With the surrender of the German government on the 7th of May 1945, the Allies took over and dissolved the German state - this meant that German diplomats in neutral countries automatically lost their credentials and would be considered private citizens without diplomatic immunity.

Just to make things clear, before 1945 only grand powers had embassies and only with other great powers. Smaller countries sent and received lower level of diplomatic representation, often a legation headed by a minister or charge d'affaires.

The German legation in Stockholm was dissolved on the 7th of May 1945 (after, interestingly, flying the German swastika flag on half mast above the legation on the 30th of April, after the news of Hitler's suicide) and 412 German citizens, including 133 children were interned - the diplomatic staff, administrative and service staff and their families.

Minister Thomsen, the chief German representatative in Sweden asked to use a crematorium to burn documents but was denied. Two truckloads of documents were driven to a city dump and thrown away before the Swedish secret police put a stop to it.

The German citizens were repatriated to the Allied occupation zone with the Swedish passenger ship S/S Regin on the 19th and 29th of August 1945.

During the dissolvement of the legation, 300 grammophone records with propaganda were destroyed and 1 536 grammophone records were sold at an auction. 3 300 books were burned an 8 100 were boxed up and sent to Germany.

The last swastika flag and Hitler portrait were burned in December 1948.

West Germany opened a consulate in Stockholm 1951 and upgraded it to an embassy in 1954. Sweden was one of the first western nations to recognise East Germany in 1972, and in 1973 East Germany opened an embassy in Stockholm, which was merged into the West German one to a joint German embassy in 1990.