In the database, it is possible to see in detail who ordered what and when. Among the approximately 2,500 unique customers who have placed a total of over 7,000 orders, there are several well-known Nazis who are themselves Swedish or have ties to Sweden. These individuals have been convicted of, among other things, incitement against ethnic groups, arson, and politically motivated acts of violence. The leak shows that Midgård, which describes itself as "one of the world's largest shops for alternative people," has thousands of customers in 62 countries. After Sweden, Germany, with roughly 3,400 orders, is the most common recipient country. In several of the recipient countries, including Germany, Midgård's operations had been completely or partially prohibited.

Midgård's product line connects it to multiple Nazi organizations. In addition to magazines from NMR, and its predecessor SMR, Midgård also sells newspapers from the defunct Swedes' Party and from the far-right organization Det fria Sweden. Midgård is also a retailer of several international brands, such as the Polish "Keep it White" clothing brand. Midgård's international network has also connected it to several other stores and producers of white power products. On several occasions, Midgård, on its Telegram channel, has urged followers to also support record companies and retailers in, for example, the United States, Russia, Serbia and Hungary. Among these are the Russian Übermensch shop and the American Hammer shop.

This summer, the US Hatewatch initiative, which is run by the Southern Poverty Law Center, published a review of the approximately 1,500 purchases that were sent to the United States from Midgård. Among Midgård's American clients are representatives of Nazi and radical right groups such as Volksfront, Patriot Front, Clockwork Crew and the Traditionalist Worker Party. In neighboring Canada, orders have gone to activists for Nazi groups such as Vinland Hammerskins, Aryan Guard and NSC-131.

This Expressen-led investigation has also examined the customer register, focusing on Midgård's branches in Central Eastern Europe. VSquare’s partners have uncovered the following:

Serving Orbán's media empire while ordering Nazi music

One of the most interesting customers of Nazi merchandise in Hungary works at the country's largest government-controlled media empire, which publishes pro-Orbán propaganda and is owned by a foundation represented by persons close to Prime Minister Viktor Orbán's ruling Fidesz party.

This pro-government journalist published a book on the "radical right" and has covered nationalistic topics in his articles. For example, in the mid-2010s, he published an interview with the leader of Betyársereg (Outlaw Army), which was one of Hungary's most significant far-right paramilitary groups at the time. He also reported on a Swedish town where Hungarian immigrants formed a peaceful and diligent community, contrasting it with Muslim migrants who were portrayed as violent and unable to integrate.

In 2018, several shipments of white power music were sent to this journalist's address. This included music by Frank Rennicke, a German neo-Nazi troubadour convicted of multiple hate crimes. This journalist also apparently received music by a German band called Faustrecht, multiple band members of which were active in the Blood and Honor movement (the band itself also regularly performed at Blood and Honor events). In Germany, some of their albums have been classified as harmful for minors, which means these albums cannot be publicly displayed in stores and may only be sold to persons above 18.

A national security expert interviewed by Atlatszo.hu revealed that, in early 2024, the pro-government journalist was approached and interviewed by the Hungarian internal security agency, the Constitution Protection Office (Alkotmányvédelmi Hivatal). The investigation allegedly took place in connection with the leaked Midgård database (as well as in relation to clashes between Nazi and Antifa groups in Budapest in 2023, when several people, including both Hungarians and foreigners were arrested). The expert added that there is a possibility that other Midgård customers were also interrogated by the security agency after the database leaked.

According to the leaked data, Hungarian customers mostly bought music from Midgård. The Hungarian pro-government journalist customer said, "Looking at the list, I see that at least one third of the customers were not at all extreme-minded – they were just selling records, spicing up their rock-metal-punk selections with exotic, Swedish, Finnish or Estonian national rock music. Because they were cheap in the 2010’s, and there was a demand – even though no one understood a word of the lyrics. I think what people listen to in their homes is a matter of taste, and we should not peek into each other's bedrooms or CD players."

The journalist customer also argued that these are "legal CDs" ordered legally from a registered music publisher. According to him, if a crime were committed, it was by those who hacked into Midgård's database and then, "with a stigmatizing intent," compiled a searchable list of customers with names, addresses and phone numbers. "To list people openly, threateningly, on the basis of their supposed political views is no longer a matter of taste, and, in fact, to me, this seems to be fascism," the avid customer of Nazi music added.

In Hungary, possessing, selling or publicly playing music with Nazi or far-right lyrics is not automatically considered unlawful. However, if there is a trial in which the indictment involves such music, the lyrics are examined thoroughly, line by line, before the judgment is delivered.

