Gerhard Fischer (diplomat)

Gerhard Fischer (20 September 1921 – 3 July 2006) was a German diplomat, ambassador and humanitarian who received the 1997 Gandhi Peace Prize in recognition of his work for leprosy and polio-affected patients in India.

Born in Oslo, Fischer grew up in China and studied medicine at Beijing Medical University, where he gained experience as a volunteer with leprosy patients.

When he was forced to abandon the course by the Japanese occupation, he travelled to Germany intending to study medicine there, but instead was obliged to fight in World War II, then was held as a POW in France.

After the war, he obtained a law degree and entered the German diplomatic service.

While at the German consulate in Madras, he helped a German doctor to establish a leprosy treatment and rehabilitation centre at Chettipatty.

He was also instrumental in setting up the Indian Institute of Technology in Madras, which was founded with financial and technical support from the West German government.

He later became ambassador to Malaysia, Ireland, Netherlands, and finally Switzerland.

He resigned from the diplomatic service in order to devote himself full-time to the support of leprosy and polio patients in India.

Fischer regarded rehabilitation as the most important aspect of his work, and emphasised the need for attitudes to leprosy to change.

His work was recognised by the Indian government with the award of the Gandhi Peace Prize.

Fischer used the money from the prize to set up a foundation for his humanitarian work.

Fischer was born in Oslo, Norway, the elder son of a Norwegian mother and a German father, Martin Fischer.

When he was about 3 years old, his family moved to China, where his father was a sinologist.

As a boy, Fischer had always wanted to be a doctor.

He started to study medicine at Beijing Medical University, but was forced to abandon the course when the university was closed by the Japanese occupation.

So he decided to travel—via Siberia—to Germany, intending to study medicine there, but was instead compelled to fight in "another huge war", a situation he regarded as a "trap".

He spent five years fighting in the war, mainly on the Eastern Front, followed by two years nine months as a prisoner of war.

Destitute after the war, studying medicine was out of the question.

He worked as a truck driver and various other jobs, and after three years had saved enough money to study again.

He entered a legal crammer, and in one year obtained a law degree, a course that normally requires four years' study.

While studying medicine in Beijing, he volunteered to look after leprosy patients (an opportunity offered to all medical students there, in the days before Fleming and modern antibiotics).

From then on, he wanted to care for leprosy patients.

With a law degree in hand, he decided to join the German foreign service, as that would take him overseas.

In 1952–1953 he completed his training for the higher diplomatic and consular service in Speyer, Rhineland-Palatinate, passing the final exam in 1953.

He began his career at the German legation in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, followed by a posting to the consulate in Hong Kong from 1957 to 1960, when he took over the consulate in Madras.

Fischer's work with leprosy patients in India began in 1960, when he was German Consul-General in Madras (now Chennai), in Tamil Nadu.

A German doctor, Elizabeth Vomstein, had asked for his help in obtaining a work permit so that she could work with a French nun she had heard of who was helping leprosy patients in Chettipatty, near Salem.

Fischer successfully helped her get the work permit, then drove with her to Chettipatty.

Fischer remained in post in Tamil Nadu for four years, during which time he regularly visited Vomstein's station in Chettipatty, which she slowly built up to what he regarded as a "model station".

In 1963 he was promoted to Consul, and in 1964 returned to the Bonn headquarters of the Foreign Office (Auswärtiges Amt).

He was appointed to the rank of Councillor (Vortragender Legationsrat) in 1966 and from 1968 headed a political department there, becoming a First Councillor (Vortragender Legationsrat Erster Klasse) shortly afterwards.

His first appointment as Ambassador came in 1970, when he represented West Germany in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

In March 1974 he was promoted to lead a large department in the Foreign Office dealing with Asia and Latin America.

His second ambassadorial appointment came in July 1977, when he was sent to Dublin, followed by further appointments to The Hague, Netherlands (early 1980) and Bern, Switzerland (mid-1983).

In December 1985, only six months before reaching his normal retirement age, he resigned from the diplomatic service in order to devote more time to leprosy patients in India.

Fischer later said that taking a European posting, after his service in Vietnam, Malaysia and India was a "mistake".

As well as volunteering with leprosy patients during his medical training in Beijing, Fischer had also looked after leprosy patients in his free time at Addis Ababa and Hong Kong.

After resigning from the diplomatic service in 1985, Fischer regularly spent six months each year in India, and six months in the summer with his wife at their small farm near Chiemsee, a lake in Bavaria.

His wife, Ann, ran the administration, fund-raising and publicity for Fischer's work.

They had decided not to have "an administration", so Fischer and his wife did everything on their own.