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Count Folke Bernadotte of Wisborg (2 January 1895 - 17 September 1948) or simply Count Bernadotte, was a Swedish diplomat noted for his negotiation of the release of 15,000 mostly Scandinavian prisoners from the German concentration camps in World War II and for his assassination by members of the Jewish terrorist group Lehi during his service as United Nations mediator in Palestine.
Early life
He was the son of Oscar Bernadotte, Count of Wisborg (formerly Prince Oscar of Sweden) and his wife, née Ebba Henrietta Munck af Fulkila. Oscar, the son of King Oscar II of Sweden and Norway, married without the King's consent in 1888, thereby leaving the royal family, and was (in 1892) given the hereditary title Count of Wisborg by the Grand Duke Adolphe of Luxembourg.
Marriage and children
On 1 December 1928 he married Estelle Manville (b. 26 September 1904 in Pleasantville, New York), a wealthy American heiress whom he had met in the French Riviera. They had four sons: Gustaf (b. 1930), Folke (b. 1931), Frederik (b. 1934) and Bertil (b. 1935).
World War II diplomacy
Bernadotte, while vice-president of the Swedish Red Cross in 1945, attempted to negotiate an armistice between Germany and the Allies. At the very end of the war he received Heinrich Himmler's offer, from 24 April 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 on to Prime Minister Winston Churchill and President Harry S. Truman.
Just before the end of World War II he gained much good will leading a rescue operation transporting interned Norwegians, Danes and other West-Europeans inmates from German Concentration Camps to hospitals in Sweden, of whom some speaking French from the Cap Arcona. In the "White Buses" of the Bernadotte-expedition 15,000 persons were liberated, approximately half of them Scandinavians and the rest Jews (source: Folke Bernadotte and the White Buses by Sune Persson )
Bernadotte served on the World Scout Committee of the World Organization of the Scout Movement from 1947 until 1948.
UN mediator
Following the 1947 UN Partition Plan, on 20 May 1948, Folke Bernadotte was appointed the United Nations' mediator in Palestine. This made him the first official mediator in the history of the world organization. In this capacity, he succeeded in achieving a truce in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War and laid the groundwork for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East.
Assassinated in Jerusalem by Lehi
Bernadotte was assassinated on 17 September 1948 by members of the Lehi group, sometimes known as the Stern Gang. The assassination was approved by the three-man Lehi 'center': Yitzhak Shamir, Natan Yellin-Mor and Yisrael Eldad, and planned by the Lehi operations chief in Jerusalem, Yehoshua Zetler. A four-man team lead by Meshulam Makover ambushed Bernadotte's motorcade in downtown Jerusalem and team member Yehoshua Cohen fired into Bernadotte's car. Bernadotte and his aide, UN observer Colonel André Serot were killed. 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 public credit for the killings in the name of a previously unknown group, but Lehi's role was never in doubt. Lehi was forcibly disarmed and many members were arrested, but nobody was ever 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 for Ben-Gurion as a security guard. The first public admission of Lehi's role in the killing was made in 1977 (Yediot Aharonot, Feb 28).
His mediation efforts in the Arab-Israeli conflict of 1947/8
Three days after his death, a report describing Bernadotte's peace efforts was published. It included the following proposals:
- To transform the first lull in the fighting into a permanent peace, or at least a ceasefire, and determine the final borders of the Jewish and Arab states in Palestine
- To grant the Negev desert to the Arab state and the Galilee to the Jewish state
- To internationalize Jerusalem (his first report however stated that it will be controlled by the Arabs)
- To grant control over the Arab sections of Palestine to the Arab states (in effect, Transjordan)
- To ensure that the port in Haifa and the airport in Lydda serve both the Jewish and Arab sections of the country, and the neighboring Arab states.
- Lydda, except the airport, and Ramle will be controlled by Transjordan.
- To return the 360,000 Arab refugees to their homes
- Aliyah will be subjected to the agreement of Transjordan.
- To establish a Reconciliation Committee as the first step toward achieving a lasting peace in the region.
The government of Israel rejected the proposals. After Bernadotte's death, American mediator Ralph Bunche was appointed to replace him. Bunche eventually negotiated a ceasefire, signed on the Greek island of Rhodes. See 1949 Armistice Agreements.
Bernadotte kept a diary which was published in 1951. The diary shows that Bernadotte decided to designate Jerusalem for the Arab state. The diary shows Bernadotte's close relationships to British delegates and especially to Abdallah, king of Transjordan.
Bernadotte also wrote about his considerations in the agreement he proposes :
"When proposing an offer for the solution of Palestine, one must remember the aspirations of the Jews, the hardships and the political disputes between the Arab leaders, the strategic interests of the United Kingdom, the financial commitments of the Unites States and of the U.S.S.R, the results of the war, and finally the authority and prestige of the United Nations"
Footnotes
- Security Council 57 (1948) Resolution of 18 September 1948.
- Folke Bernadotte, To Jerusalem, (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1951), To Jerusalem, (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1951) page 12
- Bernadotte, page 164
- Bernadotte, page 114
References
- Kushner, Harvey W. (2002). Encyclopedia of Terrorism. Sage Publications. ISBN 0-7619-2408-6
- Schwartz, Ted (1992). Walking with the Damned: The Shocking Murder of the Man Who Freed 30,000 Prisoners From the Nazis. Paragon House, New York. ISBN 1-55778-315-2