23 Jun Count Folke Bernadotte
1945 January 18. Harley L. Robertson, Robert L. Robb, and Count Folke Bernadotte. (from the wartime scrapbook of Herman A. Allen)
Count Folke Bernadotte of Wisborg was born in 1895. His father, Oscar Bernadotte, was the 2nd son of Oscar II, King of Sweden from 1872 until 1907 and of Norway from 1872 until 1905. Sweden and Noway were in union from 1814 to 1905.
According to Wikipedia, the title Count of Wisborg is borne by the male descendants of four princes of Sweden who married morganatically (i.e., married a person of unequal rank and without the consent of the King.) These four Swedish princes lost their Swedish titles and assumed the surname of Bernadotte.
Folke Bernadotte’s father, Oscar, was the first Count of Wisborg. Thus his son’s title, Count Folke Bernadotte of Wisborg. And then when the eldest son of King Oscar II, Gustav V, became King of Sweden in 1907: Count Folke Bernadotte of Wisborg, nephew to the King.
In 1928, in New York City, he married Estelle Manville, the daughter of a wealthy American businessman.
Drawn to humanitarian work, Count Bernadotte became head of the Swedish Boy Scouts in 1937.
In 1943, he became the Vice Chairman of the Swedish Red Cross, and because of this was responsible for the internment camps in Sweden. He had an excellent relationship with the American Legation and worked closely with the office of the Military Air Attaché.
And this is how Count Bernadotte met Herman Allen, American internee.
(Much of my background information has come from “Last Days of the Reich: The Diary of Count Folke Bernadotte.” This book was first written by Count Bernadotte in 1945 and republished by his son in 2009.)
Barbara Ann Davis
Posted at 19:32h, 23 JuneWow…..what a book to have in your library. I keep thinking through all of this….mother would have loved it!!!!!