Donald Edwin Nuechterlein

Donald Edwin Nuechterlein died peacefully at Westminster-Canterbury of the Blue Ridge on July 7, 2022 at the age of 97. He was preceded in death by his beloved wife, Mildred, to whom he was married for more than 70 years, and by his sister, Elaine Rammelsberg. Don is survived by his four children: Jan Steiert (Robert) of Denver Colorado, Jill Vosburg (Tom) of Fort Collins, Colorado, Jeffrey Nuechterlein of Alexandria, Virginia, and Jonathan Nuechterlein (Stephanie Marcus) of Chevy Chase, Maryland; by his six grandchildren, Jason, Tyler, Zoe, Eleanor, Katherine, and Jeffrey; by two great grandchildren, Hans and Shea; and by his brother, Duane Nuechterlein (Audrey) of Midland, Michigan. Born on June 20, 1925 in Saginaw, Michigan, Don was an accomplished pianist in his teens and performed Rachmaninoff on Michigan radio. He entered the Navy in 1943, was commissioned in July 1945 and trained for a planned invasion of Japan before its surrender. He ultimately was assigned to the U.S. naval base in Bremerhaven Germany, where he served in the occupation government. It was in Germany that he acquired the well-loved Steinway Model B that is still in the family. In Berlin he met Mildred Usak, an American from West Virginia, who also was working for the occupation government. While stationed in Germany, Don attended the Nuremberg War Trials on the day in 1946 when the verdicts were handed down. He was the last living person to have been in the courtroom that day. Don and Mil married in 1948 in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where he received his undergraduate degree from the University of Michigan. He joined the State Department in Washington, D.C. and was assigned first to the U.S. embassy in Reykjavik, Iceland and later to the U.S. embassy in Bangkok, Thailand, where he served as Cultural Attaché. Don served four years at the Pentagon in the mid-1960s with the Chief of Naval Operations and then as a senior staff officer in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. In his spare time, he earned his Ph.D. from Michigan. In 1968, he joined the original faculty of the Federal Executive Institute in Charlottesville, Virginia, where he also taught international relations at the University of Virginia. After years of commuting between Charlottesville and Northern Virginia, he and his family moved to Charlottesville full-time in 1975. In 1976, Don and his family moved to Aberystwyth, Wales where he took a six-month position as a faculty member at the University College of Wales. Don retired from FEI in the late 1980s and thereafter continued teaching American foreign policy at Queen’s University in Canada, the Australian National University in Canberra, and University of Kaiserslautern in Germany. In Charlottesville, Don was a member of the Albemarle Rotary Club, the Committee on Foreign Relations, the Military Officers Association, the Beacon Club, and St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Ivy. He also taught in the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at the University of Virginia. Dr. Nuechterlein published nine books on U.S. foreign policy and international relations, including one chronicling his family’s journeys: A Cold War Odyssey. For the past 40 years, he also wrote a column on U.S. foreign policy for several Virginia newspapers, with the last one appearing on June 23, 2022. Among his personal rewards were the inauguration of the foreign policy forums at Westminster-Canterbury, where he lived for his last eight years, and the deep friendships he formed there. Don will be remembered as a devoted husband, father, grandfather, and great-grandfather, an intrepid traveler, a dedicated civil servant and a passionate educator to those who wished to further their knowledge about America’s role in the world. A memorial service will be held at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Ivy, at 2:00 p.m. on July 10, 2022.