Image: Her­bert Fis­ch­er (1984). DDR-Indi­en: Ein Diplo­mat berichtet. Staatsver­lag der DDR, Berlin. p. 78.

This is a trans­lat­ed ver­sion of the 2019 MIDA Archival Reflex­i­con entry “Her­bert Fis­ch­er – Eine deutsch-indis­che Ver­flech­tungs­bi­ografie”. The text was trans­lat­ed by Rekha Rajan.

Table of Con­tents
Ear­ly Years | With Gand­hi | In the GDR | Back in the GDR | Sources | Bib­li­og­ra­phy

Her­bert Fis­ch­er began as an employ­ee of the Trade Rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the Ger­man Demo­c­ra­t­ic Repub­lic (GDR) in New Del­hi, lat­er serv­ing as its direc­tor and con­sul-gen­er­al. After the offi­cial recog­ni­tion of the coun­try in Octo­ber 1972, he was the first ambas­sador of the GDR in India.

Her­bert Fischer’s life is close­ly inter­wo­ven with the emer­gence of inde­pen­dent India as well as with the devel­op­ment of the GDR. Fis­ch­er had already spent a decade in India before the Sec­ond World War, had lived with Gand­hi and as a Ger­man, he had been interned dur­ing the war by the British colo­nial rulers in India. After the war end­ed, he returned to his home in Sax­ony in Ger­many, which was now part of the Sovi­et-occu­pied zone and was soon to become a part of the GDR. Via cir­cuitous routes, he arrived at and became part of the Min­istry for Exter­nal Affairs and soon advanced to become the India-expert of the ear­ly GDR.

Early Years

Born in 1914 in Her­rn­hut, Sax­ony, Her­bert Fis­ch­er decid­ed to leave Ger­many as a young man in 1933, when the Nation­al Social­ists came to pow­er. At the time he was liv­ing near the Baltic Sea with a group of fol­low­ers of the Leben­sre­form move­ment. There he met, among oth­ers, Klaus Mann, the son of Thomas Mann, who had just returned from a trip to the Sovi­et Union and was dis­il­lu­sioned with his impres­sions of life there.

Fis­ch­er had already heard about Mohan­das Gand­hi, the “Mahat­ma”, and his non-vio­lent resis­tance to British colo­nial rule. The 19-year old Fis­ch­er was enthused by this and decid­ed to trav­el to India. After an adven­tur­ous jour­ney through France, Spain, the Balka­ns, and Turkey, some of it on a bicy­cle, he reached the port of Bom­bay in 1936. In Bom­bay he board­ed a train for Ward­ha, the rur­al place in Cen­tral India, where Gand­hi had set up his ashram – the base for his coun­try­wide work, where the Indi­an Nation­al Con­gress also held its meetings.

With Gandhi

In Ward­ha, Fis­ch­er saw Gand­hi every day, spoke to him per­son­al­ly and was fas­ci­nat­ed: “I had nev­er expe­ri­enced such ven­er­a­tion for a liv­ing per­son. I couldn’t help think­ing of sim­i­lar sto­ries in the New Tes­ta­ment.” And:

Gand­hi was always emphat­i­cal­ly and con­scious­ly mod­est, had an open ear for all ques­tions, even if they only con­cerned tri­fling mat­ters, was a car­ing father to all and did not dis­play any desire for pow­er. That was what made him pop­u­lar, that was what made him effec­tive. I could observe and expe­ri­ence this myself every day. This is what made him Bapu, father. He was also Bapu for me. I felt he was a father. To an Amer­i­can mis­sion­ary who vis­it­ed him he appeared to be a com­bi­na­tion of Jesus Christ and his own father. Even today, I believe that I could talk to him more deeply than to my own father.”

This is what Fis­ch­er wrote in his mem­oirs Unter­wegs zu GANDHI in 2002, 65 years lat­er (p.77f.).

What Gand­hi and Fis­ch­er had in com­mon was their paci­fism. In 1937, Fisher’s jack­et was stolen along with his Ger­man pass­port. When the Ger­man Con­sulate Gen­er­al in Bom­bay informed him that his pass­port would only be replaced if he returned to Ger­many to serve his time in the mil­i­tary, Fis­ch­er refused and thus accept­ed his denaturalization.

