Count Folke Bernadotte of Wisborg

Folke Bernadotte

Folke Bernadotte, Count of Wisborg (January 2, 1895 – September 17, 1948), was a Swedish diplomat. After representing Sweden at several international events, he became Director of the Swedish Boy Scouts (Sveriges Scoutförbund) in 1937. In 1944, he also became vice-chair of the Swedish Red Cross. In this capacity, he was sent to Germany in 1945, to try to negotiate an armistice between the Allies and the Third Reich. He ran Red Cross rescue missions into Germany, returning to Sweden with bus loads of persona non grata exchanged for German prisoners-of-war. He is credited with the release of about 15,000 prisoners from German concentration camps, including between 6,500 and 11,000 Jews. In 1945, he also received a German surrender offer from Heinrich Himmler, though the offer was ultimately rejected. When World War II ended, Bernadotte was unanimously chosen by the victorious powers to be the United Nations Security Council mediator in the Arab-Israeli conflict of 1947-1948. The United Nation's first mediator, he was also the first to be assassinated.

After achieving a truce a truce in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War he began to negotiate armistices between Israel and the Arab states surrounding the new nation. After laying the groundwork for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East he was killed in Jerusalem by members of the underground Zionist group Lehi as he pursued his official duties. His assistant, the future Nobel Peace Prize winner, Ralph Bunche succeeded him as mediator. Born into nobility and privilege, Count Folke Bernadotte chose to dedicate his life to serving his nation as a diplomat, youth through the Boy Scout movement, humanity through the Red Cross and the United Nations. His murder while attempting to end conflict between the State of Israel and the Arab world made him a martyr for peace.

Biography

Early life

Born in Stockholm, Folke Bernadotte was the son of Count Oscar Bernadotte of Wisborg (formerly Prince Oscar of Sweden, Duke of Gotland) and his wife, née Ebba Henrietta Munck af Fulkila. Bernadotte's grandfather was King Oscar II of Sweden. Oscar married without the King's consent in 1888, however, thereby leaving the royal family, and was in 1892, given the hereditary title Count of Wisborg by his uncle, Adolphe I, Grand Duke of Luxembourg.

Bernadotte attended school in Stockholm, after which he entered training to become a cavalry officer at the Military School of Karlberg. He took the officers exam in 1915, and became a Lieutenant in 1918, subsequently moving up to the rank of Major.

Marriage and descendants

On December 1, 1928, in New York City, New York, he married Estelle Manville of (Pleasantville, Westchester County, New York, September 26, 1904-Stockholm, May 28, 1984), daughter of Board Chairman Hiram Edward Manville of Johns-Manville Corp. and wife, a wealthy American heiress whom he had met in the French Riviera.

They had four sons:

