Henk Vredeling

Hendrikus "Henk" Vredeling (20 November 1924 – 27 October 2007) was a Dutch politician of the Labour Party (PvdA). He served as Minister of Defence in the Den Uyl cabinet from 1973 to 1977, and as European Commissioner from 1977 to 1981.

Early life Vredeling was born on 20 November 1924 in Amersfoort to Pieter Vredeling en Alijda Antonetta Blom. His family was religiously orthodox Reformed, but he gradually abandoned his faith during his teenage years. During World War II, he joined the Dutch resistance and was eventually imprisoned in Buchenwald, being freed just before he was slated to be executed. This experience would have a radical impact on his political stances during his career, including on Israel and European integration.

Political career Following its expansion from 100 to 150 seats, Vredeling was elected to the House of Representatives in the 1956 Dutch general election. In 1958, he was appointed to serve in the first European Parliamentary Assembly, renamed the European Parliament in 1962, a body which he would be a member of until 1973. Despite the Den Uyl cabinets desire for a "more balanced Middle Eastern policy", Vredeling was personally sympathetic to the Israeli cause, appealing to his past in World War II and a desire to prevent a second "expelling of the Jews", and had attended a pro-Israeli rally incognito following the start of the war.

In 1974, Vredeling officially published a notice allowing homosexuals to serve in the Dutch Armed Forces. Until then, they had been regarded as having an "abnormal sexuality", which classed them as mentally ill and therefore unfit for service. On the other hand, in 1977 he amended laws on conscientious objection, expanding possibilities for granting exemptions due to being a family breadwinner. This led to the proliferation of so-called "Vredeling marriages", which were formed primarily to escape the draft. Most famously, in a Strasbourg hotel in 1979, out of anger at his (absent) fellow European Commissioner Roy Jenkins, with whom he had had a run-in earlier that day, he hurled an empty whiskey bottle through a mirrored window. Earlier that evening, he had also insulted MEP Jim Janssen van Raaij, whom he had just met. In later accounts of the incident, the two incidents were combined into “an ashtray thrown at Janssen van Raaij’s head”, a misconception which was only corrected following Vredeling's death in 2007. Vredeling himself would state he had actually thrown a bottle of soda water.

Later life Henk Vredeling died on 27 October 2007 in Huis ter Heide.

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