Upon his return to peacetime in the United States, Vic had difficulty finding employment. He needed to be able to capitalize on his education and language skills and at the same time avoid sectors of the American economy where Jews were not welcome. He found the answer in the U.S. government civil service, and more specifically in its postwar activities in Europe. These activities changed in nature, waxing and waning over the postwar period as different political forces in the U.S. gained and lost ascendancy, as the Cold War set in, as postwar Europe re-established some economic footing and stability, and as institutions changed accordingly. And Vic was passionately intrigued by the efforts to establish peace, democratic principles and prosperity in postwar Europe. He wanted to be a useful part of it and, whenever possible, he wanted to live in his beloved adopted home, Paris.
He was first stationed in Wiesbaden, Germany. A civilian employee of the Defense Department, he served as Legislative Attorney and Legal Counsel in the Office of the (U.S.) Military Governor in the State of Hesse under Ernest Anspach and Ted Ellenbogen, from June 1946 to October 1949. During that time, Vic and Jeanette’s only child, Monica Cécile, was born on 10 July 10 1948 in the U.S. Army Hospital in Frankfurt.
Also during that period, the Gruders met a young woman, Ilona (Ilonka) Knoepfler. Jeannette met her as a DP (displaced person) who had been released from Auschwitz. Victor and Jeannette acted as her “godparents”, vetting her eventual husband, Sandor Weinberger (born 1913), an electronic engineer and also a concentration camp survivor, as “the man for her.” Ilonka and Sandor married on 11 September 1948, and emigrated to the United States, to New York City, where Ilonka established and maintained a beauty salon.
In Wiesbaden the Gruders also met Lenchen Brahm, an ardent Catholic German, much older than Ilonka, who became their housekeeper and a grandmother figure to Monica. Lenchen moved to Düsseldorf and then to France with the family and stayed with them until she retired.
Following the assignment with Anspach, Vic was transferred to the Political Affairs Division of the Office of the Land Commissioner for Hesse where he was Deputy Division Chief of Governmental Affairs in the Political Affairs Division, OLCH, still in Wiesbaden but serving under Dale Noble. This was the first of many State Department (non-military) jobs Victor was to take on. This particular position did not last long, however, and Vic was transferred after just a few months on the job.
The Gruder family fully moved to Düsseldorf, Germany, in March 1950, where Vic had started up in mid-December, 1949, as Political Advisor to the U.S. Representative to the International Authority for the Ruhr (IAR) — first Henry Parkman, Jr., and then Chas. Livengood — until the IAR was dissolved in 1952.
By September 1952 Vic had secured a new position, and the Gruders moved to Paris. Vic was to be Special Assistant (Assistant Economic Commissioner) to Nathaniel Samuels, the Director of the Industrial Resources Division in the U.S. Government Office of the Special Representative to the Mutual Security Agency (MSA) (Marshal Plan) in Europe, and simultaneously he served as liaison with the Schuman Plan Agency Steel and Coal Commission in Luxemburg.
By early 1953, however, the new Republican government was drastically reducing the size of the American presence at the Office of the Special Representative. Vic resigned in May in order to avoid being cut. He was temporarily unemployed, and the young family moved to Nice to regroup and enjoy the sunshine.
By August 1953 Vic had landed again on his feet, back with the Department of Army as Deputy Chief of General Purchasing Division at the U.S. Government Headquarters of USAEUR Communications Zone, outside of Paris in Orleans, under Col. G.W. Hanson.
On January 1, 1957 he moved from the Army over to the Air Force, to be the Chief of Procurement in the Policy Division in the U.S. Air Forces in Europe (USAFE) office in Paris, under Col. Dittman.
In June 1961, the Gruders moved to Washington, D.C. They wanted Monica to spend her high school years in the U.S., to give her more of a sense of being an American. Vic had gone in February as a Contract Specialist with the Directorate of Procurement and Production at Headquarters, USAF, working under Col A. J. Dreiseszun. In July, he assumed those functions under Col. E. C. Saltzman. By January, 1962, he was promoted to Chief, Contracts Operations Branch with the Defense Supply Agency in Alexandria, Va., Here, he worked under Harold Margulis, Chief of the Procurement Division until 1965, when Monica graduated from high school and the Gruders decided to return to Europe.
From May, 1965 until 1967 Vic worked for NATO in Paris as Assistant Director for Contracts and Finance, and then Head of the Budget, Contracts and Legal Division of the Air Defense Ground Environment Management Office (NADGEMO) under Gen. Accart, former Chief of Staff of the French Air Force. [ed: see NADGE]
Then, in 1967 when Charles de Gaulle threw NATO out of Paris, Vic and Jeanette moved to Brussels where Vic eventually became the Director of the entire NADGE Management Office, the top-ranking United States representative at NATO in those years.
Vic was awarded the U. S. Department of Defense Meritorious Civilian Service Award for this work.
For retirement beginning in 1974, the Gruders chose to settle in Paris as a base for enjoying art, music and theater, for entertaining friends, letter-writing, and globe-trotting.
Victor died on 15 April 1985, and Jeanette on 20 October 1997. They were both interred at Arlington National Cemetery. At Vic’s burial, there were six guns fired and a bugle blown, and a rabbi held a very short service. As Jeannette wrote to a friend, Vic had known the rabbi and “liked his ideas and so we thought Vic would not mind.”
Victor Gruder 