• Gustaf Eduard Grefve Bernadotte af Wisborg (Stockholm, January 20, 1930-Stockholm, February 2, 1936)
• Folke Grefve Bernadotte af Wisborg (b. Pleasantville, Westchester County, New York, February 8, 1931), married at Grangärde on July 2, 1955, Christine Glahns (b. Örebro, January 9, 1932), and had four children:
  • Anne Christine Grefvinnan Bernadotte af Wisborg (b. Uppsala, 22 November 1956), married in Stockholm on May 26, 1989, Per Larsen (b. June 19, 1953), and had two children:
    • Sofia Annick Larsen (b. Stockholm, July 21, 1990)
    • Simon Larsen (b. Lidingö, September 19, 1992)
  • Carl Folke Grefve Bernadotte af Wisborg (b. Uppsala, December 2, 1958), married in Uppsala on August 12, 2000, Birgitta Elisabeth Larsson (b. Borås, February 23, 1959), and had two sons:
    • Carl Folke Grefve Bernadotte af Wisborg (b. Uppsala, March 22, 1998)
    • William Grefve Bernadotte af Wisborg (b. Uppsala, February 4 2002)
  • Maria Estelle Grefvinnan Bernadotte af Wisborg (b. Uppsala, April 27, 1962), married in Uppsala on May 14, 1983, Umberto Ganfini (b. Siena, November 11, 1955), and had two children:
    • Luisa Maria Cristina Ganfini (b. Siena, June 17, 1988)
    • Giulio Fulco Luciano Ganfini (b. Siena, October 23, 1990)
  • Gunnar Fredrik Grefve Bernadotte af Wisborg (b. Uppsala, November 24, 1963), married in Uppsala on June 2, 1990, Karin Lindsten (b. Uppsala, May 15 1963), and had two children:
    • Folke (Ockie) Klas Vilhem Grefve Bernadotte af Wisborg (b. Uppsala, August 5, 1996)
    • Astrid Ruth Estelle Grefvinnan Bernadotte af Wisborg (b. Uppsala, February 10, 1999)
• Fredrik Oscar Grefve Bernadotte af Wisborg (Stockholm, January 10, 1934-Stockholm, August 30, 1944)
• Bertil Oscar Grefve Bernadotte af Wisborg (b. Stockholm, October 6, 1935), married firstly in Copenhagen on September 28, 1966 Rose-Marie Heering (Copenhagen, June 7, 1942-Stockholm, November 1, 1967), without issue, and married secondly in London on May 27, 1981, Jill Georgina Rhodes-Maddox (b. May 2, 1947), daughter of George Burn Rhodes and wife Dorothy Ethel Maddox (Lincoln), and had three children:
  • Oscar Alexander Grefve Bernadotte af Wisborg (b. London, March 1, 1982)
  • Edward Gustav Grefve Bernadotte af Wisborg (b. London, April 18, 1983)
  • Astrid Desirée Estelle Grefvinnan Bernadotte af Wisborg (b. London, February 9, 1987)

In September 2008, it became official that Bernadotte also had an illegitimate child (b. 1921) with actress Lillie Ericsson.

Early career

Following his marriage, Bernadotte represented Sweden in 1933 at the Chicago Century of Progress Exposition, and later served as Swedish commissioner general at the New York World's Fair in 1939-40. At the outbreak of World War II, Bernadotte worked to integrate the scouts into Sweden's defense plan, training them in anti-aircraft work and as medical assistants. Bernadotte was appointed vice chairman of the Swedish Red Cross in 1943.

Diplomatic career

World War II

Count Folke Bernadotte (left) talking to Australian Prisoners of War in Germany, 1943.

While vice-president of the Swedish Red Cross in 1945, Bernadotte attempted to negotiate an armistice between Germany and the Allies]]. At the very end of the war, he received Heinrich Himmler's offer of Germany's complete surrender to Britain and the United States, provided Germany was allowed to continue resistance against the Soviet Union. The offer was passed to Prime Minister Winston Churchill and President Harry S. Truman, but never accepted.

Just before the end of the war, he led a rescue operation transporting interned Norwegians, Danes and other western European inmates from German concentration camps to hospitals in Sweden. Around 15,000 people were taken to safety in the "White Buses" of the Bernadotte expedition, including between 6,500 and 11,000 Jews.

In April 1945, Himmler asked Bernadotte to convey a peace proposal to Eisenhower without the knowledge of Hitler. The main point of the proposal was that Germany would surrender to the Western Allies only, thus isolating the Soviets. According to Bernadotte, he told Himmler that the proposal had no chance of acceptance, but nevertheless he passed it on to the Swedish government. It had no lasting effect.

The White Buses

During World War II, Bernadotte led several rescue missions in Germany for the Red Cross. During the autumns of 1943 and 1944, he organized prisoner exchanges which brought home 11,000 prisoners from Germany via Sweden.

In the spring of 1945, Bernadotte was in Germany when he met Heinrich Himmler, who had become commander for the entire German army following the assassination attempt on Hitler the year before. Bernadotte had originally been assigned to retrieve Norwegian and Danish POWs in Germany. He returned on May 1, 1945, the day after Hitler's death. Following an interview, the Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet wrote that Bernadotte succeeded in rescuing 15,000 people from German concentration camps, including approximately 8000 Danes and Norwegians and 7000 women of French, Polish, Czech, British, American, Argentinian and Chinese nationalities (SvD 2/5-45). The missions took approximately two months, and exposed the Swedish Red Cross staff to significant danger, both due to political difficulties and by taking them through areas under Allied bombing.

