We want to tell a story about a remarkable man - citizen Ivar
Kreuger.
As the prince of the first global financial empire in history Ivar Kreuger had a brilliant ability to
inspire people to realize their possibilities. He gave his prompt support to artists,
inventors and entrepreneurs thus pushing ideas to become real projects. To
him money
was a neutral tool in this transformation.
He quadrupled the SF-assets, June 1918, and 1920 the Movie "Körkarlen" by
Victor Sjöström (idea; Selma Lagerlöf) had It´s premier. It was a formidable success
all over the world and changed film culture and film making in its foundations. He introduced
Greta Garbo and Victor Sjöström to Hollywood.
You can find cutting edge Kreuger inspired innovations in
several different fields; media and film was one, finance and industry an other.
Ivar Kreuger were one of the leading figures in the creation of the
"international market" and in the end of the twenties he (and the Kreuger Trust)
controlled close to half of the world market in iron ore and cellulose, he was on his way,
with LM Ericsson, to
out step ITT on the telecommunication market, he had achieved a world
monopoly for matches, he owned real estate (acres of central Berlin, Unter
den Linden/Friedrichstrasse,
exclusive buildings at Place Vendôme, Paris, Amsterdam, Warsaw, Stockholm,
Oslo, New York, Philadelphia etc), mines (the Boliden Goldmine,
LKAB/Gränges/Stora Kopparberg and other iron mines
all over the planet), concessions and monopolies and were thus able
to present the worlds most valuable "securities" when he lured investors all
over the world to put their money into the Kreuger Trust.
He established co-ownerships with The Guggenheim Group, worked in harmony with the
Rockefellers, Vanderbilts and Baruchs, who to the bitter end
supported him with massive actions on Wall Street.
In the midst of all turmoil Kreuger hade creative meetings with partners and friends and invented the
B-series - a new concept in world trade. The Kreuger Trust emitted participating debentures, a synthesis of stocks
and bonds, which in fact became the currency of "The Kreuger Finance State"
and the
most popular paper all over the globe.
Kreuger stands out as an financial giant between the
two World Wars. He anticipated economical theories which not until after the Second World
War, which he outspokenly tried to prevent, became popular (The Marshall Plan).
He showed forward towards an economical thinking, with the modern examples of Germany and
Japan, that looks rather effective - industrial evolution mainly outside the military
industrial complex.
The personality of Kreuger contrasts against a harsh
reality, full of conflicts and revolutions - as made for the
Movies.
We want to
throw some light on a person who embarrassed fascists, communists and military tradesmen,
not so much through his personal charisma, his wealth or fame but through his practical
ability to make things happen.
He was the manager of Svensktrusten, outside the
limelight - except when he appeared on rare conferences and interviews (and business
dinners).
People associated with Kreuger became rich and sometimes they overexposed their golden
riches but Kreuger himself always kept a low profile. No luxury had any impression on him.
The best things in the world were not always the most impressive. Ivar
Kreuger owned art pieces and miniatures, known only to an exclusive elite,
he owned mines out in the wilderness nobody ever had seen. But he
certainly, somewhat sadly cynical, realized that the old human hunger for luxury could drive
the motor of the European reconstruction after the terrible First World War.
He was able to lit the fires in the
minds of the Haute Finance - he was able to make constructive things
happen with the money of others. With a rather small own risk Ivar Kreuger
made huge transitions of money from where it abounded to where it was
badly needed.
We feel that it is the humble human being Ivar
Kreuger with the avant-garde visions and international ideas we want to make
known to the World. And we
entertain hopes that it would be possible to co-finance the making of the motion picture
Kreuger, in artistic freedom, by an invitation to the film industry and
to the public to participate and invest in
our project to make the Motion Picture Kreuger.
Tomas Brusell is working on a Swedish book script; "The burned diary of Ivar
Kreuger".
People and companies who in different stages have declared their interest in the
film project (documented in letters) are
Björn Tiberg (co-producing, motion picture script, with Tomas Brusell, Björn Tiberg is a former TV-producer
in NRK),
Cliff Robertson (acting,
distribution),
Steinar Hybertsen (contacts),
P G Gyllenhammar (finance, production)
Memphisfilm (Lars Jönsson, contacts with Zentropa),
Triangelfilm (co-producing, Scandinavian distribution),
Northern Lights Film (Erik Borge, evolution of script)
Tonefilm and The Swedish Film institute (Bengt Forslund, evolution of script).
John Maynard Keynes:
"We have a poignant example today of the helplessness of the individual, however
powerful and however great his genius, in the tragic death of Mr. Ivar Kreuger. Here was a
man of perhaps the greatest constructive business intelligence of his age, a man whose
far-flung activities have been in the widest sense in the public interest, who had
conceived in his mission in the chaos of the post-war world to furnish a channel between
the countries where resources were in surplus and those where they were desperately
required, one who built on solid foundations and surrounded himself with such safeguards
as could be humanly devised in the circumstances, - suffering what the ignorant might
mistake for the fate of the common gambler, but in truth crushed between the icebergs of a
frozen world which no individual man could thaw and restore to the warmth of normal
life." London, March 14, 1932.
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