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Dag Hammarskjöld (1905-61) was born in the city of Jönköping, Sweden, but grew up and spent his early years in Uppsala, where his father was the County Govenor. He became a Senior Lecturer in Economics in 1933, was Under-Secretary in the Ministry of Finance for ten years, he served as Sweden's Chief Delegate to the OECC negotiations 1947-48, Permanent Under-Secretary at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs 1949-51 and then joined the government as a non-political minister without portfolio and dealt with a broad range of international issues. In April 1953, Dag Hammarskjöld was elected Secretary-General of the United Nations.
"You are about to enter the most impossible job on this earth". With these words Tryggve Lie passed on his mandate of Secretary-General of the United Nations to Dag Hammarskjöld. The world organization was, at the time, facing most serious crises, and Lie had decided to leave his position.
Hammarskjöld was an unknown quantity when he entered his term of office; but he soon showed that he had the capacity to make the sluggish United Nations organization effective. He became known as a dedicated leader with far-sighted vision for his office. Driven by his personal determination to be effective by reacting quickly to crises, he tried to solve problems at an early stage, problems he was convinced would only become more complicated by delays. During his term of office, he also introduced quiet diplomacy in preference to open debates that could often lead to deeper conflicts.
Dag Hammarskjöld brought new authority to the position of Secretary-General of the United Nations. He maintained a disinterested and neutral stance in his proceedings and emphasized the responsibility of the United Nations to assure the interests and rights of smaller states in relation to superpowers. Hammarskjöld also initiated the use of United Nations peacekeeping forces and this policy became a permanent feature of United Nations peacekeeping efforts.
During his mandate, Hammarskjöld successfully ameliorated the consequences of three world crises: in the Suez war, 1956, and in the conflicts in Lebanon and in Laos. When civil war broke out in the Congo, Hammarskjöld was instrumental in having United Nations forces sent to the area and he personally tried to mediate between the fighting forces. During one of these missions, on September 17, 1961, Hammarskjöld was killed in a plane crash in what is now Zambia.
Dag Hammarskjöld was posthumously awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1961. Hammarskjöld was also a great cultural personality. He was a much admired writer, translator, and one of the 18 members of the Swedish Academy.