The mission became known for its buses, painted entirely white except for the Red Cross emblem on the side, so that they would not be mistaken for military targets. In total it included 308 personnel (approximately 20 medics and the rest volunteer soldiers), 36 hospital buses, 19 trucks, 7 passenger cars, 7 motorcycles, a tow truck, a field kitchen, and full supplies for the entire trip, including food and gasoline, none of which were permitted to be obtained in Germany. After Germany's surrender, the White Buses mission continued in May and June to save approximately 10,000 additional people.

Bernadotte recounted the White Buses mission in his book Das Ende: meine Verhandlungen in Deutschland im Frühjahr 1945 und ihre politischen Folgen (The End. My Humanitarian Negotiations in Germany in 1945 and Their Political Consequences), published on June 15, 1945, in Swedish. In the book, Bernadotte recounts his negotiations with Himmler and others, and his experience at the Ravensbrück concentration camp.

Felix Kersten and the white buses controversy

Following the war, some controversies have arisen regarding Bernadotte's leadership of the White Buses expedition, some personal and some concerning the mission itself. One aspect involved a long-standing feud between Bernadotte and Himmler's personal masseur, Felix Kersten, who had played some role in facilitating Bernadotte's access to Himmler, but whom Bernadotte resisted crediting after the War. The resulting feud between Bernadotte and Kersten came to public attention through British historian Hugh Trevor-Roper. In 1953, Hugh Trevor-Roper published an article based on an interview and documents originating with Kersten. The article stated that Bernadotte's role in the rescue operations was that of "transport officer, no more." Kersten was quoted as saying that, according to Himmler, Bernadotte was opposed to the rescue of Jews and understood "the necessity of our fight against World Jewry."

Shortly following the publication of his article Trevor-Roper began to retreat from these charges. At the time of his article, Kersten had just been nominated by the Dutch government for the Nobel Peace Prize for thwarting a Nazi plan to deport the entire Dutch population, based primarily on Kersten's own claims to this effect. A later Dutch investigation concluded that no such plan had existed, however, and that Kersten's documents were partly fabricated. Following these revelations and others, Trevor-Roper told journalist Barbara Amiel in 1995 that he was no longer certain about the allegations, and that Bernadotte may merely have been following his orders to rescue Danish and Norwegian prisoners. A number of other historians have also questioned Kersten's account, concluding that the accusations were based on a forgery or a distortion devised by Kersten.

Some controversy regarding the White Buses trip has also arisen in Scandinavia, particularly regarding the priority given to Scandinavian prisoners. Political scientist Sune Persson judged these doubts to be contradicted by the documentary evidence. He concluded, "The accusations against Count Bernadotte … to the effect that he refused to save Jews from the concentration camps are obvious lies" and listed many prominent eyewitnesses who testified on Bernadotte's behalf, including the World Jewish Congress representative in Stockholm in 1945.

UN mediator

Following the 1947 UN Partition Plan, on 20 May 1948, Folke Bernadotte was appointed the United Nations' mediator in Palestine, the first official mediator in the UN's history. Following Israel's declaration of statehood on May 14, 1948 the surrounding Arab nations, rejecting the Partition plan, attacked. The Plan was to establish a Jewish-majority state in the North and an Arab-majority state in the South with Jerusalem under international administration. The exact boundaries of both states would need to be finalized, if all parties agreed to the partition. Bernadotte favored a federation, of Union of two states. Bernadotte worked hard to be seen as neutral; he was aware that the Red Cross was regarded by some Arabs as pro-Jewish, so emphasized that while he did represent Red Cross ideals he was not in the Middle East as an official or representative of the organization. Rather, he "wanted to emphasize that" his "mission had a strongly humanitarian background" and that he was striving "to be objective and neutral" when he "met the various representatives of the conflicting forces." Smith says that he "attempted in every way to be impartial."

First proposal

On June 28, 1948, Bernadotte submitted his first formal proposal in secret to the various parties. It suggested that Palestine and Transjordan be reformed as "a Union, comprising two Members, one Arab and one Jewish." He wrote that: "In putting forward any proposal for the solution of the Palestine problem, one must bear in mind the aspirations of the Jews, the political difficulties and differences of opinion of the Arab leaders, the strategic interests of Great Britain, the financial commitment of the United States and the Soviet Union, the outcome of the war, and finally the authority and prestige of the United Nations.

