Hans Kroll

Who was Hans Kroll?

Hans Kroll was a German career diplomat and after World War II ambassador in Belgrade, Tokyo and Moscow where he played a prominent role between 1958 to 1962.

Kroll entered Weimar German diplomatic services in 1920, serving in the embassies in Lisbon and Madrid as well as in the consulates in Odessa, Chicago and San Francisco. From 1929 to 1935, he worked in German Foreign Office in Berlin, covering economic issues. In the years 1936-1943 during the Nazi domination of Germany and the World War II, Kroll was assigned to the German Embassy in Turkey, most recently as First Embassy Counsellor, and then until the end of the war in 1945 he held office as Consul General in Barcelona, Spain.

After 1945, Kroll worked for Karl Arnold, Minister President of North Rhine-Westphalia, as advisor on foreign policy issues for Christian Democratic Union and later for the press, before joining in 1950 the Federal Ministry for Economics and Labour of West Germany, serving also as envoy in Paris. Between 1953 and 1955, he was the first West German ambassador to Yugoslavia, and between 1955 and 1958, he was an ambassador to Japan.