(Count Folke Bernadotte was one of those rare figures in w...)
Count Folke Bernadotte was one of those rare figures in war – a man trusted by both sides alike. Shortly before the war ended, Bernadotte was the leader of a rescue operation to transfer western European inmates to Swedish hospitals in the so-called ‘White Buses’. This work through the Swedish Red Cross involved mercy missions to Germany and it was through this link that Bernadotte came into touch with prominent Nazi leaders in the 1940s. During the last months of the war, Bernadotte was introduced to Heinrich Himmler – one of the most sinister men of the Third Reich. Bernadotte was asked by Himmler to approach the Allies with the proposal of a complete surrender to Britain and the US – providing Germany could continue to fight the Soviet Union. The offer was passed to Winston Churchill and Harry Truman, but rejected. The course of these negotiations is narrated in this book with a simple, compelling clarity and thrilling immediacy. This new edition of Bernadotte’s memoir includes a Preface by his two sons, and an Introduction by a leading Swedish author discussing Count Bernadotte’s wartime record and his post-war assassination.
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(Format Paperback Subject Literary Collections)
Format Paperback Subject Literary Collections
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Folke Bernadotte was born on January 2, 1895 in Stockholm into the House of Bernadotte. He was the son of Count Oscar Bernadotte of Wisborg (formerly Prince Oscar of Sweden, Duke of Gotland) and his wife Ebba Munck af Fulkila. His grandfather was King Oscar II of Sweden.
He graduated from Karlberg, the national military academy.
Folke served in the Royal Dragoon Body Guard and the Royal Horse Guard from 1918 to 1930. From 1918 to 1940, Bernadotte was active with the Sveriges Scoutförbund(Swedish Boy Scouts) and also engaged in extensive business activities. In 1933 he represented Sweden at the Century of Progress Exposition in Chicago and during 1939-1940 was commissioner-general at the New York World's Fair. During World War II, Bernadotte was the head of an organization similar to the U. S. United Service Organizations (USO); he was president of the Swedish Boy Scouts; and as vice-chairman of the Swedish Red Cross he arranged for the mutual exchange of British and German war prisoners. Early in 1945 he arranged for the transfer of Danish and Norwegian political prisoners in several German camps to a single camp supervised by the Swedish YMCA. As the representative of a neutral power, Bernadotte acted as the emissary in the negotiations for peace between Germany and the Allied powers. He met Heinrich Himmler, then in charge of the German home front, at Lübeck on April 24, 1945, and there received the German proposals. When submitted to the Allied representatives they were promptly rejected, Bernadotte conveying the Allied answer to Himmler at Flensburg on April 27. Himmler's suicide and the collapse of Germany followed soon afterward. On January 1, 1946, Bernadotte became president of the Swedish Red Cross. In May 1948 he was chosen by the United Nations Security Council to mediate the conflict between the Jews and the Arabs growing out of the partition of Palestine and the withdrawal of British troops. He assumed his new assignment under difficult conditions. Neither party to the controversy would make any concession, and fighting continued with little interruption, in spite of a "cease-fire" order on June 2 and the attempted imposition of restrictions and penalties on the combatants. In his capacity as mediator, Bernadotte prepared a report setting forth a plan of demilitarization, boundary and territorial adjustments, and compensation, which was to be submitted to the U. N. Security Council. Although he was severely criticized by both Arabs and Jews, Bernadotte worked as hard at peace as others in Palestine worked at war. On September 17, 1948, as he was driving through Jerusalem, his report completed but not published, he was assassinated by Israeli right-wing extremists.
(Count Folke Bernadotte was one of those rare figures in w...)
(Format Paperback Subject Literary Collections)
In 1928 in Pleasantville, New York, Folke Bernadotte married Estelle Romaine Manville , whose family had founded part of the Johns-Manville Corporation. They had four sons, two of whom died in childhood.
