Dag Hjalmar Agne Carl Hammarskjold was a Swedish economist and diplomat who served as the second Secretary-General of the United Nations from April 1953 until his death in a plane crash in September 1961.
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30 Facts About Dag Hammarskjold
2.
Dag Hammarskjold led initiatives to improve morale and organisational efficiency while seeking to make the UN more responsive to global issues.
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3.
Dag Hammarskjold presided over the creation of the first UN peacekeeping forces in Egypt and the Congo and personally intervened to defuse or resolve diplomatic crises.
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4.
Dag Hammarskjold was and remains well regarded internationally as a capable diplomat and administrator, and his efforts to resolve various global crises led to him being the only posthumous recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize.
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5.
Dag Hammarskjold is considered one of the two best UN secretaries-general, along with his successor U Thant, and his appointment has been hailed as one of the most notable successes for the organization.
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6.
Dag Hammarskjold was born in Jonkoping to the noble family Hammarskjold.
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7.
Dag Hammarskjold was the fourth and youngest son of Hjalmar Hammarskjold, Prime Minister of Sweden from 1914 to 1917.
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8.
Dag Hammarskjold studied first at Katedralskolan and then at Uppsala University.
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9.
From 1930 to 1934, Dag Hammarskjold was Secretary of a governmental committee on unemployment.
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10.
Dag Hammarskjold quickly developed a successful career as a Swedish public servant.
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11.
Dag Hammarskjold helped coordinate government plans to alleviate the economic problems of the post-World War II period and was a delegate to the Paris conference that established the Marshall Plan.
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12.
In 1951, Dag Hammarskjold was vice chairman of the Swedish delegation to the United Nations General Assembly in Paris.
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13.
Dag Hammarskjold became the chairman of the Swedish delegation to the General Assembly in New York in 1952.
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14.
British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden was strongly in favor of Dag Hammarskjold and asked the United States to "take any appropriate action to induce the [Nationalist] Chinese to abstain".
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15.
Shortly after midnight on 1 April 1953, Dag Hammarskjold was awakened by a telephone call from a journalist with the news, which he dismissed as an April Fool's Day joke.
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16.
Dag Hammarskjold finally believed the news after the third phone call.
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17.
Later in the day Dag Hammarskjold held a press conference at the Swedish Foreign Ministry.
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18.
Dag Hammarskjold was unanimously reelected on 26 September 1957 for another term, taking effect on 10 April 1958.
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19.
Immediately following the assumption of the Secretariat, Dag Hammarskjold attempted to establish a good rapport with his staff.
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20.
Dag Hammarskjold made a point of visiting every UN department to shake hands with as many workers as possible, eating in the cafeteria as often as possible, and relinquishing the Secretary-General's private elevator for general use.
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21.
Dag Hammarskjold began his term by establishing his own secretariat of 4,000 administrators and setting up regulations that defined their responsibilities.
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22.
Dag Hammarskjold was actively engaged in smaller projects relating to the UN working environment; for example, he spearheaded the building of a meditation room at the UN headquarters, where people can withdraw into themselves in silence, regardless of their faith, creed, or religion.
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23.
Dag Hammarskjold is given credit by some historians for allowing participation of the Holy See within the UN that year.
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25.
On 18 September 1961, Dag Hammarskjold was en route to negotiate a cease-fire between United Nations Operation in the Congo forces and Katangese troops under Moise Tshombe.
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26.
Dag Hammarskjold perished as a result of the crash, as did all of the 15 other passengers.
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27.
Dag Hammarskjold's death set off a succession crisis at the United Nations, as there was no line of succession and the Security Council had to vote on a successor.
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28.
Goran Bjorkdahl, a Swedish aid worker whose father worked for the UN in Zambia, wrote in 2011 that he believed Dag Hammarskjold's death was a murder committed, in part, to benefit mining companies like Union Miniere, after Dag Hammarskjold had made the UN intervene in the Katanga crisis.
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29.
Those accounts suggested that Dag Hammarskjold's plane was already on fire as it landed and that other jet aircraft and intelligence agents were nearby.
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30.
One found in November 2021, is a death warrant for Dag Hammarskjold signed by the infamous OAS, the secret organisation nestled in the French army at the time of Algeria's war of independence.
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