Gand­hi assigned Fis­ch­er the task to set up agri­cul­tur­al coop­er­a­tives in near­by Itar­si and to help in the run­ning of a hos­pi­tal. Jawa­har­lal Nehru, who was lat­er the first prime min­is­ter of inde­pen­dent India, often vis­it­ed Fis­ch­er at this rail­way junc­tion. Fis­ch­er became a mem­ber of a local Quak­er com­mu­ni­ty and met his future wife Lucille Sibouy there, a Jamaican-born nurse with Indi­an roots.

When the Sec­ond World War broke out in 1939, Her­bert Fis­ch­er was interned by the British colo­nial rulers as a cit­i­zen of an ene­my state. His wife fol­lowed him with their first son Karl in ear­ly 1940. Along with oth­er Ger­mans, they were kept in dif­fer­ent camps, in some of which Fis­ch­er was some­times allowed to vis­it Gandhi.

In the GDR

After the war end­ed, Her­bert Fis­ch­er and his fam­i­ly returned home, which was now in the Sovi­et-occu­pied zone, lat­er on the GDR. Fis­ch­er had not received a reg­u­lar edu­ca­tion after com­plet­ing school, and had trou­ble estab­lish­ing him­self in post-war Ger­many. In the GDR, he first found a job as a teacher and lat­er in school admin­is­tra­tion. Through lec­tures about his time with Gand­hi, which he gave in his spare time, he came to the atten­tion of the new­ly found­ed Min­istry of Exter­nal Affairs (MfAA) of the GDR, which was des­per­ate­ly look­ing for suit­able staff with­out a nation­al-social­ist past. In Sep­tem­ber 1956, Fis­ch­er began to work in the min­istry and soon head­ed the India divi­sion. In Jan­u­ary 1958, he was trans­ferred to India as deputy direc­tor of the GDR’s Trade Representation.

The diplo­mats of the Fed­er­al Repub­lic of Ger­many (FRG) looked at this new, sup­posed “secret weapon” from East Berlin with sus­pi­cion. Thus, in Octo­ber 1959, a report on “Sovi­et-zone pro­pa­gan­da in India on the occa­sion of the 10-year jubilee of the so-called GDR” sent to the head­quar­ters in Bonn, stated:

Thanks to the skil­ful and charm­ing man­ner dis­played by Mr. Fis­ch­er, who speaks per­fect Hin­di and who greet­ed every jour­nal­ist who entered with a hand­shake, there was a friend­ly atmos­phere dur­ing the event.”

The West Ger­mans were afraid of Mr. Fischer’s exper­tise of the coun­try and he could, in fact, part­ly draw on his old pre-war con­tacts. This was, how­ev­er, not always received well in East Berlin. When Mr. Fis­ch­er and his wife vis­it­ed their old acquain­tance Rajku­mari Amrit Kaur, the first health min­is­ter of inde­pen­dent India, they hap­pened to meet an Amer­i­can jour­nal­ist there who, among oth­ers, quick­ly began ask­ing unpleas­ant ques­tions about the events of 17 June 1953, which he had wit­nessed in Berlin. When Fis­ch­er report­ed on this, the MfAA in Berlin react­ed sharply: 

I would like to remind you that before your depar­ture, col­league Schwab had express­ly indi­cat­ed that old acquain­tances should not be renewed, or only after pri­or examination.”

It was not only the West Ger­man Hall­stein-Doc­trine but also his own supe­ri­ors who put curbs on Her­bert Fischer’s diplo­mat­ic work.

In Sep­tem­ber 1962 Fis­ch­er returned to East Berlin with his fam­i­ly to first attend the Par­ty Acad­e­my of the GDR and to then head the India divi­sion in the head­quar­ters of the MfAA. In August 1965 he was again trans­ferred to India, this time as the head of the Trade Rep­re­sen­ta­tion in New Delhi.

In the mean­time, he had not lost his aura. In Novem­ber 1965, a West Ger­man diplo­mat wrote in a report to the head­quar­ters of the AA in Bonn: “Giv­en Fischer’s spe­cial knowl­edge of the coun­try and his polit­i­cal expe­ri­ence, it will not be easy to find some­one on our side with a sim­i­lar knowl­edge of the coun­try.” In par­tic­u­lar, Fischer’s good rela­tions with the Indi­an prime min­is­ter, Indi­ra Gand­hi, were lat­er empha­sized again and again. These con­nec­tions had arisen from the fact that both had been in Gandhi’s ashram at the same time.

