George Clare (1) (1920–2009)

George Peter Clare, né Georg Klaar, was born to a wealthy and cultured Jewish family in Vienna, Austria. His parents were Ernst Klaar, a banker, and his wife Stella Ernestyne Klaar. After Nazi Germany's Anschluss (annexation) of Austria, his father obtained visas to move the family to Ireland; but later decided to take a position at the French branch of the bank instead. Both Clare's parents died at the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz. George Clare escaped to Ireland and anglicized his name. He became an officer in the British Army during World War II and worked after the war for the British Control Commission in Berlin on de-nazification efforts in Germany. He worked as a journalist and news editor for many years, and eventually helped set up and run the successful Springer Foreign News Service. He wrote three volumes of autobiography/memoirs, Last Waltz in Vienna: The Rise and Destruction of a Family, 1842-1942 (1981), which won the W.H. Smith Literary Award; Berlin Days, 1946-1947 (1989); and Before the Wall: Berlin Days, 1946-1948 (1990). He was married to Lisl Beck, his childhood sweetheart, with whom he had three children, from 1939 to 1965. He retired from business in 1984 and moved to a cottage in Suffolk, England with his second wife, Christel Vorbringer.