BERNADOTTE, Count Folke (1895-1948), Swedish Diplomat. He was born in Stockholm, Sweden, on January 2, 1895. A descendent of the Napoleonic marshal Jean Bernadotte, who in 1810 was elected crown prince of Sweden, and in 1818 succeeded to the thro ne as Charles XIV, Count Bernadotte was also a grandson of King Oscar II of Sweden and a nephew of King Gustav V. After graduating from the military school of Karlberg, he studied horsemanship at the Stromsholm military riding school and became cavalry of fice in the Royal Horse Guards. On December 1, 1928, he married Estelle Romaine Manville, of New York. He represented Sweden in 1933 at the Chicago Century of Progress Exposition, and in 1939-1940 was Swedish commissioner general at New York World's Fair. At the beginning of World War II, as head of the Sveriges Scoutforbund (the Swedish Boy Scouts), he integrated that organization into Sweden's defense system, training the scouts in anti-aircraft work and as medical assistants. His most important war wor k, however, was as vice chairman of the Swedish Red Cross, supervising the exchange of disabled British and German war prisoners. This work necessitated frequent trips to London and Berlin involving conferences with high officials of both countries.

In the spring of 1945, while working in the Swedish legation's temporary headquarters at Friedrichsruh, Germany, he was summoned by Heinrich Himmler, head of the Gestapo and commander-in-chief of the German home front. They met at Lübeck, German y, on April 24. Asserting that Hitler was dying and that he was in authority, Himmler offered the complete surrender of Germany to Britain and the United States, provided Germany was allowed to continue resistance against Russia. The Swedish foreign offic e transmitted Himmler's offer to Prime Minister Churchill and President Truman. They in turn notified Premier Stalin, advising him at the same time of the British-American decision to accept only an unconditional surrender to the three Allied governments. A translation of the count's book describing his negotiations was published in the United States under the title The Curtain Falls (1945).

On May 20, 1948, the five big powers of the United Nations Security Council agreed in the choice of Count Bernadotte as mediator to seek peace in the Arab-Jewish conflict in Palestine. Ten days later he initiated conferences with Arab and Jewish lead ers 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 extreme Zionists who had committed numerous atrocities over a period of years agains t 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.

Ralph J. Bunche, an American serving as chief United Nations aide to Bernadotte and as personal representative in Jerusalem of United Nations Secretary General Trygve Lie, was appointed Bernadotte's temporary successor.

Bernadotte's book Instead of Arms was published in Sweden and the United States shortly after his death.

It was agreed that Gustavus Adolphus College was the ideal location for a memorial to Count Bernadotte. The school was founded by Swedish pioneers in 1862. It was named in honor of Sweden's great monarch who played a decisive role in the European rel igious wars of the seventeenth century. It is situated in the heart of a region thickly populated with people of Scandinavian extraction and its student body is 62 percent of whole or part Swedish parentage and 83 percent whole or part of Scandinavian dec ent.

On June 4, 1950, Countess Bernadotte and her son Bertil attended the inauguration of the Folke Bernadotte Memorial Foundation when the Folke Bernadotte Library was dedicated in the presence of 7,500 people led by Governor Luther W. Youngdahl of Minne sota, Dr. J. O. Christianson and Dr. Nils Sahlin, respectively President and Director of the American-Swedish Institute, John Thoreen, President of the Greater Gustavus Association, Louis Towley of Washington University in St. Louis and Swedish Consul-Gen eral C. F. Hellstrom played prominent parts in the proceedings.

Besides the Countess, Ambassador Boheman and Dr. Bunche, the speakers included Roy A. Hendrickson, President, Board of Trustees, Gustavus Adolphus College, and Edgar M. Carlson, President, Gustavus Adolphus College.

The Encyclopedia Americana, 1988

Hewins, Ralph, Count Folke Bernadotte: His Life and Work, 1950