Czech and Slovak customers range from neo-Nazis to soldiers

One of Midgård’s Czech customers was sentenced to four years in prison for selling guns without a permit, investigace.cz found. He used to be a member of the now-ruling Civic Democratic Party (ODS) but was expelled in 2008 when the party found out that he organized a neo-Nazi march. Another Czech customer was sentenced for a racially-motivated assault on an American-born singer living in the Czech Republic. A third alleged Midgård customer was sentenced for attacking a Roma man. Along with other offenders, he attacked a group of Romani people: the attackers kicked them and shot them with a gas gun, and then stabbed one Romani man four times with a knife.

A lawyer, a businessman in the beauty industry and a tattoo parlor owner also shopped online at the Swedish Nazi store.

Reporters from investigace.cz also asked Czech police about the issue of selling items with neo-Nazi or skinhead themes. "Usually, these products promote movements that suppress rights and freedoms or other crimes that fall into the category of hate crimes,“ Colonel Ondřej Moravčík, head of the press department, said. According to him, there is no standard approach to such sales and they thus must be considered on a case-by-case basis. In 2022, an interior ministry spokesman told Czech media that law enforcement agencies do not prosecute the use of symbols or letters themselves, but rather the specific actions and intent, and that the context is always relevant.

As political scientist Jan Charvát explained to investigace.cz, appearance has always been very important to the skinhead subculture. “It was exactly the thing that attracted the attention of young boys. From the interviews I did with people from this subculture, it clearly emerged that they were not attracted to politics in the first place, but image and violence were the two key things for becoming a skinhead. Politicization often came second.”

According to Charvát, there was both a visual and a political dimension to being a skinhead — a bald head, heavy boots, bomber jacket, and tattoos accompanied racism and anti-semitism. “In order to connect the two dimensions and somehow demonstrate them, t-shirts and patches, clothes and accessories appeared,“ Charvát explained. Subsequently, around the year 2000, a few people in the Czech Republic realized that they could profit from selling these items. They organized concerts and sold T-shirts and patches or CDs. These shops were also important in that they were physical places where members of the subculture could meet each other.

Also around 2000, a large number of people from the skinhead subculture decided they were no longer comfortable dressing in high boots and bombers and were looking for something else, which is what the German brand Thor Steinar, and many others, realized they could take advantage of” “It offers an aggressive fashion that, if you're a neo-Nazi, you see as your own, and if you're not a neo-Nazi, you don't see specific symbols in it that can be prosecuted,“ the expert added.

There were also Czech brands that tried to break through with similar fashion around this same time. These companies took advantage of the fact that there were people who were eager to buy such clothes because it was the main way for them to show their political affiliation. This worked until the subculture hollowed out after 2006. "That's when the phenomenon of autonomous nationalism emerged, which tried to leave out the subcultural dimension," Charvát said, adding that this led to the gradual demise of the Czech neo-Nazi subcultural scene, which he says disintegrated around 2013.

The Slovaks identified in the leak also come from a wide range of professions and social backgrounds. According to ICJK.sk’s analysis, the list of Slovak Midgård customers includes an employee at a Bratislava car dealership, the owner of a car rental company, various freelancers and contractors from across the country — and even a soldier from the Slovak Ministry of Defence. Many on the list allegedly purchased neo-Nazi music CDs and other records, and clothing bearing Nazi symbols. Notably, according to an unverified list published on a disinformation site, the Slovak soldier was involved in nationwide Covid testing efforts. He is also reportedly active in a football fan group.

ICJK.sk contacted the people on the list but most did not respond to the inquiries. Those who did reply denied having ordered anything from the online Nazi shop.

Polish local politicians and activists who love Nazi music

FRONTSTORY.PL identified one of Midgård's Polish customers as Olgierd Obrycki. He is a close associate of Robert Bąkiewicz, a Polish nationalist who was supported by millions of złoty from public funds during the previous Law and Justice government. Until recently, Bąkiewicz was the organizer of the Warsaw Independence March, one of the largest nationalist gatherings in Europe, carried out every year on November 11. A few days ago, on September 4, 2024, police raided Bąkiewicz’s residence in connection with an investigation into the neo-Nazi symbols on display and the hateful slogans aimed at minority groups at the Independence March in 2018.

Bąkiewicz associate Obrycki bought records of the Italian band Ultima Frontiera from the Swedish store. Ultima Frontiera glorifies a neo-fascist from the Avanguardia Nazionale terrorist organization in one of their songs. According to FRONTSTORY.PL’s sources with knowledge of his activities, Obrycki has been working with Bąkiewicz for over a decade. In 2020, he was one of the initiators of the creation of the National Guard – an organization of nationalists whose task was to "protect Catholic churches" during mass protests against the tightening of abortion law in Poland. On his Facebook, Obrycki recommended a book by Leon Degrelle, a Belgian fascist who collaborated with the Nazis during World War II.

