740.00119 EW/6–2744: Telegram
The Minister in Sweden (Johnson) to the Secretary of State
[Received June 28—1:03 a.m.]
2340. Personal for the Secretary. See my 2322, June 27, 2 p.m. I asked Secretary General of the Foreign Office, Boheman, this afternoon if he knew anything of Kleist’s visit to Stockholm and if there were anything he could tell me. He answered without hesitation that Kleist, whom he thinks may now have left Stockholm, had tried to contact the Russians and had given the Foreign Office a letter with the request that it be delivered. The letter was delivered and was returned by the Russian Minister with the tart comment that they were not interested in receiving communications from the Germans. Boheman said he knew of no effort on the part of Kleist to contact the British but thought it not improbable.
Boheman went on to tell me that Kleist had been in some ways an extremely useful man; that through his influence with Himmler (whose man Boheman described him to be) he had been directly instrumental in the Swedes evacuating 4,000 Swedish farmers and fishermen from Estonia with the strong probability that the remaining Swedes there numbering about 3,000 will soon arrive in this country. They were brought on an Estonian boat flying the German flag. Boheman says he is certain that Himmler’s motives were far from humanitarian and suggested that both Kleist and he are trying to build up a case for future use. Himmler is now assiduously spreading a story that all the killings and persecutions in occupied countries are Hitler’s direct responsibility.