Widar Bagge

Widar Bagge (30 April 1886 – 18 April 1970) was a Swedish diplomat.

Bagge was born in Fuxerna, Lilla Edet Municipality, Sweden, the son of wholesaler John Bagge and his wife Fredrika (née Corin). He received a Candidate of Law degree in in 1914 and was a temporary officer at the National Board of Trade in 1918 before becoming an attaché at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs in 1919. Bagge then served as an administrative officer in 1920, second legation secretary in London in 1921 and acting chargé d'affaires in Brussels in 1922. He was first legation secretary in Rome in 1923, in Helsinki in 1924 and in Tokyo in 1928. Bagge was the acting consul general in Shanghai in 1930, director at the Foreign Ministry in 1931, charges d'Affaires in Warsaw in 1934, and legation counsellor in Paris in 1934. Bagge was then envoy in Tokyo and Bangkok from 1937 to 1945.

While in Tokyo, Bagge was attended by foreign minister Mamoru Shigemitsu, who wanted Bagge to convey a peace overture to the United States. Bagge cabled a surrender offer to the Swedish foreign office, for transmittal to the United Kingdom, which relayed it to the United States. Japan was prepared to relinquish all the territory it took in the war and Manchukuo, which it had seized in 1931. Bagge emphasized that the offer must be considered a serious one. The offer, however, came to nothing.

He was envoy in Cairo and Addis Ababa from 1945 to 1951, including in Damascus and Beirut from 1947. In Cairo, he fell in love with Yolande Harmer, a successful Israeli spy. Before she was arrested in July 1948, she had succeeded in changing Bagge's views on Zionism. The assassination of Folke Bernadotte in September 1948, however, made his enthusiasm to cool again.

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