Meanwhile, Michał Wiltosiński, a local activist of the far-right Confederation (Konfederacja) party from Jaworzno in Upper Silesia, ordered records by the band Gammadion (meaning swastika in Greek). He bought a total of 20 records from Midgård. These included some by the band Skrewdriver, founded by Ian Stuart Donaldson, who also founded the neo-Nazi Blood and Honor international movement. Wiltosiński is not an anonymous activist of the Confederation party — as its representative, he laid flowers in Jaworzno at a Polish historical monument.

Jerzy Rózio was also a Midgård customer. In the last local elections, he ran for councilor of Bielsk Podlaski as a candidate of the right-wing alliance. Rózio is not ashamed of his political roots: In his Facebook photo, he proudly presents himself with a skinhead tattoo on his left forearm. He turned to Midgård to buy, among other things, a belt with a buckle "in memory of" Ian Stuart Donaldson. He also ordered records by the band Code 291, the lead musician of which is Joakim "Joke" Karlsson, a neo-Nazi who until recently had a tattoo of a swastika on his chest (he later "painted it over"). In 2018, Karlsson was supposed to be the star of the "Ku niepodległej" (“Towards our independent state”) concert, organized in Warsaw by the nationalist Niklot Association. The event did not take place because – as OKO.press reported at the time — its organizers were detained by Polish security services.

One of Midgård's most frequent customers was Jędrzej Kubski, nicknamed Węgorz, a 43-year-old mixed martial arts competitor from Poznań. Kubski made his debut twenty years ago and has since won medals in both European and Polish jiu-jitsu championships. Articles about his fights and interviews from a few years ago can be found online. The database shows that he made purchases from the Swedish store nine times between 2019 and 2021. Among the orders, we find the entire spectrum of the neo-Nazi music scene: from Skrewdriver to Code 291 to Pittbulfarm, another band by Jaokim "Joke" Karlsson.

Europe’s Swedish Nazi merchandise suppliers

In Sweden, Midgård's home country, the most active buyers today are middle-aged men who have been active in the Nazi movement since their youth in the early 1990s. A resident of Gävle who was a member of the now defunct National Socialist Front for several years has, according to the customer register, made 111 purchases from 2017 to 2022. A man from Skåne with a background in the terrorist-inspired Nazi organization White Aryan Resistance and the National Socialist Front ordered 77 items. In the 1990s, he was found guilty of an arson attack against the local editorial office of the newspaper Smålänningen and a police station in Älmhult, because, as he explained, "the police work for a Zionist regime and newspapers are controlled by Jewish forces.”

Expressen’s journalists have also examined the hub of this international distribution of Nazi goods.

The tracks lead onto a small dirt road straight into a forest just outside central Alingsås. Here, the police raided one of Midgård's two warehouses in November 2022 after the chancellor of justice decided to open a preliminary investigation into incitement against an ethnic group. As police searched through a food cellar and a storage building next to the house where Martin Flennfors lives, they also raided an apartment on the top floor of a building in central Alingsås belonging to Tobias Jonsson, 38. Police photos and a video taken during the raid show rows of bookshelves filled with CDs and LPs alongside stacked cartons of printed T-shirts and propaganda.

Police found thousands of CDs wrapped in plastic in Flennfor's food cellar. In Jonsson's apartment, the Nazi merchandise was stacked in a special office and storage area, and also in his kitchen.

Martin Flennfors runs Midgård via a company called Ringhorne AB. Since the first half of the 2000s, he has been active in the local Nazi movement in Alingsås, first as an active member of the current Nordic Resistance Movement's youth organization National Youth, and then moving on into its parent organization. He was active there until the mid 2010s, including as a member of the editorial forum for the organization's propaganda website, Nordfront. He was also a regular commentator on the site.

In 2016, Flennfors was also the publisher of Midgård's site. This led to his conviction two years later in ten cases of incitement against an ethnic group. The offenses concerned products that were for sale on the site, including album covers with swastikas and fabric tags with the numbers 88, which stands for "Heil Hitler.” (“H” being the eighth letter of the alphabet).

But Flennfors does not run Midgård alone. Joining him on the company board is Martin Engelin, 38, who, since spring 2018, has also been registered as a publisher of Midgård's site. Engelin has a long history in the Swedish Nazi movement. He is active in the Nordic Resistance Movement but was previously involved in the now defunct Nazi party, the Swedes' Party. He is a frequent lecturer on subjects such as IT security and life as a Nazi activist, and also an author on NMR's websites. When he was questioned by police for his role as a publisher of Midgård's website in the fall of 2022, Martin Engelin stated that he is also a "journalist" on the Nordic Resistance Movement's (NMR) Nordfront website.