As far as the boundaries of the two Members were concerned, Bernadotte thought that the following "might be worthy of consideration."

1. Inclusion of the whole or part of the Negev in Arab territory
2. Inclusion of the whole or part of Western Galilee in the Jewish territory
3. Inclusion of the City of Jerusalem in Arab territory, with municipal autonomy for the Jewish community and special arrangements for the protection of the Holy Places
4. Consideration of the status of Jaffa
5. Establishment of a free port at Haifa, the area of the free port to include the refineries and terminals
6. Establishment of a free airport at Lydda

Second proposal

After the unsuccessful first proposal, Bernadotte continued with a more complex proposal that abandoned the idea of a Union and proposed two independent states. This proposal was completed on September 16, 1948, and had as its basis seven "basic premises" (verbatim):

1. Peace must return to Palestine and every feasible measure should be taken to ensure that hostilities will not be resumed and that harmonious relations between Arab and Jew will ultimately be restored.
2. A Jewish State called Israel exists in Palestine and there are no sound reasons for assuming that it will not continue to do so.
3. The boundaries of this new State must finally be fixed either by formal agreement between the parties concerned or failing that, by the United Nations.
4. Adherence to the principle of geographical homogeneity and integration, which should be the major objective of the boundary arrangements, should apply equally to Arab and Jewish territories, whose frontiers should not therefore, be rigidly controlled by the territorial arrangements envisaged in the resolution of November 29.
5. The right of innocent people, uprooted from their homes by the present terror and ravages of war, to return to their homes, should be affirmed and made effective, with assurance of adequate compensation for the property of those who may choose not to return.
6. The City of Jerusalem, because of its religious and international significance and the complexity of interests involved, should be accorded special and separate treatment.
7. International responsibility should be expressed where desirable and necessary in the form of international guarantees, as a means of allaying existing fears, and particularly with regard to boundaries and human rights.

The proposal then made specific suggestions that included (extracts):

1. The existing indefinite truce should be superseded by a formal peace, or at the minimum, an armistice.
2. The frontiers between the Arab and Jewish territories, in the absence of agreement between Arabs and Jews, should be established by the United Nations.
3. The Negev should be defined as Arab territory.
4. The frontier should run from Faluja north northeast to Ramleh and Lydda (both of which places would be in Arab territory).
5. Galilee should be defined as Jewish territory.
6. Haifa should be declared a free port, and Lydda airport should be declared a free airport.
7. The City of Jerusalem, which should be understood as covering the area defined in the resolution of the General Assembly of November 29, should be treated separately and should be placed under effective United Nations control with maximum feasible local autonomy for its Arab and Jewish communities with full safeguards for the protection of the Holy Places and sites and free access to them and for religious freedom.
8. The United Nations should establish a Palestine conciliation commission.
9. The right of the Arab refugees to return to their homes in Jewish-controlled territory at the earliest possible date should be affirmed by the United Nations, and their repatriation, resettlement and economic and social rehabilitation, and payment of adequate compensation for the property of those choosing not to return, should be supervised and assisted by the United Nations conciliation commission.

Bernadotte's second proposal was prepared in consultation with British and American emissaries. The degree to which they influenced the proposal is poorly known, since the meetings were kept strictly secret and all documents were destroyed, but Bernadotte apparently "found that the U.S.-U.K., proposals were very much in accord with his own views" and the two emissaries expressed the same opinion. The secret was publicly exposed in October, only nine days before the U.S. presidential elections, causing President Truman great embarrassment. Truman reacted by making a strongly pro-Zionist declaration, which contributed to the defeat of the Bernadotte plan in the UN during the next two months. Also contributing was the failure of the cease-fire and continuation of the fighting.

He succeeded in negotiating two truces, June 11, 1948–July 8, 1948 and July 18, 1948–October 15, 1948. After Bernadotte's assassination, his assistant American mediator Ralph Bunche was appointed to replace him. Bunche eventually negotiated a series of armistice which brought the war but not hostilities to an end, signed on the Greek island of Rhodes. It would not be until after the Camp David Accords that an Arab state would recognize Israel.

