Where Did "Stockholm Syndrome" Come From?
Aside from Sweden, that is...
Buckle up, friends!
This is a story I’ve been working on for months.
And it all started with a short trip to Stockholm, Sweden.
I had never been to Stockholm, but instantly I started thinking about Stockholm Syndrome.
This trip seemed like a great time to investigate the story behind Stockholm Syndrome.
I did some digging, and learned that Stockholm Syndrome was coined after a robbery in Stockholm — that began on August 23, 1973.
But how do you go from a robbery to a syndrome?
I was curious…
“The party starts!”
August 23, 1973 started off as a normal Thursday for the employees at Kreditbank, located in Stockholm’s upscale Norrmalmstorg Square.
Then a 32-year-old man came into the bank, fired a machine gun at the ceiling, and shouted, “The party starts!”
Concrete and glass rained down on a terrified group of customers and bank employees as they rushed for the exits or dropped to the floor.
The robber shouted instructions in English, with an American accent.
He wanted money – but this was no ordinary robbery.
Instead of taking the money and leaving quickly, he had three bank employees – all young women – tied up and held them as hostages.
Twenty-three-year-old Kristin Enmark was one of the hostages.
She was joined by 21-year-old Elisabeth Oldgren, and a 31-year-old mother of two named Birgitta Lundblad.
“I believed a maniac had come into my life,” Kristin told The New Yorker in 1974.
“I believed I was seeing something that could happen only in America.”
Then the robber made his demands.
He wanted money – 3 million Swedish kronor (about $710,000 US), two pistols, and a “fast getaway car.”
He intended to leave the bank with the hostages, and wanted the police to provide helmets and bulletproof jackets for all of them.
And he was sure the police would comply.
Sweden’s national election was just weeks away, and the current prime minister, Olof Palme, was in a tight political race.
He could not afford to be blamed for the death of a hostage.
And Sweden was a progressive country that had little crime – and an aversion to violence.
But the robber wanted something else.
Or rather, someone else.
He wanted Clark Olofsson.
Clark, a 26-year-old convicted thief, was serving a six-year sentence in a penitentiary 90 miles from Stockholm.
He was known for being intelligent and charming, and had even been named one of Sweden’s most influential opinion makers by a prominent Swedish newspaper.
Clark had also spent most of his adult life in prison – or would have, if he had not escaped from prison so many times.
The police thought Clark could be a valuable ally inside the bank, and began making arrangements.
They met with Clark and told him if he could help resolve the situation, they might look at commuting his sentence.
Clark claimed he did not know who the robber was, but said he would do anything to spend less time in prison.
So just after 4pm that day, the police brought Clark to the bank in Stockholm.
But Clark was not able to resolve the situation quickly.
Instead, he would spend the better part of six days in the bank with the robber and the hostages, while the people of Sweden – and the international press – watched.
The robbery ended with two criminals and four hostages walking out of the bank, safely.
But what made this robbery famous – or perhaps infamous – is that the hostages felt a strong connection to their captors.
People couldn’t understand it.
And thus, Stockholm Syndrome was born.
But why did the hostages feel such a connection to their captors?
To understand that, we need to examine what happened over those six days, both inside and outside of the bank.
It took the police two days to correctly identify the robber as Jan-Erik “Janne” Olsson, a 32-year-old Swedish thief and safecracker.
Up until that point, they believed the robber was an escaped criminal named Kaj Hansson.
The press even identified Kaj as the robber, putting his picture on the front page of the newspaper.
It was only after the police sent Kaj’s 17-year-old brother and his childhood friend inside the bank to reason with “Kaj” that they realized they had the wrong man.
The robber shot at them.
“You fucking idiots,” Kaj’s brother Dan told police.
“You have the wrong guy!1”
At the time of the Stockholm robbery, Janne was on furlough from prison, after serving half of his three year-sentence for grand larceny.
He had escaped while taking advantage of a prison system that allowed temporary release for good behavior2.
It was during this prison stint that he met Clark Olofsson, who was also serving time there.
Though the hostages were initially frightened of Janne, his demeanour changed instantly when Clark arrived at the bank.
“When Clark Olofsson sauntered into the bank – in blue corduroy trousers, half-length hair and beard – he had a calming effect on both the robber Janne, the police and the hostages,” Kristin said in a 2022 interview with the Swedish magazine Femina.
“I was in shock – and there came a man who said he would make sure nothing bad happened to me.”
“For me, Clark became a security – my hope to live.”
Clark was able to calm Janne down, and Clark immediately showed the hostages care.
He untied them. He did not threaten them. He looked after them.
Clark conducted interviews with journalists while he was in the bank, and when a reporter asked whose side he was on, he replied:
“I am on the poor girls’ side.”
When police learned that one of the women hostages began to menstruate, Kristin heard a few policemen laugh.
It was Clark who insisted they be given “some tampons and water.”
Clark and Janne also allowed the hostages to call their families.
When Birgitta couldn’t reach her husband on the phone, Janne encouraged her to keep trying3.
“Don’t give up,” he told her.
