| Folke Bernadotte | |
|---|---|
| Count of Wisborg | |
 Bernadotte in the mid 1940s | |
| Born | (1895-01-02)2 January 1895 Stockholm, Sweden |
| Died | 17 September 1948(1948-09-17) (aged 53) Jerusalem |
| Burial | |
| Spouse | |
| Issue |
|
| House | Bernadotte |
| Father | Prince Oscar Bernadotte |
| Mother | Ebba Munck af Fulkila |
| Signature |  |
Folke Bernadotte, Count of Wisborg (Swedish:[fɔ̂l.kɛ̂bæɳaˈdɔtː]; 2 January 1895 – 17 September 1948) was a Swedishnobleman anddiplomat. InWorld War II, he negotiated the release of about 450 Danish Jews and 30,550 non-Jewish prisoners of many nations from the Nazi GermanTheresienstadtconcentration camp.[a] They were released on 14 April 1945.[4][5] In 1945 he received a German surrender offer fromHeinrich Himmler, though the offer was ultimately rejected by the allies.
After the war, Bernadotte was unanimously chosen to be theUnited Nations Security Council mediator in theArab–Israeli conflict of 1947–1948. He was assassinated inJerusalem in 1948 by theparamilitaryZionist groupLehi while pursuing his official duties. Upon his death,Ralph Bunche took up his work at the UN, successfully mediating the1949 Armistice Agreements betweenIsrael andEgypt.
Folke Bernadotte was born inStockholm into theHouse of Bernadotte, the Swedish royal family. His father,Prince Oscar Bernadotte, Count of Wisborg (formerly Prince Oscar of Sweden, Duke ofGotland), was the second son of KingOscar II of Sweden; his mother,Ebba Munck af Fulkila, had been a lady-in-waiting toVictoria of Baden, the wife ofCrown Prince Gustaf. Oscar had married Ebba without the consent of the King, and so was forced to renounce his Swedish titles; in 1892, he was granted the titles ofPrince Bernadotte andCount of Wisborg by his uncle,Adolphe, Grand Duke of Luxembourg.[6][7]
Bernadotte attended school in Stockholm, after which he entered training to become acavalryofficer at theRoyal Military Academy. He took the officer's exam in 1915, was commissioned alieutenant in 1918, and subsequently was promoted to the rank ofmajor.
Bernadotte represented Sweden in 1933 at theChicago Century of Progress Exposition, and later served as Swedish commissioner general at theNew York World's Fair in 1939–40. Bernadotte had long been involved with theSwedish Boy Scouts (Sveriges Scoutförbund), and took over as director of the organization in 1937. At the outbreak ofWorld War II, Bernadotte worked to integrate the scouts into Sweden's defense plan, training them inanti-aircraft work and asmedical assistants. Bernadotte was appointed Vice Chairman of theSwedish Red Cross in 1943.[8]
During the autumns of 1943 and 1944, he organized prisoner exchanges which brought home 11,000 prisoners from Germany via Sweden. While Vice-President of the Swedish Red Cross in 1945, Bernadotte attempted to negotiate anarmistice between Germany andthe Allies. He also led several rescue missions in Germany for the Red Cross. In April 1945,Heinrich Himmler asked Bernadotte to convey a peace proposal to Prime MinisterWinston Churchill and PresidentHarry S. Truman without the knowledge ofAdolf Hitler. The main point of the proposal was that Germany would surrender only to the Western Allies (the United Kingdom and the United States), but would be allowed to continue resisting theSoviet Union. According to Bernadotte, he told Himmler that the proposal had no chance of acceptance, but nevertheless he passed it on to the Swedish government and the Western Allies. It had no lasting effect.[3]: 36–38 [9]: 151–152
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Upon the initiative of the Norwegian diplomatNiels Christian Ditleff in the final months of the war, Bernadotte acted as the negotiator for a rescue operation transporting internedNorwegians,Danes and other western European inmates from German concentration camps to hospitals in Sweden.
