly from the metallurgic and statistic
point of view. It cannot, however, be denied that this is a serious
question from the political point of view, but any political ana-
lysis of the problem would be wrong, unless founded on correct
bases of discussion.
It is quite true that this problem has changed since the years
before 1914. The Versailles Peace Treaty brought about radical
changes in the possession of European ore-resources. Before the
War Germany could, in spite of large imports, cover her require-
ments of ore with her own resources. To-day this is no longer
possible, and by far most of the ore melted down in that country
has to be imported. Thus statistics for 1938 show that Germany
imported about 22 million tons of iron-ore and extracted during
the same time within her own borders only about one-half of
that amount or about n million tons. The difference is, how-
ever, much more important than shown by those figures. It is
not the ore itself, which is important, but the metal contained
therein. If we suppose that the German iron-ore contains on the
average 30 % iron and the imported ores 55 %, this means that
the home-production only corresponds to one fifth of the total
requirements. The figures mentioned above are approximate, but
probably do not differ too much from actual conditions. The
Swedish export-ore is considerably richer, with an iron content
varying from 6 5 to 70 %, the average, however being lower,
owing to imports of poor ores, chiefly from France. The ore
obtained from the recently opened mines in Germany is con-
siderably poorer in iron than the average of German ores. It
probably does not certain more than 20 to 25 % iron. In 1938