Klaus Goldschlag
Canadian diplomat Klaus Goldschlag had a life full of triumph, tragedy and bitter irony – a narrative that would stretch credulity in a novel. But like the best fiction, his story speaks to a larger truth about the resiliency of the human spirit. A Jewish refuge, he came to Canada as a teenager from Germany and rose in the diplomatic service to become Canadian ambassador to Turkey (1967-1971), Italy (1973-1976), deputy undersecretary of state for External Affairs (now Foreign Affairs), and ultimately ambassador to the Federal Republic of Germany (1980).
His diplomatic career was truncated when a catastrophic mishap during elective surgery in Bonn left him paralyzed on his right side and unable to speak or write. A weaker person might have succumbed to depression, but Goldschlag, then in his late 50s, carried on, communicating his ideas and thoughts with the support of family for more than 30 years. He died of pancreatic cancer on Jan. 30 at the age of 89.
"He was one of the most remarkable diplomats in our modern history. I don't think that is an exaggeration," said Allan Gotlieb, undersecretary of state for External Affairs from 1977-1981 and later ambassador to the United States. Besides being a strategic and original thinker, and the most "brilliant foreign policy mind" in the "generation after Lester Pearson," Goldschlag was also a "delightfully amusing and witty individual," according to Gotlieb.
Klaus Goldschlag was born in Berlin, Germany, on March 23, 1922. After his father died, his mother was so impoverished she put her only son in an orphanage, although they continued to visit each other on weekends. Caught up in what would become Hitler's genocidal "final solution" for European Jewry, Goldschlag might well have died in a Nazi death camp or perished in wartime bombing. Instead, he was adopted by Toronto businessman Alan Coatsworth. The story of how a Canadian Methodist saved a German Jewish boy is as complicated as the times in which they lived.
Coatsworth, a fire insurance broker, had no children and used his disposable income to start a social club called the Young Maccabees. He invited hard-up Jewish boys, many of them who were selling newspapers in the streets, to his home to hear talks by philosophers, artists, and religious leaders and to listen to live music.
But it wasn't only local boys who Coatsworth befriended and mentored. Canada has a shameful record of turning away refugees trying to escape from Germany after Hitler became chancellor in 1933 and anti-Semitism effectively became official government policy. In their book, None is Too Many, Harold Troper and Irving Abella argue that Canada's record of accepting only 4,000 Jewish refugees into the country from 1933-1948 (including its refusal to allow any of the approximately 900 Jewish passengers on the M.S. St. Louis to disembark) is arguably the worst of any Western country. That makes Coatsworth's actions all the more exemplary. He went against the prevailing orthodoxy to do what he believed was right.
In the mid-1930s, Coatsworth sponsored two Jewish boys from Germany, and then travelled to Berlin and offered to adopt one of the boys living in the orphanage where Goldschlag resided. His intention was that the boy would study to become a rabbi in Canada, thus perpetuating the religion that Hitler was trying to eradicate. In order to choose which boy should go to Canada, the orphanage administrators gave all the children a test. After Goldschlag scored the highest marks, he and his mother agreed he should accept the offer and leave Germany, a decision that changed both of their lives.
Unable to speak English, and without any family or friends, Goldschlag lived in Coatsworth's house and attended Holy Blossom Temple (although he wasn't very religious and had made it clear he wasn't going to become a rabbi). He quickly became fluent in English and excelled as a student at Vaughan Road Collegiate. After war broke out, Goldschlag went to Holy Blossom and asked the elders if he could borrow enough money to help his mother escape Germany. They said they weren't in the business of lending money, but the next morning an unsigned envelope, containing the full amount, was delivered to the house.
A grateful Goldschlag, who was never able to discover the identity of his benefactors, wired the money to his mother, who booked passage to the Dominican Republic – one of the few countries openly welcoming Jews. And that's how she survived the war – playing bridge on a Caribbean island – before reuniting with her son in Canada in the late 1940s.
After graduating with a bachelor of arts degree from the University of Toronto in 1944, Goldschlag, despite his flat feet, joined the Canadian Army as a private. He was attached to military intelligence, participated in the liberation of Europe and the Allied advance into Berlin, his home town. Years later, he talked about trying to find his family in the rubble, but almost nobody was left.
He was demobilized in 1946 with the rank of sergeant, went back to U of T on a veteran's grant to do a master's degree in 1947 and stayed on at the university for the next academic year as a teaching fellow. He then went to Princeton University in New Jersey to do a second master's in Oriental languages, graduating in 1949. He had an enormous facility for languages and spoke several, including Persian, Arabic and Aramaic.
In July of that year he joined External Affairs as a foreign service officer. According to a family story, External offered him a chance to change his name. To which he replied: "Does my success at External depend on my name? Because if it does, I don't want to work here." That exchange seems to have been the end of any discussion about Goldschlag's name, and he went on his first foreign assignment as second secretary in New Delhi in March, 1953. (By then he had married Shirley-Anne Macdonald, who was always called Shan by friends and family. The mother of his three daughters, Christine, Pamela and Caroline, she died of throat cancer in 1991).
After India, Goldshlag was sent to London in May, 1955, and to Vienna as first secretary in September, 1959. His language and diplomatic skills made for a rapid climb up the diplomatic ladder. Among his many achievements, Goldschlag was a key architect of "The Third Option" policy paper developed at External Affairs under Mitchell Sharp when he was External's secretary of state (1968-1974) in Pierre Trudeau's Liberal government. After U.S. president Richard Nixon declared in 1971 that the special relationship between America and Canada was "dead," the Third Option paper set out three choices: maintain the relationship as it existed; integrate more closely with the United States; or seek closer links elsewhere, especially in Europe and the Asia. That third option became the government's foreign policy direction, although Canada remained closely linked economically with the U.S.
By the time Goldschlag was appointed ambassador to West Germany in 1980, he probably had a choice of senior appointments, but Germany appealed because of his fluency in the language, its significance in postwar Europe and Canada's ongoing role in NATO. "He saw a virtuous circle, having left as an orphan and a Jew, and coming back as a Canadian and an ambassador," said his youngest daughter, Caroline Papadatos. "He wasn't a man given to making huge political statements," she said. "It was more of his private view."
In Bonn he underwent elective surgery to remove a cyst on the side of his neck that was making it hard for him to button his shirt collars. When the eye, nose and throat surgeon made his incision, he discovered that the cyst was lodged in the Y-shaped intersection where the carotid artery divides, with one part carrying oxygenated blood to the face and the other to the brain. Instead of closing the incision and calling for a neurosurgeon to deal with a surgery that had gone from routine to specialized, the doctor blundered on, damaging the carotid artery and causing Goldschlag to suffer the equivalent of a serious stroke. The family eventually settled with the surgeon's insurers, receiving enough money to subsidize Goldschlag's care, especially after his wife died in 1991.
The first five years were the most difficult because he was in a lot of pain; then, after extensive rehabilitation in Germany and Canada, he was able to dress himself, use sign language, get around in a wheel chair and on special occasions – such as escorting a daughter down the wedding aisle – walk with a cane. He was able to read, to travel with a companion and to enjoy concerts, although his vaunted language abilities were reduced from nearly a dozen languages to German and English. While he comprehended everything, it became increasingly difficult for others to understand him, unless his wife or his youngest daughter was there to interpret and to write his correspondence. A very proud man, he approached his infirmities with a methodical self-discipline, determination and a fierce desire for independence. "That's why I think he lived as long as he did," concluded his daughter.
Goldschlag leaves his three daughters, several grandchildren and his extended family.