"I am left with great confidence."
The Global Bridges Board of Directors, Summer 2016
The Board of Directors and the members of Global Bridges are united in
deep sadness over the death of Walther Leisler Kiep. Saying farewell to the
founding father of our organization leaves us with painful wounds and deep
gaps that will be hard to fill. The guiding principle of Walther’s life was to
build bridges between cultures, nations, and people from many different
backgrounds. Many of us have become close friends as we got to know each
other through him. Everything he did throughout his life set standards for
business entrepreneurship, political leadership, and civic engagement. He
will be missed.
Together with his comrade-in-arms, Dr. Beate Lindemann, Walther guided
first Atlantik-Brücke and then Global Bridges on their way to becoming
singularly successful institutions. Our thoughts and compassion in these
difficult hours and days are with Walther’s family, as well as with Beate, who
is committed to continuing his work. Especially the Young Leaders Network,
created and nurtured through their cooperation, will remain as a living
legacy long after Walther’s death. Generations of Young Leaders saw Walther
as their idol. Countless high-level Americans, Chinese, West Europeans, and
now – particularly important to him after 1989 – East Europeans consider
their membership among the most exciting, impressive, and forming
experiences of their lives. Those who have shared this experience proudly
proclaim: “Once a Young Leader, always a Young Leader.” Walther received
many distinguished honors in his long life. But he was especially proud to
be our “Honorary Forever Young Leader.”
Walther, born into a patrician Hamburg-Hanseatic family and coming of age
in turbulent times at the end of the Second World War, succeeded early in
becoming financially independent, combining his entrepreneurial skills with
hard work, polished demeanor, and a good dose of luck. He then used his
well-earned wealth to support a wide variety of causes, and to provide
exceedingly generous help to those in need. When he decided to enter
politics, his financial freedom allowed him to exercise his mandates and
offices with an unusual degree of independence. He always acted in
accordance with his personal values and convictions, rather than merely
follow party discipline. His political home was the Christian Democratic
Union, where Richard von Weizsäcker – later Germany’s President – was his
closest friend and ally. Yet being the free spirit that he was, and the free
actor he could therefore be, he gained broad respect and recognition
beyond all party lines. Theo Sommer, in his DIE ZEIT obituary, tellingly and
rightly called Walther Leisler Kiep “the best foreign minister we never had.”
Helmut Schmidt and Gerhard Schröder – both SPD Chancellors – relied on
Walther for delicate diplomatic missions, often involving Turkey. Walther felt
especially close to Turkey; after all, he had spent a happy childhood there
when his father had been tasked with rebuilding Turkey’s maritime fleet.
Global Young Leaders in Erbil had a jaw-dropping surprise when Walther
told them – speaking Turkish no less – that his father had introduced him,
the little boy, to President Atatürk!
To travel with Walther was always a privilege and a pleasure. On the many
trips he helped to fund and organize for Atlantik-Brücke and Global Bridges,
those lucky enough to be included would never tire to listen to his witty,
concise and exceedingly well-informed comments, often until late at night.
But he was also a good listener himself, and then able to offer pertinent
advice, drawing on his rich experiences in business and politics. His refined
and delightful sense of humor never failed to amaze and to entertain. And
one thing was certain: however late the previous evening’s discussions had
been, the next morning Walther would be the first to appear on deck,
impeccably groomed and dressed. He was a gentlemen’s gentleman,
characterized by Hanseatic worldliness, genuine human warmth, and
irresistible charm. Everyone privileged enough to get to know him felt
forever enriched.
Wherever around the world we went with Atlantik-Brücke and Global Bridges
– be it China, the United States, Turkey, Israel or many other countries – as
long as Walther was in the group we could count on being received as
friends. Doors usually closed were opened for him. Talks generally couched
in diplomatic niceties or meaningless phrases turned into spirited and
informative exchanges, which eventually resulted in substantial long-term
dialogues.
This was especially the case in China, which Walther had gotten to know just
as it was about to reemerge as a world power. In the middle of his life, while
he was out of politics and back in business, Walther had privately
undertaken an adventurous trip on the trans-Siberian railroad to the Middle
Kingdom, which at the time was still a backward country dominated by
Mao’s doctrines and characterized by uniformly dressed people riding
bicycles and not driving cars. Walther realized, however, that a new giant
was in the process of re-awakening in East Asia. He used the occasion, and
his connections, to help Volkswagen (where he had served on the
Supervisory Board) to broadly expand its joint venture investments in China,
thereby contributing to Volkswagen’s establishment as the premier car
maker in China (and by now its most profitable market). Walther’s unceasing
efforts over many years to establish a respectful and meaningful dialogue
between China and the West was greatly appreciated at the highest levels
of the Chinese leadership. As his long-time friend Yang Wenchang, President
of the Chinese People’s Institute of Foreign Affairs, wrote recently: “Our
cooperation is valuable and conducive to promoting the friendship of the
people in our countries.”