Reception

The Israeli government criticized Bernadotte's participation in the negotiations. In July 1948, Bernadotte said that the Arab nations were reluctant to resume the fighting in Palestine and that the conflict now consisted of "incidents." A spokesman for the Israeli government replied: "Count Bernadotte has described the renewed Arab attacks as "incidents." When human lives are lost, when the truce is flagrantly violated and the SC defied, it shows a lack of sensitivity to describe all these as incidents, or to suggest as Count Bernadotte does, that the Arabs had some reason for saying no… Such an apology for aggression does not augur well for any successful resumption by the mediator of his mission."

Assassination

Bernadotte was assassinated on September 17, 1948, by members of the militant Zionist group Lehi. A three man 'center' had approved the killing: Future Prime Minister of Israel Yitzhak Shamir, Natan Yellin-Mor, and Yisrael Eldad, and it was planned by the "Lehi" operations chief in Jerusalem, Yehoshua Zetler. A four-man team ambushed Bernadotte's motorcade in Jerusalem's Katamon neighborhood. Two of them, Yitzhak Ben Moshe and Avraham Steinberg, shot at the tires of the UN vehicles. The third, Yehoshua Cohen, opened the door of Bernadotte's car and shot him at close range. The bullets also hit a French officer who was sitting beside him, UN observer Colonel André Serot. Both were killed. Meshullam Makover, the fourth accomplice, was the driver of the getaway car. General Åge Lundström, who was in the UN vehicle, described the incident as follows:

In the Katamon quarter, we were held up by a Jewish Army type jeep placed in a road block and filled with men in Jewish Army uniforms. At the same moment, I saw an armed man coming from this jeep. I took little notice of this because I merely thought it was another checkpoint. However, he put a Tommy gun through the open window on my side of the car, and fired point blank at Count Bernadotte and Colonel Serot. I also heard shots fired from other points, and there was considerable confusion… Colonel Serot fell in the seat in back of me, and I saw at once that he was dead. Count Bernadotte bent forward, and I thought at the time he was trying to get cover. I asked him: "Are you wounded?" He nodded, and fell back… When we arrived [at the Hadassah hospital], … I carried the Count inside and laid him on the bed…I took off the Count's jacket and tore away his shirt and undervest. I saw that he was wounded around the heart and that there was also a considerable quantity of blood on his clothes about it. When the doctor arrived, I asked if anything could be done, but he replied that it was too late."

Nathan Yellin-Mor (center) and Matityahu Shmueliwitz in front of the Acre prison, after their release in 1949.

Folke Bernadotte memorial in Uppsala, Sweden.

Memorial in Kruså.

The following day the United Nations Security Council condemned the killing of Bernadotte as "a cowardly act which appears to have been committed by a criminal group of terrorists in Jerusalem while the United Nations representative was fulfilling his peace-seeking mission in the Holy Land."

Lehi took responsibility for the killings in the name of Hazit Hamoledet (The National Front), a name they copied from a war-time Bulgarian resistance group. The group regarded Bernadotte as a stooge of the British and their Arab allies, and therefore as a serious threat to the emerging state of Israel. Most immediately, a truce was currently in force and Lehi feared that the Israeli leadership would agree to Bernadotte's peace proposals, which they considered disastrous. They did not know that the Israeli leaders had already decided to reject Bernadotte's plans and take the military option.

Lehi was forcibly disarmed and many members were arrested, but nobody was charged with the killings. Yellin-Mor and another Lehi member, Schmuelevich, were charged with belonging to a terrorist organization. They were found guilty but immediately released and pardoned. Yellin-Mor had meanwhile been elected to the first Knesset. Years later, Cohen's role was uncovered by David Ben-Gurion's biographer Michael Bar Zohar, while Cohen was working as Ben-Gurion's personal bodyguard. The first public admission of Lehi's role in the killing was made on the anniversary of the assassination in 1977. The statute of limitations for murder had expired in 1971.

The Swedish government initially believed that Bernadotte had been assassinated by Israeli government agents. They publicly attacked the inadequacy of the Israel investigation and campaigned unsuccessfully to delay Israel's admission to the United Nations. In 1950, Sweden recognized Israel but relations remained frosty despite Israeli attempts to console Sweden such as the planting of a Bernadotte Forest by the JNF in Israel. At a ceremony in Tel-Aviv in May 1995, attended by the Swedish deputy prime minister, Israeli Foreign Minister and Labor Party member Shimon Peres issued a "condemnation of terror, thanks for the rescue of the Jews and regret that Bernadotte was murdered in a terrorist way," adding that "We hope this ceremony will help in healing the wound."

