Viking Tamm

Lieutenant General Viking Sebastian Henricsson Tamm (21July 1896 – 25November 1975) was a Swedish Army officer. In addition to the years he served in the Swedish Army, Tamm led a group of Swedish officers who developed the Ethiopian military school's officer training (1934–36 and 1945–46) and he was a volunteer in the Winter War in Finland in 1940 commanding the II. Battlegroup of the Swedish Volunteer Corps. Back in Sweden he eventually became Chief of the Army Staff and the General Staff Corps (1948–53) and commander of the I Military District (1953–61) before retiring as a Lieutenant General in 1961.

Early life Tamm was born on 21 July 1896 in Stockholm, Sweden, the son of the bank director and later finance minister Henric Tamm and his wife Louise Tham. Captain Tamm and the then Chief of Air Force, Major General Eric Virgin, who was employed as the emperor's military political adviser, as well as four other military officers (the lieutenants Nils Bouveng, Arne Thorburn, Gustaf Heüman and Anders Nyblom ) entered together into the Ethiopian service to organize the country's only military school for the training of Ethiopian officers. A Swedish military academy for cadets was established in Holeta Genet under captain Tamm who, with his staff, stayed on in Ethiopia after the outbreak of the Second Italo-Ethiopian War despite pressure by the Swedish government to return.

Tamm re-entered into the Swedish Army as captain of the General Staff in 1936 and was a teacher of tactics at the Royal Swedish Army Staff College in 1936. Tamm became major in the General Staff Corps in 1937 and was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel in 1939. and in 1940 he entered into Finnish service and became commander of the II. Battlegroup of the Swedish Volunteer Corps during the Winter War.

He was a lieutenant colonel of the General Staff Corps and head of department at the Army Staff's Education Department in 1940. Tamm was colonel in the General Staff Corps in 1941 and head of the Royal Swedish Army Staff College in 1941 and commander of the South Scanian Infantry Regiment (I 7) from 1942 to 1944.

Tamm (third from the left) along with four other Swedish officers in Abyssinia in 1934.

Personal life Tamm married for the first time in 1919 with Katarina Lagercrantz (born 1900), the daughter of the envoy Herman Lagercrantz and Hedvig (née Croneborg). He married a second time in 1938 with Suzanne Kartavtzeff (born 1909), the daughter of the captain Wsevolod Kartavtzeff and Marta von Haartman. Tamm was the father of Annika (born 1920), Per-Henric (born 1922), Hedvig (born 1926) and Kristina (born 1930).

Landstorm Silver Medal (Landstorm-silvermedalj) Army Shooting Medal (Arméns skyttemedalj)

Foreign

Finnish War Memorial Medal

Honours Member of the Royal Swedish Academy of War Sciences (1939)