It was typical for Walther that he put human concerns above all economic
and political interests. Torsten Krauel, in his obituary in Die Welt, highlighted
Walther’s humanitarian idealism with this telling episode: “Only someone
like Kiep, driving through Beijing, could notice a woman with her sick child
begging in an underpass, force a reluctant Chinese chauffeur to stop, take
mother and child to a hospital, and convince similarly reluctant doctors to
begin treating the seriously ill child by promising to pay all costs. Only
someone like him could include this daughter of a migrant worker, now
healed, in his will. And only someone like him could leave an Atlantik-Brücke
conference in Washington to fly to China in order to free this child, living in
a dirt-poor village, from the claws of the village mafia.”
The sad news of Walther’s death reached many members of Global Bridges
during a field trip in Israel. Spontaneously the group organized a memorial
service in the protestant Church of the Redeemer in Jerusalem, conducted
by the head of the protestant church in the Holy Land. We felt some solace
in the knowledge that we had properly honored Walther as the deeply
religious Christian that he was, and that we had offered him a special
blessing right there in the Holy Land. Walther was strongly committed to building and strengthening a friendship
with Israel. When Prime Minister Shimon Peres asked Walther for help in
the course of particularly difficult negotiations with Arafat, Walther agreed
without hesitation and secretly met with the Palestinian leader. Walther
never forgot the horrors of the Nazi regime that he had personally
experienced growing up in Hamburg. His uncle, Otto Carl Kiep, had been
brutally executed by Nazi henchmen for his membership in the resistance
organization Kreisauer Kreis. Walther’s political lesson for Germany
therefore was unwavering: “Never again, and never alone!” Never again
should Germany be the source of crimes against humanity. And never again
should Germany remain isolated from the Western community and its
shared values. The fact that many Israelis, including former ambassador Avi
Primor, received us as friends in the Holy Land appeared to Walther almost
as a miracle, given Germany’s history. It is a miracle due in no small measure
to an unrelenting emphasis not to forget and to the constant efforts of
engaged Germans such as Walther.
For the same reasons Walther considered a close partnership with the
United States a matter of primary importance – even a matter of the heart.
Or, as he put it: “America helped us generously and decisively when we
needed such help in our darkest hours. The closeness we developed then
must remain topic number one in our foreign policy.” And he liked to add,
jokingly, that friendship with America was presented to him in his crib. His
middle name, Leisler, is a family tradition honoring a forefather of the Kiep
family, Jacob Leisler, who, as a political figure in New York, was an early
advocate of American independence from Great Britain, which hanged him
for his insurrection in 1691. Walther was an always welcome guest in the
highest circles of America; among his friends he counted President George
H.W. Bush and Henry Kissinger. Washington readily listened to him, even,
as was his wont, when he raised difficult and sensitive issues. “My wish is
that my generation will pass on to the next generation the overwhelming
importance of good German-American relations,” Walther offered as one of
his legacies. He, perhaps more than anyone else, made sure that his wish
would be fulfilled.
After the Iron Curtain had been lifted in 1989, Walther found it equally
important that the goal of good relations with the West be imparted to the
young leaders of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. He pursued
this new emphasis in his work with the well-established help of conferences,
seminars, and study tours. In addition, Walther and Beate, immediately
after the fall of the Wall, established the Youth for Understanding Foundation
which enabled several thousand high school students from East Germany a
year of study in the United States, and underprivileged students from the
U.S. an opportunity to live and study in Germany. Thus new bridges were
built between the New World and the new states in the unified Federal
Republic of Germany. To support this rapidly growing program, Walther and
Beate organized an annual gala benefit “Enchanted Holiday Evening” in preChristmas New York City.
“I am left with great confidence” was Walther’s summary of his life when he
published his diaries – a highly revealing document not only of a personal
life well lived, but also of historically lively times. It reflects Walther’s
unshakeable optimism, his firm belief in the good of man, and his guiding
conviction that individual action can contribute to a better world.
We are left with immense gratitude. Every one of us will try to live in the
spirit of Walther’s life-long aspirations and achievements and thus continue
his work. Albert Schweitzer once said that whatever good man contributes
to the world will not be lost. Our task now is to maintain, to further, and to
pass on all the good that Walther has done throughout his life. We are
deeply grateful to our friend, mentor, example, and companion Walther
Leisler Kiep. We will honor his life by living up to his life’s work.