05 Jan Dagens Nyheter 19 January 1945
Article that ran in the Swedish newspaper 19 January 1945
On the 19th day of January 1945, the Dagens Nyheter in Stockholm published an article about the marriage of my parents, Americans Herman Allen and Hevig Johnsson (sic), pictured with Count Folke Bernadotte. Since Bernadotte was the nephew of the reigning king of Sweden, this was big news!
(A Swedish correspondent recently sent me this from the Swedish newspaper’s microfilm archives. I was thrilled to see it for the first time ever.)
Coincidentally, it is also the cover of my book, Liberty Lady: A True Story of Love and Espionage in WWII Sweden. Count Bernadotte walked my mother down the aisle and “gave her away” as we Americans like to say.
1964. The Dagens Nyheter at Klara Västra kyrkogata 6 – its location until 1996.
In 1944-1945, when OSS Stockholm was most active, the Dagens Nyheter operated out of their building at Klara Västra kyrkogata 6, a location near the Central Station. Today, the paper is located at the DN skyscraper a little farther west.
In 1942, George O. Pratt in London sent to Allen W. Dulles a secret OSS report on wartime propaganda. The Dagens Nyheter was described as a “liberal and bourgeois left-wing daily with many subscribers in Germany.” It was “anti-German and anti-Nazi,” a courageous stance to take even that early in the war.
Side Note: George O. Pratt was chief of the OSS Labor Branch and Allen W. Dulles was station chief of the OSS office in Berne, Switzerland and after the war became the first civilian director of the CIA.
The original wedding photograph
18 January 1945. Count Folke Bernadotte with newlyweds Hedvig and Herman Allen.
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