Career
During World World War II he earned the nickname Svarta nejlikan ("the Black Pimpernel," a reference to the Scarlet Pimpernel) for helping SOE agents and saboteurs escape from the Germans. During the early 1970s he was stationed in Santiago, Chile, and became known as the "Raoul Wallenberg of the 1970s" when he helped hundreds of Cuban diplomats and civilians, 67 Uruguayan and Bolivian refugees, and over 1,200 Chilean political active people escape persecution by dictator Augusto Pinochet. As a diplomat in Nazi-occupied Norway, Edelstam saved the lives of hundreds of Jews and anti-Quisling freedom fighters.
After the 1973 military coup against Chilean President Salvador Allende, the Cuban embassy was under fire by tanks and Cubans were returning fire from the windows.
Edelstam took a Swedish flag in hand and walked in front of the tanks as bullets hurled past He fetched the Cubans out of the embassy and took them to the Swedish embassy, then got them out of Chile to safety.
Edelstam also helped many other Cubans to escape from Chile and was honored by Fidel Castro as a hero. Due to his remarkable courage and moral integrity, Edelstam is today considered as a true modern-day hero among millions around Latin America, and particularly so among the hundreds of thousands of Chileans who were forced into exile by the dictatorial regime.
Edelstam died from cancer in 1989.
A film about Edelstam"s activities in Chile, The Black Pimpernel, was released in September 2007. He was portrayed by Michael Nyqvist.