However, NMR is not the only Nazi organization with which Midgård is connected. In December 2022, they, together with Nazi group Hammerskin's Swedish branch, participated in a demonstration in honor of Swedish Nazi leader Birger Furugård. In connection with Furugård's death anniversary, unknown representatives of Midgård, together with members of Hammerskins, laid a bouquet of flowers on the Nazi leader's grave with the words "To the end faithful" printed on the bouquet’s ribbon.

When NMR was classified as a terrorist group by the US State Department, Engelin took to Nordfront to describe the classification as "an achievement and a black diploma for our hard, constant and persistent work for the new Nordic nation and its inhabitants.”

The ties between Midgård and NMR do not stop there. In the summer of 2015, the Nazi organization collected money to cover Midgård’s legal fees after the chancellor of justice opened a preliminary investigation against Midgård for incitement against a ethnic group. The person who was then the Midgård company's board member – and who was later also convicted of four counts of incitement against a ethnic group for album covers and a shirt published on Midgård's website – was Tobias Jonsson.

In the judgment, the district court found that the publication of the album cover of the band Vit Aggression's album "Död åt Zog!” (Death to Zog!), where a rifle is pointed at the spectator, together with the album title's aim at a conspiratorial Jewish world domination, constituted "threats and disrespect towards the Jewish ethnic group," as well as an incitement to the use of violence. A band shirt of a band called Klansmen showed a man in a Ku Klux Klan uniform and a noose with the text "fetch the rope," which the court found to be incitement against African Americans in its historical context, and an incitement to murder.

Jonsson formally left the company's board after the verdict in 2016, but he remained close to Midgård even after that. When Expressen asked Jonsson about his current role in Midgård, he replied: “I think we keep it a little floating, I do a little of what I want to do with Midgård.” Otherwise, he didn’t want to answer any questions. “I don't think your newspaper is really the one we talk about in, so to speak. We have too many differences to get anything out of each other, I think,” he added.

Stormy years and closed investigations

The collusion with organized Nazism in Sweden began when Midgård was started in the mid-1990s. For several years, sales took place out of a physical store in Hisingen, an island in the municipality of Gothenburg. Nazi magazines and records with white power bands such as Rahowa and Pluton Svea were sold there. The shop became a gathering point for skinheads — and a way for the then-growing white power music industry to reach out. Midgård, which, at the end of the 1990s, started releasing its own records, also had collaborations with other record companies.

Midgård was then run by Per-Anders "Pajen" Johansson. His central role meant that he was covered in the major exposé of Nazis in Sweden that the newspapers Expressen, Aftonbladet, Dagens Nyheter and Svenska Dagbladet published in the fall of 1999. Midgård's store in Hisingen was then the site of repeated demonstrations. In 2000, the landlord had enough and terminated the contract.

“Those were stormy years. There were a lot of attacks and fights. It was both demanding and stimulating,” Per-Anders Johansson, 53, told Expressen. But Midgård managed to live on via mail order and online sales. By then, the Swedish white power music scene had become internationally known and Midgård had customers in other countries: “We sold to Europe: Germany, Poland and England,” Johansson said. However, the rise of downloading and eventually streaming music online made it increasingly difficult to make ends meet financially. In 2012, he sold the business to the company that now runs Midgård.

“For me, music has always been about buying a record that you could touch. I wanted to flip through it, see what the band looked like and read the lyrics. Suddenly, music became just something you downloaded. I simply became like a dinosaur in a new world. I didn't think it was as much fun anymore,” Johansson said, adding that he is happy with how Midgård has continued.

In recent years under its new owners, turnover in the company has increased significantly. Over the past ten years, the company has had a reported turnover of €1 million (SEK 12 million). In 2023, they reported €200,000 (SEK 2.3 million) in turnover, a fivefold increase in reported turnover since 2013. The company has become more profitable, not less.

In various interrogations with the police, representatives of Midgård have downplayed their political ties. Tobias Jonsson stated his involvement in the company running the Nazi store more as a “non-political hobby.” And the owners have constantly emphasized the importance of obeying the law in order to continue the business undisturbed. But the links between the shop and the organized Nazi movement are clear.

Martin Flennfors has declared that he has no interest in being interviewed about Midgård's operations and the company's role internationally. “I have to thank you so much for the conversation. Bye,” he said. When Expressen contacted Martin Engelin, he declined to answer questions and referred Expressen to Flennfors.

The preliminary criminal investigations that began in 2016 and 2022 have subsequently been closed.