Legacy

Born into nobility and privilege, Count Folke Bernadotte chose to dedicate his life to serving his nation as a diplomat, youth through the Boy Scout movement and humanity through the Red Cross and through the United Nations. His murder while attempting to end conflict between the State of Israel and the Arab world made him a martyr for peace.

The Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem has one of the White Buses on display.

Tributes and memorial to Count Bernadotte include the Folk Bernadotte Memorial Library at Gustavus Adolphus College, Saint Peter, MN, the Bernadotte Memorial Lecture at Hebrew Union College, Cincinnati, OH and the Swedish government's Folke Bernadotte Academy. There is also a Bernadotte memorial in Uppsala, Sweden. Abrams says that Bernadotte had been "seriously considered for the Nobel Peace Prize." Described as a life-long pacifist Bernadotte possessed what Buncie later described as the ideal qualities for a mediator:

They should be biased against war and for peace. They should have a bias which would lead them to believe in the essential goodness of their fellowman and that no problem of human relations is insoluble. They should be biased against suspicion, intolerance, hate, religious and racial bigotry.

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Abrams, Irwin. The Nobel Peace Prize and the Laureates: An Illustrated Biographical History, 1901-2001. Nantucket, MA: Science History Publications/USA, 2001. ISBN 978-0881353884
• Bauer, Yehuda. Jews for Sale? Nazi-Jewish Negotiations, 1933-1945. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1994. ISBN 978-0300059137
• Ben-Yehuda, Nachman. Political Assassinations by Jews a Rhetorical Device for Justice. SUNY series in deviance and social control. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1993. ISBN 0791411664
• Bernadotte, Folke, and Eric Lewenhaupt. The Curtain Falls; Last Days of the Third Reich. New York, NY: A.A. Knopf, 1945.
• Bernadotte, Folke. Instead of Arms. London, UK: Hodder & Stoughton, 1949.
• Bernadotte, Folke. To Jerusalem. London, UK: Hodder and Stoughton, 1951.
• Bernadotte, Folke. Last Days of the Reich: The Diary of Count Folke Bernadotte, October 1944-May 1945. Barnsley: Frontline, 2009. ISBN 9781848325227
• Bewley, Charles. Hermann Göring and the Third Reich; a Biography Based on Family and Official Records. New York, NY: Devin-Adair Co., 1962.
• Cesarani, David, and Paul A. Levine. Bystanders to the Holocaust: A Re-Evaluation. London, UK: Frank Cass. ISBN 9780714652702
• Heller, Joseph. 1995. The Stern Gang: Ideology, Politics, and Terror, 1940-1949. London, UK: Frank Cass, 2002. ISBN 978-0714645582
• Ilan, Amitzur. Bernadotte in Palestine, 1948: a Study in Contemporary Humanitarian Knight Errantry. Basingstoke, UK: Macmillan Press in association with St Antony's College, Oxford, 1989. ISBN 978-0333472743
• Kushner, Harvey W. Encyclopedia of Terrorism. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2002. ISBN 0761924086
• Marton, Kati. A Death in Jerusalem. New York, NY: Pantheon, 1994. ISBN 0679420835
• Palmer, Raymond. Felix Kersten and Count Bernadotte: A Question of Rescue. Journal of Contemporary History 29 (1994): 241-49.
• Persson, Sune. Folke Bernadotte and the White Buses. Journal of Holocaust Education 9(2-3) (2000): 236-68.
• Schwartz, Ted. Walking with the Damned: The Shocking Murder of the Man Who Freed 30,000 Prisoners From the Nazis. New York, NY: Paragon House, 1992. ISBN 1557783152
• Smith, James D.D. Stopping Wars Defining the Obstacles to Cease-Fire. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1995. ISBN 0813399807
• Thomas, Baylis. How Israel was Won: A Concise History of the Arab-Israeli Conflict. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 1999. ISBN 978-0739100639

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