Enormous Errand

From Stockholm to London, and then to Washington, the electric word flashed: Nazi authorities wanted to surrender all that was left of the German Army and Germany. But they wanted to surrender only to the Americans and the British, not to the dread Russians. Back went the answer: surrender to all or none.

The messenger was Count Folke Bernadotte, a Swedish nobleman, Boy Scout enthusiast and general do-gooder who married U.S. Heiress Estelle Manville (Johns-Manville asbestos) in 1928. Recently he had been living near Hamburg, representing the Swedish Red Cross.

Few days ago he was summoned, told that Hitler was dying (see FOREIGN NEWS) and asked to relay the offer to Britain and the U.S. Bernadotte flew to Stockholm, gave the message to the U.S. and British Legations.

When the offer arrived in Washington, President Truman and Winston Churchill talked it over by transatlantic telephone. They agreed to reject it, inform Stalin. Back to Germany flew Folke Bernadotte.

While Folke Bernadotte scurried back & forth on his enormous errand, the Hamburg radio said this week that Grand Admiral Karl Doenitz, as Hitler's appointed heir, proposed to fight the Russians to the last, the U.S. and British armies so long as they refused to accept a separate surrender. Perhaps significantly, the voice on the Hamburg radio did not mention Gestapoman Heinrich Himmler, the Nazi whom all had supposed to be Adolf Hitler's deputy ruler of the Reich.