Gunnar Hägglöf

Career

Early Career (1926–1938) Gunnar Hägglöf entered the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs in 1926, when he was appointed attaché. During the following years, he served in several European capitals: Paris and Madrid in 1927, London in 1928, and later in Moscow and Tehran in 1930. In 1931 he returned to the Ministry in Stockholm.

For the following five years, until the spring of 1944, Hägglöf bore the heavy responsibility of formulating and implementing Sweden's wartime trade policy. His management of Sweden's trade relations with Nazi Germany, at a time when the country was under severe political, military, and economic pressure, earned him recognition as a highly skilled and farsighted negotiator.

Some members of the Swedish government regarded Hägglöf's policies as daring, even risky. The German leadership was at times angered by his firm stance. During one negotiation, Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring reportedly lost his temper and declared: "Mr Hägglöf, you are an incorrigible lawyer and diplomat. You understand nothing of the great destinies of nations!" Public criticism, notably from editor-in-chief Torgny Segerstedt in Gothenburg, was directed at Sweden's concessions to Germany. The full scale of Nazi atrocities against Europe's Jewish population only became known when Allied forces liberated the concentration camps in 1945.

Ambassador in London (1948–1967) Sir Winston Churchill accepts the Nobel Prize in Literature from Gunnar Hägglöf, 1953.

In 1948, Hägglöf was appointed Ambassador to the United Kingdom, a position he would hold for almost two decades. His tenure in London became one of the most remarkable periods in modern Swedish diplomatic history.

The Swedish Embassy at 27 Portland Place was the centre of his activities. Hägglöf's diplomatic skill and his extensive contacts with British government circles soon earned him an exceptional reputation. In 1958, he became Doyen of the diplomatic corps in London — its senior member — and was said to have a "direct line to 10 Downing Street." Swedish journalist later described him as "an institution, an oracle, almost a legend in London's political and diplomatic circles." Hägglöf maintained close relations with successive British Prime Ministers and Foreign Office officials, a rare achievement for the representative of a small neutral state. Under the couple's leadership, the Swedish Embassy became regarded as one of the most sought-after and elegant venues in the city's diplomatic scene. His reputation as one of Sweden's most experienced diplomats preceded him to Paris, where he quickly established good relations with President Charles de Gaulle. Their daughter Ann was born in 1946 in Stockholm. Ann, who was two months old when her parents divorced, grew up in United Kingdom after her mother remarried an English lieutenant colonel, later a businessman. Hägglöf refused to recognize his biological daughter.

On 7 May 1946, Hägglöf married the Italian Countess Anna Folchi-Vici (1918–2000), the daughter of Count Carlo Folchi-Vici and his Hungarian wife. Anna Folchi-Vici had one son, Axel, from a previous marriage to Roger du Monceau de Bergendal (1913–1989). Hägglöf adopted Axel.

Awards and decorations

Swedish

Foreign

Honorary Doctor of Laws, University of Birmingham (1960)