Article from Svenska Dagbladet (SvD)
Count Lennart Bernadotte dead
Count Lennart Bernadotte is dead. He passed away last night in his home Mainau at the Bodensee Lake in Germany. He became 95 years old.
Count Lennart Bernadotte on Mainau – born a Swedish Prince and Duke of Småland – born in Stockholm 1909. Lennart Bernadotte was since the mid 1930’s highly associated with Mainau, the palace and the flower island in the Bodensee Lake in south Germany close to the Switz border. His name was also mentioned with great respect in dendrological circles the world over. Mainau, that he took over after his father, Prince Wilhelm – who in his turn had inherited it from his mother Queen Victoria – he built up to be one of the worlds most beautiful palace garden and park establishments. The flower island became place tourist were attracted to. Every year Mainau is visited by several million tourists.
Lennart Bernadotte took over Mainau in 1932. Then the both the palace – built in 1745 – as well as park and garden were both in great decline. Queen Victoria inherited it in 1928, the palace had belonged to the Grand Ducal family of Baden, where Victoria’s father Grand Duke Friedrich I of Baden, a known amateur dendrologist, had planted in a good numnber of exotic trees.
With hard and goal-oriented work, Lennart Bernadotte created his flower island. He often said that he and Mainau so easily understood each other. It can be mentioned that he in 1979 became a Honorary Doctor at the Stuttgardt-Hohenheim University and ten years later at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. He was also president of a German society and he took the inititiative to “Our village will become more beautiful”, a national project that engaged the whole Germany and grew to become a national movement.
Lennart Bernadotte was also a known peacemaker. After living in neutral Sweden during the war, he returned to Mainau in 1946. He opened Mainau for camp activities under the direction of the YWCA/YMCA, and soon similar activities started to occur all around West Germany.
The new home country took his services immediately. He started and lead the Nobel Symposium in Lindau for 30 years. These had been initiated in 1951 by a group of German doctors to break the country’s isolation after the war; the symposiums opened the possibility for contact between the whole world of scientists. And it was on the island of Mainau that the “Mainau Manifesto” came to be, when in 1955 a number of Nobel Laureated called on the nations of the world to give up the devlopment of the atomic bomb.
Count Bernadotte also placed his island on the cultural map, becayse on Mainau, the “Mainau Green Map” was written. It was in 1961. It was a “life guide” in 12 items, the Count explained, that covered the basic conditions for a healthy human life. Lennart Bernadotte also developed to become a skilled nature photographer, specialised in so called macro techniques. He participated in exhibitions the world over. The interest for photography was something he had since being a child, he got his first camera in the early teens. During the war years at home in Sweden, he worked as a photographer and director for Europafilm and founded his own film company Artfilm.
Lennart Bernadotte’s upbringing was mostly taken care of by his grandmother, Queen Victoria. He described her as hard but loving. The relationship to his father he recalled as friendly; the cultural life on Stenhammar was very different in contrast to the Court etiquette that surrounded grandmother.
When Lennart Bernadotte in 1932 married Karin Nissvandt, he lost his princely rights. The scandal was a fact and the wedding was not allowed to take place on Swedish land. Therefore the couple was wed in London, in a civil ceremony. The marriage was started against Gustav V’s wishes. Lennart Bernadotte was titles “Mr” until he in 1952 was bestowed with the tile Count of Wisborg by Grand Duchess Charlotte of Luxembourg.
Lennart Bernadotte quickly adjusted to the role as a “normal Swede”. In Germany he was seen as German, which among things led to him – by his own astonishment – was suggested to run for President after Theodor Heuss!
Lennart Bernadotte was born on the Royal Palace of Sotckholm on 8 May 1909. Parents were Prince Wilhelm, Hereditary Prince, Duke of Södermanland, and Grand Duchesss Maria Pavlovna of Russia (grandchild of Tsar Alexander II).The couple divorced in 1914. Princess Maria is buried at Mainau palace church, Prince Wilhelm on the cemetery in Flen.
Lennart Bernadotte was the first one of Gustav V’s grandchildren who married in a civil ceremony. Also the Princes Sigvard and Carl Johan – and also Prince Carl’s son Prince Carl Jr. – lost their rights to the Swedish crown when they committed to civil marriages.
Lennart and Karin divorced in 1972. Lennart Bernadotte then married Sonja Hauntz, an employee of the palace. With her he has five children. In the first marriage he had four. Karin Bernadotte passed away in 1991. After the divorce she lived in Konstanz, a few kilometres from Mainau.
Count Lennart kept a continuous contact with his first wife, he was keen on bonding between his two families, and until Karin’s death the both wifes socialised. In 1995, Lennart wrote the second part of his memoirs, in which he among things tells openly about his first marriage’s happiness and agony.
Lennart Bernadotte was happy and spontaneous, had an easy time socialising and early on established a good relationship with the media. During the crisis years in Sweden, he worked with theatre and film, and was active in different cultural and organisations – and was the general of Barnens Dag (the Day of the Children).
The family spent the summers in Sweden, often “Stella Nova” was seen with the Count at the rudder, anchoring in Swedish waters. Then Mariefred became a set place (they have a summer home there somewhere).
Lennart Bernadotte called himself a world citizen. But the bonds to home was strongs – in 1991 he and Sonja were elected “The Swedish Person in the World of the Year Award” by Svenska Dagbladet (an award given out every year).
He said that he never let himself forget the smell of the Sweidh summer night, because was there anything more lovely? Well maybe, the Mainau paradise itself.