Baron Robert Rothschild (1911–1998)

Baron Robert Rothschild was born in Brussels, Belgium, to the German-Jewish branch of the famous Rothschild dynasty. His father was a businessman, but Robert decided to become a diplomat, and passed the diplomatic service examination in 1936. He served as an officer in the Belgian army reserve at the outbreak of World War II, and in May 1940 was captured by the Germans and held as a prisoner of war. In 1941, he was sent back to Brussels. With the help of underground organizations and the British Special Operations Executive (SOE), he escaped to Vichy France, where he obtained an exit visa and made his way to London to join the Belgian government-in-exile. Prime Minister Hubert Pierlot posted him to the diplomatic legation in Lisbon, Portugal. Rothschild remained there until 1944, when he was sent to China. There he served as first secretary at the Belgian embassy in Chungking, the headquarters of Chiang Kai-shek's government. After the Japanese surrender at the end of World War II, Rothschild went to Shanghai, where in 1946 he was appointed consul general. In early 1950, he left for Washington, D.C., to become second counsellor at the Belgian embassy. It was the time of the Korean War and the build-up of NATO and after two years in Washington, Rothschild went to Paris as a Belgian representative on the council of NATO. In 1954, he was appointed chef de cabinet of Paul-Henri Spaak at the Belgian foreign ministry. For the next two years he worked together with Spaak and Jean Charles Snoy et d'Oppuers to draft the Treaty of Rome, signed in 1957. In 1960, Rothschild was sent to the Belgian Congo as number two to the governor. He arrived in Leopoldville (now Kinshasa) two days after the rebellion by the constabulary urged by Congolese independence leader Patrice Lumumba. Rothschild's next assignment was as ambassador to Switzerland, and after two years, he became ambassador to Paris. In 1973, he was appointed ambassador in London, where he remained en post until 1976 and then lived in London for the rest of his life. Rothschild was named a Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George in the UK. His published works on history and politics included La chute de Chiang Kai-Shek (1972), which won the Prix Albéric-Rocheron of the Académie française in 1973; Les chemins de Munich: Une nuit de sept ans, 1932-1939 (1988); and Un phénix nommé Europe: mémoires 1945-1995 (1997).