Harold C. Vedeler; Diplomat Witnessed Hitler's Rise

Harold C. Vedeler, 103, a retired Foreign Service officer who experienced history in the making, died of complications of pneumonia May 8 at his home in Gainesville.

As a graduate student studying in Munich in the summer of 1932, Dr. Vedeler witnessed Adolf Hitler's rise to power. He observed several Nazi, German Social Democratic and Communist party meetings. At one rally, Dr. Vedeler got a close-up glimpse of Hitler.

"He was a performer, dramatic in his gestures," Dr. Vedeler told The Washington Post in 1999, adding that he was distressed by the crowd's reaction to Hitler.

"They were held spellbound. He told them what they wanted to hear -- that there was a way that he felt was better for Germany and a way for them to rise from their problems."

At the end of World War II, Dr. Vedeler, then a history professor, traveled with a State Department team to Germany to interrogate former Nazi leaders. Among them was Hermann Goering, second in command of the Third Reich and leader of the Luftwaffe.

"He came in [to the interrogation room] with this big cape, and he unfurled this cape with great flair when he sat down. We talked to him for several hours," he told The Post, "and all the time I'm interrogating him, I thought to myself, 'What a shame this man was involved in the Third Reich. If he'd been in a democracy, he'd have been an outstanding politician.' "

After joining the State Department in 1945, Dr. Vedeler engaged in issues concerning Central Europe -- then Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia -- and was involved in negotiating the Austrian peace treaty. He later guided the Division of Eastern European Affairs.

In the 1950s, as a Foreign Service officer in Prague, his first posting, Cold War intrigue kept him watchful. He was on the front lines as chargé d'affaires and deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Prague.

The U.S. Embassy was riddled with electronic bugs, and embassy personnel were often under close surveillance. The secret police were a constant annoyance. "To this day, he dislikes the sight of leather jackets, because that's what the Czech security people wore," The Post article said.

He later moved to Vienna, where he was deputy chief of the U.S. mission to the International Atomic Energy Commission. From 1959 to 1965, Dr. Vedeler served as head of the Office of Eastern European Affairs.

In retirement, he wrote "The World in the Crucible, 1914-1919", which was published in 1984 as part of the series on "The Rise of Modern Europe."

Dr. Vedeler was born July 6, 1903, in Waukon, Iowa. His father, a Norwegian immigrant and a physician, died of tuberculosis when Dr. Vedeler was 3 years old. He grew up in Nashua, Iowa, with his mother and grandparents. In high school, he was valedictorian, captain of the football team and a track star.