For the par­ty lead­er­ship of the SED (Sozial­is­tis­che Ein­heitspartei Deutsch­lands), how­ev­er, oth­er things were more impor­tant, as can be seen from a report from the end of 1966:

There is a trend in the Rep­re­sen­ta­tion for many com­rades to crit­i­cise the head of the Rep­re­sen­ta­tion, Com­rade Fis­ch­er. They all state that he is an excep­tion­al­ly good diplo­mat who does good work vis-à-vis the Indi­an side. The com­plaint then is that Com­rade Fis­ch­er does not pay enough atten­tion to indi­vid­ual comrades.”

Back in the GDR

Soon after India offi­cial­ly recog­nised the GDR in Octo­ber 1972, a goal that had been achieved through Her­bert Fischer’s ded­i­ca­tion and effort, the MfAA pulled him out of his sec­ond home. In sum­mer 1974, he was appoint­ed head of the anti-racism com­mit­tee of the GDR, which had pure­ly rep­re­sen­ta­tive func­tions. Dis­il­lu­sioned, he gave up this post to work as a men­tor to Indi­an stu­dents in the SED-par­ty acad­e­my until his retirement.

Lat­er too, he remained faith­ful to India and pub­lished books which he pre­sent­ed there. In March 1999, his wife Lucille died after a long ill­ness. In May 2003, the then prime min­is­ter of India, Atal Bihari Vaj­pay­ee, award­ed Her­bert Fis­ch­er the “Pad­ma Bhushan”, the third-high­est civil­ian award in India. Her­bert Fis­ch­er died on 3 Feb­ru­ary, 2006 in Berlin.

Sources

Research­ing a fas­ci­nat­ing biog­ra­phy is a com­par­a­tive­ly reward­ing his­tor­i­cal task. To search for a spe­cif­ic name usu­al­ly turns out to be sig­nif­i­cant­ly eas­i­er than the search for abstract terms and con­texts, which can only be described when a log­i­cal thread has been estab­lished. The chal­lenge is con­sid­er­ably less­er when describ­ing the course of a life, espe­cial­ly when the pro­tag­o­nist has himself/herself left some records of his/her life. And Her­bert Fis­ch­er was not only a Gand­hi­an and an impor­tant GDR-diplo­mat, he was also a pro­lif­ic writer.

Her­bert Fischer’s own pub­li­ca­tions are there­fore the start­ing point for research on him, above all his mem­oirs from his youth and exile in India Unter­wegs zu GANDHI [Berlin, Lotos Ver­lag Roland Beer, 2002] as also his work as a diplo­mat DDR – Indi­en. Ein Diplo­mat berichtet [Berlin (Ost): Staatsver­lag der DDR, 1984]. Both books are an impor­tant foun­da­tion for writ­ing Fischer’s biog­ra­phy, and they can be sup­ple­ment­ed and ver­i­fied by access­ing pri­ma­ry sources. Thus, for exam­ple, in the Polit­i­cal Archive of the Fed­er­al For­eign Office (Poli­tis­ches Archiv des Auswär­ti­gen Amtes / PA AA), in the hold­ing of the For­eign Office of the Ger­man Reich, there is a file with the sig­na­ture R 145638 and the title “Inves­ti­ga­tion of Ger­mans in Ene­my Ter­ri­to­ry – Indi­vid­ual Cas­es – British India – Let­ters FA-FL” (Nach­forschun­gen nach Deutschen in Fein­des­land – Einzelfälle – Brit. Indi­en – Buchst. Fa – Fl) which con­tains a peti­tion from Her­bert Fischer’s father enquir­ing about his son’s whereabouts.

Unex­pect­ed insights about Fischer’s time in Indi­an exile are also avail­able in the Nehru Memo­r­i­al Muse­um and Library’s (NMML) “Oral His­to­ry Inter­view” with Fis­ch­er, in which the Indi­an his­to­ri­an Aparna Basu tried to cap­ture the per­son­al impres­sions of Mahat­ma Gandhi’s fel­low cam­paign­er in 1969. Apart from this, there is also the book by Mar­jorie Sykes An Indi­an Tapes­try: Quak­er Threads in the His­to­ry of India, Pak­istan and Bangladesh from the Sev­en­teenth Cen­tu­ry to Inde­pen­dence [York: Ses­sions Book Trust, 1997] on the role of Quak­er com­mu­ni­ties in colo­nial India which also con­sists of a few pages on Her­bert Fis­ch­er and his wife.

