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Loading... Last Days of the Reich: The Diary of Count Folke Bernadotte, October 1944–May 1945 (1945)by Folke Bernadotte
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. This is a unique document from the last days of Nazi Germany, written by the Swedish count Folke Bernadotte who brokered a deal wtih Heinrich Himmler to get Scandinavian prisoners out of Germany. It is not very well written, but the eyewitness events described are worth the read, also his impressions of Himmler. Of particular interest is that he is also quoting an alternative impression of events from Schellenberg, a Nazi who tried his best to end the atrocities earlier than the Nazi leadership. How many thousands of lives coulld have been saved if Himmler had let go of his blind loyalty to Hitler, a man he knew was insane. It is especially interesting to read knowing that Bernadotte only a few years later was coldbloodedly killed by Israeli fanatics. no reviews | add a review
Count Folke Bernadotte was one of those rare figures in war ' a man trusted by both sides alike. Shortly before the war ended, Bernadotte was the leader of a rescue operation to transfer western European inmates to Swedish hospitals in the so-called 'White Buses'. This work through the Swedish Red Cross involved mercy missions to Germany and it was through this link that Bernadotte came into touch with prominent Nazi leaders in the 1940s. During the last months of the war, Bernadotte was introduced to Heinrich Himmler ' one of the most sinister men of the Third Reich. Bernadotte was asked by Himmler to approach the Allies with the proposal of a complete surrender to Britain and the US ' providing Germany could continue to fight the Soviet Union. The offer was passed to Winston Churchill and Harry Truman, but rejected. The course of these negotiations is narrated in this book with a simple, compelling clarity and thrilling immediacy. This new edition of Bernadotte's memoir includes a Preface by his two sons, and an Introduction by a leading Swedish author discussing Count Bernadotte's wartime record and his post-war assassination. No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)940.53History and Geography Europe Europe 1918- World War IILC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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Bernadotte’s mission, in his role as a leader of Swedish Red Cross, was to negotiate the release of Norwegian and Danish prisoners held in German camps. But inevitably, Himmler tried to use him to mediate a deal with General Eisenhower to end the war in the West — and allow German armies to turn their guns on the advancing Soviet armies.
In the end that deal fell through, though Bernadotte’s humanitarian efforts were more successful.
The count came under criticism for his apparent friendliness towards the Nazis, a point addressed by his children in a 2009 foreword to the book. Among others, the noted historian Hugh Trevor-Roper believed Bernadotte to have been anti-Semite. Bernadotte’s book was largely ghost-written, as his children point out, and it is quite evident where Bernadotte’s story ends and where the professional writer begins.
As it is based on his diaries and reports from the spring of 1945, Bernadotte is able to comment favourably on his first meeting with Himmler and describes in some detail his attempts to persuade the Nazi leaders how humanitarian gestures at this time, weeks before the end of the war, would help them, not least in ensuring that the legacy of the Third Reich is not further tarnished. (He actually writes such things in the book.)
Here and there, one finds mentions of how absolutely evil the Nazi regime was, but these feel like additional material added by the ghost writer, and do not come from the original reports.
Three years after the book was written and published, Bernadotte was assassinated in Jerusalem by terrorist from the Stern Gang, who believed — as did many others — that Bernadotte was no friend of the Jewish people. ( )