In the spring of 1945, Bernadotte was in Germany when he met Heinrich Himmler, who was briefly appointed commander of an entire German army following the assassination attempt on Hitler the year before. Bernadotte had originally been assigned to retrieve Norwegian and DanishPOWs in Germany. He returned on 1 May 1945, the day after Hitler's death. Following an interview, the Swedish newspaperSvenska Dagbladet wrote that Bernadotte succeeded in rescuing 15,000 people from German concentration camps, including about 8,000 Danes and Norwegians and 7,000 women of French, Polish, Czech, British, American, Argentinian, and Chinese nationalities. The missions took around 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 (about 20 medics and the rest volunteer soldiers), 36 hospital buses, 19 trucks, seven passenger cars, seven motorcycles, a tow truck, a field kitchen, and full supplies for the entire trip, including food and gasoline, none of which was permitted to be obtained in Germany. A count of 21,000 people rescued included 8,000 Danes and Norwegians, 5,911 Poles, 2,629 French, 1,615 Jews, and 1,124 Germans.
After Germany's surrender, the White Buses mission continued in May and June and about 10,000 additional liberated prisoners were thus evacuated.
Bernadotte recounted the White Buses mission in his bookThe End. My Humanitarian Negotiations in Germany in 1945 and Their Political Consequences, published on June 15, 1945 in Swedish.[9]
Following the war, some controversies arose regarding Bernadotte's leadership of the White Buses expedition, some personal and some as to the mission itself. One aspect involved a long-standing feud between Bernadotte and Himmler's personalmasseur,Felix Kersten, who had played a role in facilitating Bernadotte's access to Himmler,[10][11] but whom Bernadotte resisted crediting after the war.[10]: 46–48 The resulting feud between Bernadotte and Kersten came to public attention through British historianHugh Trevor-Roper.[3]: 41 In 1953, Trevor-Roper published an article based on an interview and documents originating with Kersten.[12] 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 theDutch government for theNobel Peace Prize for thwarting a Nazi plan to deport the entire Dutch population, based primarily on Kersten's own claims to this effect.[12] A later investigation by Dutch historianLouis de Jong concluded that no such plan had existed, however, and that Kersten's documents were partly fabricated.[b] Following these revelations and others, Trevor-Roper told journalistBarbara 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.[c] Several other historians have also questioned Kersten's account, concluding that the accusations were based on a forgery or a distortion devised by Kersten.[3]: 43–45 [17]
Some controversy regarding the White Buses trip has also arisen in Scandinavia, particularly regarding the priority given to Scandinavian prisoners.[1][2] 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 theWorld Jewish Congress representative in Stockholm in 1945.[1]: 264
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In 1948, Bernadotte played a central but brief role in the expanding Arab-Israeli conflict, a role which culminated in his assassination.
On November 29, 1947, the United Nations passedResolution 181 for the Partition of Palestine, endorsing an independent Jewish state. Violence immediately broke out between Zionist forces and Palestinian fighters; this first phase of conflict, known as the1947–1948 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine, lasted until May 14, 1948, when the Zionist leadership proclaimed theindependent State of Israel and Britain began the termination of its 27-yearcontrol of Palestine. Arab nations bordering Israel immediately joined the battle on the Palestinian side, marking the commencement of the1948 Arab–Israeli War. The United Nations Security Council demanded an immediate cease-fire, and the secretary general appointed Bernadotte as "United Nations Mediator in Palestine."[18]
It was the first official mediation in theUN's history - Bernadotte's assigment was to effect a cease-fire between the Zionist and Arab forces and then seek a peaceful resolution by proposing partition plans.[19] Bernadotte succeeded in achieving an initial truce, which went into effect on June 11 and lasted until July 8.