When Elisabeth began to feel claustrophobic, Janne let her out of the vault. Even though she had a 30’ rope attached to her like a leash, she was grateful.
“I couldn’t go far, but I felt free,” Elisabeth said.
Janne draped his wool jacket over Kristin when she was cold, and comforted her when she had a bad dream.
Janne also consoled Elisabeth who was sad about missing a crayfish party she had been looking forward to, literally wiping the tears off her face.
Elisabeth told a journalist:
“We have been well looked after here by the robber and Clark.
“They have been real gentlemen toward us.”
Sven Safstrom, who became the fourth hostage after Clark found him hiding in a closet at the bank on the first day, also felt a connection to his captors.
“When he treated us well, we could think of him as an emergency God,” Sven said.
By the second day, the hostages were feeling a connection to their captors, but did share one fear – the police.
The police had stationed sharpshooters in the lobby of the bank and on nearby rooftops.
The hostages feared they might be hit by mistake.
The police provided little food, and had even drugged some of the drinks they provided to the hostages, Janne, and Clark.
Then the police locked the hostages in the bank’s vault.
They placed microphones and cameras inside to listen in to their conversations, yet when they had an opportunity to speak directly to the hostages, showed little interest in what the hostages had to say.
When Kristin (escorted by Clark) went to speak to the police negotiator, he ignored her, saying he would only talk to Clark.
Kristin feared there would be a shootout, but the negotiator snubbed her, and she returned to the vault furious.
She felt the police treated her like “a little dumb ignorant girl who was not worth saying anything to whatsoever, much less listening to.”
The police expected the hostages to be grateful, but soon saw the hostages felt more attached to the men holding them inside the vault.
Janne wanted to leave the bank with the hostages – and surprisingly, the hostages wanted to leave with him, trusting they would be safe.
The Swedish public would learn through the press that the hostages felt connected to their captors, and were worried the police would try to storm the vault or try another tactic that could harm them.
In addition to interviews Clark gave journalists, the press shared part of a 42-minute telephone conversation Kristin had with Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme4, where she shared her disappointment with the authorities.
She defended Clark and the robber, saying she trusted them, and pleaded with the prime minister to save her life.
“Would it not feel good to die at your post?” the Prime Minister allegedly asked her.5
Days later, the situation had grown more tense.
Trapped in the vault, Janne had put nooses around the necks of the hostages, and told police if they used gas in the vault, the hostages would die.
Despite this warning, on August 28, the police pumped teargas into the vault.
Though he had threatened otherwise, Janne told the hostages:
“I will not sacrifice you all. That was never my intention.”
After 131 hours inside the bank, Janne and Clark (who no longer seemed to be an ally to the police) surrendered.
The police wanted the hostages to come out first, but the hostages refused, worried that the police might hurt their Janne and Clark.
“Don’t hurt them – they didn’t harm us,” cried two of the women.
“Clark, I will see you again,” Kristin shouted at a handcuffed Clark.
The standoff was over. The hostages were safe. The police had two men in custody.
But the hostages’ attachment to their captors left the police and public confused.
Why were the hostages so angry with the police, and so connected to Janne and Clark?
Swedish psychiatrist Nils Bejerot, who had been working with police during the robbery (and listening in to the conversations in the vault), explained this bond between hostage and captor as “Norrmalmstorg Syndrome.”
That later became “Stockholm Factor” and then “Stockholm Syndrome.6”
And “Stockholm Syndrome” became more mainstream in 1974, when it was used to describe why kidnapped newspaper heiress Patty Hearst had assisted her captors in bank robberies.
But let’s dig into this a bit more…
Nils Bejerot spoke about what happened in the bank in Stockholm and how the hostages were feeling – but he never interviewed them.
He tried to speak with Elisabeth and Kristin after the robbery, but they refused to see him.
And he never asked to speak with Sven.
Instead psychiatrists, the police, and the press spun a different story: one that insisted Janne and Clark must have sexually assaulted the hostages.
Elisabeth, Birgitta, and Kristin denied it.
And Sven – who was trapped in the same small vault with them – backed them up.
“There was no intimate relationship,” Sven said.
“We all became very good friends.”
Elisabeth said that Clark was “a pretty amazing guy” who had comforted them during the ordeal.
The hostages confirmed that Janne and Clark had provided them comfort, and that they all feared being harmed by the police.
But that wasn’t necessarily the story people wanted to hear – or tell – so instead, we were given a new “syndrome” to explain what happened.
But here’s what’s really interesting about Stockholm Syndrome…
“Norrmalmstorg Syndrome” became “Stockholm Syndrome” when New York City police psychologist Dr. Harvey Schlossberg wanted to help “cops understand what happened in the Stockholm incident.”
The FBI later incorporated Stockholm Syndrome into their training protocols, and the concept spread from the NYPD and the FBI Training Division to police departments across the US.
But as David King writes in his book Six Days in August, skepticism about Stockholm Syndrome emerged early.
He notes that a 1981 piece in the Chicago Tribune saw it referred to as “schlock science parading about as certified scholarship” and noted experts could become a “talk-show celebrity by invoking Stockholm Syndrome.”
