Evening star., 1948-09-17
Berrudotte
Continued From First Page.)

Bernudotte
Continued From First Page)
Continued From First Page)
snipe by daylight. Excuse me, but
it is most idiotic thing"
The mediator had gone to the Holy
City for a last look around before
going to Paris for the United Ma
tions General Assembly meeting.
A clandestine radio station re-
ported operating in tJeWish-nCldp
Raifa issued a fake message that
Gen. Lundstroem was murdered in
Haifa yesterday.
! Count Folke Bernadotte of Wis
! borg was nephew of King Gustav
v of Sweden and a great-great-
grandson Of Jean BaptiSte Jules
Bernadotte, one of Napoleon's mar
shals who became King Charles
XIV of Sweden.
Before becoming King he had
married Desiree Clary. the daughter
of French banker at Marseilles
and sister of Joseph Bonaparte's
wife. On the introduction OF the
French Empire he became one OF
/ the 13 marshals of France. He wa:
elected successor to the Swedish
throne on the sudden death of the
crown prince.
! Charles XIV kept the throne after
Napoleous downfall and won great
popularity with the SWedes by show
ing leniency to Swedish war prison.
ers. The first Bernadott had the
same tireless energy characteristic
of his~descendants.
1t was Count Folke Bernadotte. as
head of the Swedish Red Cross, who
flew otter to Germany and British
during the last war to arrange the
exchange of wounded prisoners of
war. many of them via Sweden.
Some $500 political prisoners OF
the Nazis probably owe their lives
to his intervention on their behalf
Took CapituIation Offer
AS the German Reich of Adolph
Hitler was breaking up under the
final pressure of the Allied war
drive, ,the count brought to the
Allies a capitulation offer from
Heinrich Himmler. But the West
ern Allies insisted the Germans
must surrender to all the Allies,
including the Russians, and this
the Nazis finally did. The count
told the story of the negotiations in
book called The Curtain Falls. y
The count was fluent in English.
German and French as well as his
own native tongue. He spoke Es-
tonian, a reminder of the time he
was being considered as a possible
king for tie hypothetical union of
Baltic States.
Son of Nonroyal Mother.
Born on January 2. 1895, he
missed being a prince of the royal
house because he happened to be
the son of nonroyal mother.
His father was Prince Oscar Carl
August, second son of King Oscar
II and a brother of the present
Swedish King. Prince Oscar re-
nounced his rights to the throne
when he married Ebba Henriette
Munck. a lady of noble but non-
royal blood.
The Swedish press credited his
organlzational talents to his work in
the United States, where he took a
job as an errand boy in New York
bank and familiarized himself step
by step with each of its branches.
In his early years the count was
widely regarded as a playboy. In
1928, wearing the sky-blue and sill
yer uniform of his regiment, he
married Estelle Romaine Manville,
daughter of the American asbestos
inagnate, at Pleasantville, N. Y. At
ceremony reputed to have cost
S75, 900, Is detectives guarded the
wedding presents, which included.
as from bridegroom to bride. plati-
mum and diamond crown which she
was to wear on presentation at the
Swedish court. Miss Manville was a
cousin of the oft-married Tommy
Manville.
After his marriage the counts life
was tinged with duty. He looked
after Swedens interests in the Chi
cago Century of Progress Exhibition
and he was commissioner general
for Sweden at the New York World
Fair in 1939-40.
Aide de Camp Six Years.
| Meanwhile he had put in siX
years as aide de camp to the Crown
Prince of Sweden and had become
active in the Red Cross. 1t was in
this world that his faculties and
talents found their appropriate
medium.
In l943 he had the administrative
supervision of the exchange via
Sweden of disabled prisoners of war,
all exchange described by the then
British Foreign Secretary. Anthony
Eden, as "a major humanitarian
effort"
Count Bernadotte visited prisoner
of war camps and was known for
| his scrupulous effort to remain alb
solutely neutral between the Allies
and the Germans.
1t was this activity which made
aim the logical go-between in the
1945 meetings with Himmler, For
eien Minister Ribbentrop and the
other NaZi chiefs.
The count became president OF
-E A ~HaE@R