Achieving a satisfactory resolution to the conflict was significantly more difficult; Bernadotte 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."[20][21]
Bernadotte's first proposal, which he submitted to the various parties at the end of June 1948, avoided granting statehood to either Israelis or Palestinians; this plan gained no traction.[citation needed] His final report, submitted to the United Nations in September, proposed that the Negev was to become Arab territory and the western Galilee, intended for the Arab state in the partition plan, would be included in the Jewish state.[22] The disposition of the Arab part of Palestine was to be decided by the Arab states in consultation with the Palestinians, with a recommendation of a merger with Transjordan.[22]
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On Friday 17 September 1948, four members of the Zionist paramilitary militant organizationLehi, sometimes referred to in the West as the Stern Gang, dressed in the uniforms of IDF soldiers and attacked Bernadotte's UN convoy as it drove through West Jerusalem, killing him as well as the French officer riding next to him, ColonelAndré Serot.
The Stern Gang saw Bernadotte as a puppet of the British and the Arabs and therefore a serious threat to the emerging State of Israel.[23]: 239–255 Since a truce was in force, Lehi feared that the Israeli leadership would agree to Bernadotte's peace proposals, which it considered disastrous.[23]: passim [24] The group was unaware the Israeli government had already decided to reject Bernadotte's plan.[3]: 200–201 [25]
The killing was approved by the three-man 'center' of Lehi: Yitzhak Yezernitsky (the futurePrime Minister of IsraelYitzhak Shamir), Nathan Friedmann (also calledNatan Yellin-Mor) andYisrael Eldad (also known as Scheib). A fourth leader,Emmanuel Strassberg (Hanegbi) was also suspected by the Israeli Prime MinisterDavid Ben-Gurion of being part of the group that ordered the assassination.[3]: 194 [26][27][28]The assassination was planned by Lehi's Jerusalem operations chief,Yehoshua Zettler.[29]
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 andColonel 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.
A four-man team, consisting ofYehoshua Cohen, Yitzhak Ben-Moshe (Markovitz), Avraham Steinberg, and Meshulam Makover, ambushed Bernadotte'smotorcade in Jerusalem'sKatamon neighborhood. The team left a Lehi base in a Jeep and set up a makeshift roadblock at Ben Zion Guini Square, off Hapalmach Street, and waited in the jeep. When Bernadotte's motorcade approached, Cohen, Ben-Moshe, and Steinberg got out and approached it, while Makover, the driver, remained in the jeep. Captain Moshe Hillman, the motorcade's Israeli liaison officer, who was sitting in the leading UN vehicle, called out in Hebrew to let them through, but was ignored.
Cohen came up to Bernadotte'ssedan and fired through an open window, pumping six shots into Bernadotte's chest, throat and arms and 18 into ColonelAndré Serot who was seated to his left, killing both.[5] Serot had swapped places in the motorcade to join Bernadotte - they had become friends after Bernadotte was instrumental in saving Serot's wife's life in a German concentration camp.[5] Ben-Moshe and Steinberg shot at the tires of the UN vehicles, while Cohen finished the magazine by firing at the radiator. The driver of the sedan, Colonel Frank M. Begley, got out and tried to grapple with Cohen as he fired his last shots, but was burned in the face by the gun flashes. Ben-Moshe and Steinberg then rushed back and mounted the jeep, which quickly accelerated down a side road, while Cohen ran away from the scene across a roadside field.[29][31][32][33]
All four members of the hit team made it to the religious community ofShaarei Pina, where they hid with localHaredi sympathizers. After a few days in hiding, they fled toTel Aviv in the back of a furniture truck.[34]
Following the shooting, Bernadotte's car sped toHadassah Mount Scopus Hospital, despite damage to the radiator; the lead vehicle followed as its tires came apart. At the hospital, Bernadotte was pronounced dead. His body was moved to theYMCA, after which it was taken toHaifa and flown back to Sweden. Bernadotte was granted a state funeral,Abba Eban attended on behalf of Israel. Bernadotte was survived by a widow and two sons, a 12-year-old and a 17-year-old. He was buried in PrinceOscar Bernadotte's family tomb at theNorthern Cemetery in Stockholm.[35]
TheIsrael Police, along with the military police and security services, investigated the assassination, but failed to identify any of the participants in the assassination, and the case was eventually closed without any of the participants having been identified. It has been suggested that the reasons for the failure of the investigation were poor coordination between these bodies, which resulted in information that may have assisted the police not being turned over to them, and the lack of proficiency among police officers and investigators in the early days of the Israel Police.[36] The murder case was identified as148/48 in Israeli police records.[37]
Lehi leaders initially denied responsibility for the attack.[38] Only later did Lehi take responsibility for the killings in the name ofHazit Hamoledet (the Homeland Front), a name they copied from a war-time Bulgarian resistance group.[d][23]: 252–253
In the wake of universal condemnation of the killing, Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion moved to shut down Zionist paramilitary groups like the Lehi and theIrgun permanently.[40] These groups were publicly discredited and disavowed, their members were forcibly disarmed, and many were arrested.