And the connection between captor and hostage is rare.
“I’ve never seen it live in the field,” said Dr. James Alvarez, a hostage negotiator and clinical psychologist who worked with Scotland Yard and the NYPD.
“Mostly former hostages want to kill the motherf***er.”
King writes that a review of the FBI’s Hostage Barricade Database System showed that 73 percent of the victims showed no sign of Stockholm Syndrome, and other studies have found it lacking in 92 percent of hostage incidents.
Fifty years after the Norrmalmstorg robbery, Stockholm Syndrome is still mentioned in high-profile hostage and kidnapping incidents, but there are few academic studies on the subject.
And Stockholm Syndrome is not listed in any standard classification system of psychiatry, or recognized in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders7 or the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems.
Stockholm Syndrome may be popular in the media and pop culture, but that doesn’t make it a legitimate psychiatric diagnosis.
As psychologist Hanna Olsson noted, Stockholm Syndrome emphasizes “weak-willed women in relationship with strong men.”
In 1973, Kristin, Elisabeth, and Birgitta were young vulnerable women criticizing male authorities.
It was easy to dismiss their behavior as a “syndrome.”
The fact that Sven agreed with their assessments was ignored – and instead the focus was to question the women, particularly Kristin.
Kristin and Clark had the strongest bond at Norrmalmstorg, and were the basis for the “captive-captor” connection Nils explained as a “syndrome.”
“I always felt that I did something wrong,” Kristin said.
“You’re not healthy when you have a syndrome.”
But Clark wasn’t the one who took her hostage.
He was the one she credited with saving her life.
And consider the experience from Kristin’s point of view…
She was a 23-year-old woman being held hostage by “a crazy man with a submachine gun and a large knife.”
She had no chance to run or hide – and could not overpower him.
She was tied up and terrified.
Then Clark – “a scruffy Scandinavian mixture of Jesse James and Warren Beatty” – entered the bank.
He was a handsome, charismatic 26-year-old man, whose presence instantly made the situation better.
He was unarmed. He didn’t threaten or hurt her. He was kind to her.
He untied the ropes around her, helped her speak to her family, and comforted her when she was scared.
While the police ignored her pleas, Clark listened.
He was not her captor.
“It may sound strange, I understand that, but it is impossible to imagine how it feels to be under death threats,” Kristin said.
“And then there is something there who shows a concern.”
And perhaps forming a bond with their captors – real or not – is what helped keep Kristin, Birgitta, Elisabeth and Sven alive.
Maybe Kristin and the other hostages never had a “syndrome.”
Maybe they simply did what they needed to do to survive.
One more thing…
And then what happened?
Birgitta, Elisabeth, Sven, and Kristin were granted extended sick leave, three months’ vacation and a stipend of 10,000 crowns.
Janne would go on to be convicted of a series of crimes, including kidnapping and extortion, and was sentenced to ten years at a maximum security prison8 (presumably one that did not allow prisoners to take a vacation during their sentence).
Clark was convicted of being an accessory to robbery and aggravated robbery, but appealed and won. He would go on to commit the largest single-person bank robbery in 1976, and spend the next four decades in and out of prison.
Kreditbank is no longer in Norrmalmstorg Square.
The Nobis Hotel and Swedish clothing design company Acne Studios stand it its place today.
Here’s a picture I took inside the Nobis Hotel in June.
Kaj was so upset about the accusations that he was the robber that he called the Swedish police from Hawaii to protest. It was a move that resulted in his arrest, extradition, and return to prison.
I’m sorry, what? Vacation from jail?
When Birgitta couldn’t reach her husband, she left a message for him that there were leftovers in the refrigerator for dinner, and he should place a piece of butter on the fish before heating it up on the stove.
Apparently in Sweden, you can just call the Prime Minister…
After hearing parts of Kristin’s conversation with Palme on the news, Kristin’s mother was not impressed with the flippant tone her daughter had used. So she called the vault and expressed her disappointment directly to Kristin. [WHAT?!?]
Let’s be honest, “Stockholm Syndrome” is much easier to pronounce.
This is the standard resource of the mental health industry and includes hundreds of psychiatric disorders.
Janne received letters from many admirers while he was in prison. In 1975, he married one of his pen pals in the prison chapel. Nils Bejerot (yep, that Nils Bejerot) was one of the wedding guests.
My curious brain was in overdrive in Sweden…
What in the Zac Efron?! — I also got to the bottom of the mystery of the Zac Efron photograph in a stylish Stockholm hotel…
You can find more stories I’ve written (mostly about business, leadership and life) on my blog.
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Until next time, Stay Curious!
-Beth
Vacation from prison seems wild, but the facts speak for themselves. Scandinavia traditionally has very strong prisoner welfare and remarkably low recidivism. Countries (such as the US) where prison is more punishing nevertheless have much higher reoffending rates. Seems the better you treat people, the better they go on to behave. And yet people (not pointing at you, I mean in general) still get het up if they think prisons aren't enough of a punishment. Public instinct is completely at odds with demonstrable evidence on this issue.
Another great article, Beth, thank you.