Haijby affair

The Haijby affair was a political affair in Sweden in the 1950s, involving the Swedish king Gustav V of Sweden, Kurt Haijby and the author Vilhelm Moberg.

This affair was initially just gossip, but in 1952 Kurt Haijby was officially accused of blackmailing the king, and the affair turned from gossip to scandal.

Haijby had been a lover of the bisexual king in the years between 1912 and 1932. The court of Sweden had paid Haijby 170.000 swedish crownss to keep quiet about this. However, in 1938 Haijby was arrested for paedophilia and put in custody at the asylum of Beckomberga. The court then approached him and promised him 400 crowns a month if he left the country and promised never to talk about his relationship to the king again. He accepted this deal.

Breaching the agreement, Haijby returned to Sweden in 1940 and wrote a book about his adventures with the king. The entire printing of this book was then bought by the court and destroyed, and has never been read by anyone.

In the meantime, an inflicted debate concerning another affair, the Kejne affair, had started making rounds in the press where Vilhelm Moberg was busy writing lengthy articles about homosexual conspiracies among the Swedish officials.

Haijby reported his forced detention to the asylum in Beckomberga to the Attorney General of Sweden. These papers were smuggled out of the Attorney General's office by Vilhelm Moberg, and the whole thing thus came to public attention. As a consequence, the court was forced to charge Haijby for all acts of blackmailing in public.