Harald Edelstam served in
Rome in 1939 and the Foreign Ministry in Stockholm in 1940, in
Berlin in 1941, and in
Oslo in 1942 where Edelstam became acting Second Vice Consul in 1944. On 13 September, the day after the evacuation, the Swedish flag was raised over the Cuban embassy and the embassy remained under Swedish
protecting power for 18 years until 1991. In the months that followed, as the Pinochet regime began a
campaign of torture and murder, Edelstam worked ceaselessly with embassy staff and volunteers to organize asylum for more than a thousand victims of the regime, including securing the release of at least 60 individuals from the
National Stadium detention center. For helping Cubans escape from Chile, Edelstam was honored by
Fidel Castro as a hero. Today, Edelstam is considered as a modern-day hero among millions around Latin America, and particularly so among the hundreds of thousands of Chileans who were forced into exile by the regime. Edelstam came back to Stockholm and was available for the Foreign Minister during 1974 before being sent as ambassador to
Algiers on the advice of Edelstam's greatest enemy, diplomat
Wilhelm Wachtmeister. He left the position and retired in 1979. ==Personal life==