Office of the Historian

740.00110 EW/5–245: Telegram

The Acting Secretary of State to the Minister in Sweden (Johnson)

Washington, May 4, 1945—7 p.m.

813. You are requested to express to Mr. Günther our sincere regret that premature publicity given to the Bernadotte–Himmler conversations has been the source of concern to his government (your 1640, May 2, 9 p.m.61). Taking into consideration, however, the intense public interest in this country and abroad in current political and [Page 775] military developments, and the freedom of the press in the United States and Sweden, it is practically impossible to prevent the publication of rumors. In this connection, you may remark that Swedish newspapers have devoted considerable space in the past several weeks to Count Bernadotte’s activities in connection with the release of interned Danes and Norwegians, and that on April 24, the same day on which an account of his presence in Denmark appeared in the Swedish press, Expressen published a report that high German officers in Denmark had been negotiating surrender terms with an “authorized Swedish representative” (your 1516, April 2462). This was followed on April 26 by a Luxembourg radio report, which was picked up and rebroadcast by the BBC, that the Germans had offered to surrender unconditionally to the two Western Allies but that the offer had been rejected.

With respect to Senator Connally’s statements at San Francisco63 on April 28, you may point out that he gave no indication of the source of his information or the personalities involved. SCAEF’s statement on May 264 was issued subsequent to German reports concerning Hitler’s death and the assumption of power by Dönitz and after the Swedish Foreign Office release of April 30 summarizing Bernadotte’s conversations with Himmler.65 It was made with a view to preventing the creation of a German legend of Hitler’s martyrdom. Finally, the Acting Secretary’s press release66 merely placed in their proper light certain developments which had become public to clear up existing confusion and put the situation in its proper perspective.

Grew
  1. Not printed. In this telegram the Minister reported a conversation with the Under Secretary in the Swedish Foreign Office in which Mr. Boheman expressed the view that the publicity given at San Francisco to the Himmler offer had damaged the chances for a German capitulation in Norway and Denmark. He also discussed a communiqué just issued by General Eisenhower regarding the Himmler–Bernadotte conversations. He concluded by remarking “in a bitter tone,” that what had happened at San Francisco and in the Eisenhower communiqué “does not encourage us to tell you what we learn.” Minister Johnson ended his report by observing: “While Boheman was speaking under the emotional strain of disappointment in what appears to be a setback for Swedish hopes and plans in connection with Norway and Denmark, it is a fact that in official quarters here the publicity given to the Bernadotte and Himmler conversations is regarded as a very serious mistake.” (800.414/5–245)↩
  2. Not printed; this was a press report for April 24.↩
  3. Senator Tom Connally, of Texas, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations and delegate to the United Nations Conference, had indicated that Germany’s surrender was expected momentarily; see New York Times, April 29, 1945, p. 1, col. 8.↩
  4. On May 2, General Eisenhower had released some details of the Himmler-Bernadotte conversations to the press; see ibid., May 3, 1945, p. 10, col. 5.↩
  5. Ibid., April 30, 1945, p. 1, col. 7.↩
  6. Department of State Bulletin, May 6, 1945, p. 863.↩