Although Johannes H. Voigt’s Die Indi­en­poli­tik der DDR – von den Anfän­gen bis zur Anerken­nung (1952–1972) [Kӧln/Weimar/Wien: Bӧh­lau Ver­lag, 2008] con­tains some impor­tant infor­ma­tion about Her­bert Fischer’s role as a GDR diplo­mat in New Del­hi, an analy­sis of Fischer’s “sec­ond life” in India is not pos­si­ble with­out exten­sive research in Ger­man archives. These include the PA AA in Berlin and the Fed­er­al Archives (Bun­de­sarchiv /BArch) with its loca­tions in Berlin and Koblenz.

For the peri­od until 1979, the archival hold­ings of the MfAA in the PA AA are organ­ised the­mat­i­cal­ly accord­ing to the prin­ci­ple of per­ti­nence. Cor­re­spon­dence between the head­quar­ters of the MfAA in East Berlin and the GDR Rep­re­sen­ta­tion in New Del­hi, which often con­tains ref­er­ences to Her­bert Fis­ch­er, are found in the PA AA in the hold­ing “M1 – Zen­tralarchiv”. In addi­tion, the assess­ments of the “oppos­ing side” are also infor­ma­tive. The West Ger­man AA organ­ised its archival doc­u­ments from the begin­ning accord­ing to the prin­ci­ple of prove­nance. The files of the coun­try desk “IB 5 South and East Asia, Aus­tralia, New Zealand and Ocea­nia” are in the inven­to­ry B 37 but have not yet been ful­ly cat­a­logued by the PA AA. Thus, archival doc­u­ments for the peri­od since 1973 are, at present, in a tem­po­rary archive. More­over, rel­e­vant files from the FRG embassy in New Del­hi are in the hold­ing AV Neues Amt under the abbre­vi­a­tion NEWD.

In the Fed­er­al Archives (BArch) the SED-reports on Her­bert Fischer’s work for the Par­ty in New Del­hi in the hold­ing DY 30 are reveal­ing, and for Fischer’s role in the GDR after he was recalled from his post as ambas­sador to India the pri­vate col­lec­tions of his friend and col­league Siegfried For­berg­er in the inven­to­ry N 2536/13 are infor­ma­tive. For­berg­er not only pub­lished his own mem­oirs: Das DDR-Komi­tee für Men­schen­rechte: Erin­nerun­gen an den Sozial­is­mus-Ver­such im 20. Jahrhun­dert; Ein­sicht­en und Irrtümer des Siegfried For­berg­er, Sekretär des DDR-Komi­tees für Men­schen­rechte von 1959 bis 1989 [Berlin: Selb­stver­lag, 2000/2007], but he also remained in con­tact with Her­bert Fis­ch­er until Fischer’s death. Forberger’s col­lec­tions include sev­er­al let­ters and post­cards that Fis­ch­er and he wrote to each oth­er even after the turn of the mil­len­ni­um, as well as Her­bert Fischer’s obit­u­ary of 2006. This obit­u­ary lists the names of his fam­i­ly mem­bers as well as the most impor­tant mile­stones of his biog­ra­phy. So far, there are no Her­bert Fis­ch­er col­lec­tions in the archive.

Bibliography

Fis­ch­er, Her­bert, Unter­wegs zu GANDHI. Berlin: Lotos Ver­lag Roland Beer, 2002.

——–, DDR – Indi­en. Ein Diplo­mat berichtet. Berlin (Ost): Staatsver­lag der DDR, 1984.

For­berg­er, Siegfried, Das DDR-Komi­tee für Men­schen­rechte: Erin­nerun­gen an den Sozial­is­mus-Ver­such im 20. Jahrhun­dert; Ein­sicht­en und Irrtümer des Siegfried For­berg­er, Sekretär des DDR-Komi­tees für Men­schen­rechte von 1959 bis 1989. Berlin: Selb­stver­lag, 2000/2007.

Sykes, Mar­jorie, An Indi­an Tapes­try: Quak­er Threads in the His­to­ry of India, Pak­istan & Bangladesh from the Sev­en­teenth Cen­tu­ry to Inde­pen­dence. York: Ses­sions Book Trust, 1997.

Voigt, Johannes H., Die Indi­en­poli­tik der DDR – von den Anfän­gen bis zur Anerken­nung (1952–1972). Köln/Weimar/Wien: Böh­lau Ver­lag, 2008.

Alexan­der Benatar, Evan­ge­lis­che Zen­tral­stelle für Weltan­schau­ungs­fra­gen (EZW)

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