Under the headline “Burning Books”, news station NFS reports that an entire run of a new book on an influential 20th century Icelandic family, the descendants of Thor Jensen or the Thor’s family, has been destroyed and a new manuscript printed.
According to NFS sources, the reason for destroying the run was a chapter on the marriage of the American Nazi leader George Rockwell and the mother of Iceland’s first dollar billionaire, Thóra Hallgrímsson. The publisher, Edda Publishing, owned by Thóra’s second husband, Landsbanki chairman Björólfur Gudmundsson, said that a “mistake” had occurred and would not answer why the run had been destroyed. According to NFS, Björgólfur was not amused by the chapter on his wife’s first husband.
Rockwell was known as the American Hitler and founded the American Nazi Party in 1959. He was a pilot in the US armed forces in the Second World War and later became the commanding officer of the US military base in Keflavík. Rockwell and Thóra Hallgrímsson separated in the mid-sixties.
In the new edition of the book, its author, Gudmundur Magnússon, historian and journalist at Baugur-owned Fréttabladid, only mentions George Rockwell once in passing, as as Thóra’s first husband. In August, Fréttabladid commemerated the 38 year anniversary of the death of the Nazi leader.
NFS reports that Páll Bragi Kristjónsson, publishing manager at Edda Publishing, confirmed that the first run of the book had been destroyed. When asked if the section on Thóra and George Rockwell’s marriage was the reason, Páll refused to reply. He said that the publisher and the author both agreed to reprint the book. Fréttabladid journalist Gudmundur Magnússon would not answer if the material about Rockwell and Thóra was the reason behind destroying the first run of the book, citing a confidentiality agreement.
Not much has been written about George Lincoln Rockwell in Iceland until late last year when writer and Time Warner Executive VP Ólafur Jóhann Ólafsson (Olaf Olafsson) based a character on him and his Icelandic wife in Ólafur’s new novel, the Innocents. Rockwell appears in the novel under his own name, but his wife’s character is called Lilja Jónsdóttir.
Ólafur Jóhann and investment bank Straumur-Burdarás, led by Thóra’s son, Björgólfur Thor Björgólfsson (Bjorgolfur Thor Bjorgolfsson), recently purchased a 34% stake in Árvakur, the publisher of Morgunbladid.
