A century on, Alfred Nobel's gunpowder factory is still in business in Sweden

Agence France-Presse • October 3, 2021, 07:51:41 IST

The pacifist and philanthropist was also the father of modern explosives, and Karlskoga serves as a living example of Nobel’s global military-industrial legacy

A century on, Alfred Nobel's gunpowder factory is still in business in Sweden

Alfred Nobel's last laboratory still exists, a stone's throw from a big explosives plant that his inventions and late-in-life business interests spawned. Welcome to Karlskoga, a small town in the forests of central Sweden where the Nobel Peace Prize founder made home in 1894, two years before his death. AFP

The pacifist and philanthropist was also the father of modern explosives — and Karlskoga serves more than a century later as a living example of Nobel's global military industrial legacy. The site sprawls over three square kilometres (1.15 square miles) near this town of 30,000 people halfway between the Swedish capital Stockholm and the Norwegian capital Oslo. AFP

'Nobelkrut' (NK) — or Nobel gunpowder in English — has been proudly manufactured here since 1898, the sound of howitzer test shots ringing out as regularly as church bells throughout the day.

Nobel invented the blasting cap in 1865, modernising high explosives. He then invented dynamite in 1867, and worked until his dying days on what all of Europe's armies dreamt of: a smokeless gunpowder. AFP

Nobel was a globetrotter — he was nicknamed

His assistant and executor of his will, Ragnar Sohlman, took over the group after Nobel's death, and the company went on to become the beating heart of Sweden's 20th century military-industrial complex. AFP

According to Ingrid Carlberg, the author of a recent biography, Nobel never saw a contradiction between his interests in pacifism and the weapons industry. Svensson underlines the point.

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A century on, Alfred Nobel's gunpowder factory is still in business in Sweden

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