Yellin-Mor and another Lehi member, Mattityahu Shmulevitz, 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 firstKnesset.[23]: 261–270 Betty Knut-Lazarus, a Lehi militant, and the granddaughter of composerAlexander Scriabin, was also imprisoned for being allegedly involved in the killing, before being subsequently released.[41]
Years later, Cohen's role was uncovered byDavid Ben-Gurion's biographerMichael 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.[42] Thestatute of limitations for the murder had expired in 1971.[27][3]: 193 In 1988, two years after Cohen's death, Zettler and Makover publicly confessed their role in the assassination and confirmed that Cohen had killed Bernadotte.[37] In the late 1960s, Israeli journalist Baruch Nadel published a book in which he also claimed to have taken part in planning the murder.[43]
The weapon which was used in the assassination (anMP 40, serial number 2581)[37] was lost, and was only found again in 2018 during an inventory check in theHeritage House of the Israel Police [he], when an unidentified box was found to contain an MP 40 machine pistol and the curator, Shlomi Shitrit, decided to identify the history of the weapon. Prior to finding it, it was believed to have been destroyed.[37]
The day after the murders, by means ofSecurity Council Resolution 57, theUnited 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."[44]
The Swedish government believed that Bernadotte had been assassinated by Israeli government agents.[3]: 224 They publicly attacked the inadequacy of the Israeli investigation, and campaigned unsuccessfully to delay Israel's admission to the United Nations.[3]: 238 In 1950, Sweden recognized Israel, but relations remained frosty despite Israeli attempts to mollify Sweden, such as through the planting of a Bernadotte Forest by theJewish National Fund in Israel.[3]: 241 At a ceremony inTel Aviv in May 1995, attended by the Swedish deputy prime minister, Israeli Foreign Minister andLabor Party memberShimon 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."[45][46][47]
Ralph Bunche, Bernadotte's American deputy, succeeded him as UN mediator. Bunche was successful in bringing about the signing of the1949 Armistice Agreements, for which he received theNobel Peace Prize.
In 1998, Bernadotte was posthumously awarded one of the first threeDag Hammarskjöld Medals, given to UN peacekeepers who are killed in the line of duty.[48]
The university library atGustavus Adolphus College inSt. Peter, Minnesota, US is named after him.[49][50]
Count Benadotte Road, South Remal, Gaza is named after him.
TheYad Vashem Holocaust museum in Jerusalem features one of the "white buses" of Bernadotte's mission to Nazi Germany, which it recognises as rescuing 25,000 prisoners including several thousand Jews.[51][52] However, Yad Vashem did not award him the "Righteous Among the Nations" title.[53]
In 1928 inPleasantville, New York,[54] Folke Bernadotte marriedEstelle Romaine Manville (1904–1984), whose family had founded part of theJohns-Manville Corporation.They had four sons, two of whom died in childhood.
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 actressLillie Ericson-Udde [sv] (1892–1981):[55]
{{cite book}}:ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)Mr. Shamir, nearly 80, still speaks elliptically about the Bernadotte assassination. Years later, when Ben-Gurion moved to a kibbutz in the Negev desert, Sdeh Bokker, one of his closest friends there was Yehoshua Cohen, who had been one of the assassins.Review of Kati Marton's biography.
