Den vite generalen : Baptistpastorn Albert Wickmans kamp för fred

Sammanfattning: This thesis set out to analyse early baptistic peace-activities in Sweden in the 1900s, through a micro-historical analysis of Albert Wickman (1884-1942) who was a Swedish Baptist pastor and peace-agitator. In nonconformist-churches we find the earliest pacifists and Wickman started out as a theological trained Baptist, but he founded an independent organisation with ideas based on teachings by Leo Tolstoy. His Anti-war organisation was organised much like the Salvation Army and had as key-concept to gather members who claimed they would not kill another human being. Another idea was to create an army of volunteers who would be willing to put themselves between fighting nations. The organisation had many thousands member but existed only between 1912-1918 and it never practiced it go-in-between ideas. In the 1920s Wickman was involved with the oldest Swedish peace-society, “Svenska Freds och Skiljedomsföreningen”, and raised their membership from 4 000 in 1922 to 49 000 in 1930, but he also led this organisation to almost bankruptcy. This thesis gives an account of who Albert Wickman was and through him offers contexts and world-views on his pacifistic thinking in the first decades of the 1900s and how peace was promoted at the time in Sweden.