Last Days of the Reich: The Diary of Count Folke Bernadotte, October 1944–May 1945
(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.
To Jerusalem / Folke Bernadotte ; translated from the Swedish by Joan Bulman
(To Jerusalem / Folke Bernadotte ; translated from the Swe...)
To Jerusalem / Folke Bernadotte ; translated from the Swedish by Joan Bulman [Folke, greve, (1895-1948) Bernadotte] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers.
Folke Bernadotte was a Swedish diplomat, a nephew of King Gustav V of Sweden, and nobleman noted for his negotiation of the release of about 31,000 prisoners from German concentration camps during World War II. As the representative of a neutral power, Bernadotte acted as the emissary in the negotiations for peace between Germany and the Allied powers.
Background
Folke Bernadotte was born 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.
Education
Folke Bernadotte studied at New Elementary School in Stockholm and graduated in 1913 with baccalaureate. He graduated from Karlberg, the national military academyand served in the Royal Dragoon Body Guard and the Royal Horse Guard.
Career
He graduated from Karlberg, the national military academyand served in the Royal Dragoon Body Guard and the Royal Horse Guard.
From 1918 to 1940, Bernadotte was active with the Sveriges ScoutförbundScoutforbund (Swedish Boy Scouts) and also engaged in extensive business activities.
At the beginning of World War II, as head of the Swedish Boy Scouts, he integrated that organization into Sweden's defense system, training the scouts in anti-aircraft work and as medical assistants. He was as vice chairman of the Swedish Red Cross, supervising the exchange of disabled British and German war prisoners. Just before the end of the war, he led a rescue operation transporting interned Norwegians, Danes and western European inmates from German concentration camps to hospitals in Sweden. In total, around 31,000 people were taken to safety in the "White Buses" of the Bernadotte expedition, including between 6,500 and 11,000 Jews.
In April 1945, Heinrich Himmler asked Bernadotte to convey a peace proposal to Prime Minister Winston Churchill and President Harry S. Truman without the knowledge of Adolf Hitler. The main point of the proposal was that Germany would only surrender to the Western Allies (Great Britain and the United States), but would be allowed to continue resisting the Soviet Union. Bernadotte passed it on to the Swedish government and the Western Allies. It had no lasting effect.
On May 20, 1948, Count Bernadotte was chosen as mediator to seek peace in the Arab-Jewish conflict in Palestine. Ten days later he initiated conferences with Arab and Jewish leaders in Palestine and Arab leaders in Cairo, Egypt, and Amman, Jordan. He succeeded in obtaining agreement to a four-week truce commencing June 11. On June 28 he submitted to the Arab League and the Israeli government a peace plan that both sides rejected in part. On July 12 he made a report to the United Nations Security Council, in session in New York, and shortly thereafter returned to Palestine.
On September 17, Count Bernadotte and Colonel Andre P. Serot of the French air force were assassinated in Jerusalem by members of the Stern group, an organization of radical Zionists who had committed numerous attacks over a period of years against the British and Arabs. Three days after his death, Count Bernadotte's final report on his peace efforts was published in Paris. It gave the United Nations General Assembly his suggested terms for a peace that was to be imposed by the United Nations, and won the immediate support of the United States and Britain.
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Views
Quotations:
"Napoleon has not been conquered by men. He was greater than any of us. God punished him because he relied solely on his own intelligence until that incredible instrument was so strained that it broke" (Folke Bernadotte)
Membership
Swedish Boy Scouts
Connections
In 1928 in Pleasantville, New York, Folke Bernadotte married Estelle Romaine Manville (1904–1984), whose family had founded part of the Johns-Manville Corporation. They had four sons, two of whom died in childhood.
Gustaf Eduard Bernadotte of Wisborg (1930–1936)
Count Folke Bernadotte of Wisborg (born 1931), married Christine Glahns
Fredrik Oscar Bernadotte of Wisborg (1934–1934)
Count Bertil Oscar Bernadotte of Wisborg (born 1935) married Rose-Marie Heering (1942–1967) and Jill Georgina Rhodes-Maddox.
Seven grandchildren were all born after Folke Bernadotte's death. His widow Estelle Bernadotte remarried in 1973.
In September 2008 it became official that before his marriage Bernadotte had a daughter with actress Lillie Ericson-Udde (Lillie Christina Ericson, 1892–1981):
Jeanne Birgitta Sofia Kristina Matthiessen, née Ericson (1921–1991), who was adopted by Carl G. W. Matthiessen (1886–1951) when he married Lillie Ericson in 1925.
Father:
Count Oscar Bernadotte of Wisborg (formerly Prince Oscar of Sweden, Duke of Gotland)