In Memoriam: Dietrich ‘Dieter’ Fischer (22 Sep 1941 – 18 Oct 2015)
TRANSCEND News, 28 Oct 2019
Prof. Johan Galtung | Founder – TRANSCEND Network of Peace Practitioners
Dear friends, Members of TRANSCEND,
With sadness but with beautiful memories, we bid farewell to our dear friend, co-founder of TRANSCEND in 1993 with myself and Fumiko Nishimura. Dieter left us after a short hospital stay in coma, basically due to his diabetes for many years.
Very competent in mathematics, modeling and economics he was for many years a professor in New York, till early retirement and full dedication to TRANSCEND, first from Basel, in Switzerland, then in Germany; particularly responsible for TRANSCEND University Press and as board member for TRANSCEND as a whole.
He was deeply committed to peace and expressed very often his happiness at working for peace rather than for the economic growth built into economics. But he also found a very important in-between field of specialization: the economics of disarmament. His basic work, however, was on Karl Menger and strength as being strong in oneself, not in the sense of over others. He applied this to military power, contrasting the Swiss strategy from 1971 of very high defensive strength with neither intent nor capability to attack others, nor as reaction to attack. Swiss history goes far to illustrate the validity of this thesis.
Dear, dear Dieter–you are deeply missed. But my mind turns from sadness to gratitude to you for our wonderful friendship–40 good years of cooperation with no quarrel! You often referred to yourself as phlegmatic, unperturbed by the ups and downs of reality–including our little TRANSCEND part of it–taking problems as they came, having the long term perspective, as we gained in experience. Countless were the dialogues between us, mutual questioning and learning, never debates to prove oneself right.
Let us celebrate your life while deploring that you are no longer among us, in deep gratitude for all you did to inspire and help–and for peace in general.
See Online Memorial by Dieter’s Family & Friends
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Dietrich Fischer (1941-2015) from Münsingen, Switzerland, got a Licentiate in Mathematics from the University of Bern 1968 and his Ph.D. in Computer Science from New York University 1976. Fischer was a MacArthur Fellow in International Peace and Security at Princeton University 1986-88, has taught mathematics, computer science, economics and peace studies at various universities, and been a consultant to the United Nations. He was co-founder, with Johan Galtung, of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace, Development and Environment in 1993.
Johan Galtung, a professor of peace studies, dr hc mult, is founder of TRANSCEND International and rector of TRANSCEND Peace University. He was awarded among others the 1987 Right Livelihood Award, known as the Alternative Nobel Peace Prize. Galtung has mediated in over 150 conflicts in more than 150 countries, and written more than 170 books on peace and related issues, 96 as the sole author. More than 40 have been translated to other languages, including 50 Years-100 Peace and Conflict Perspectives published by TRANSCEND University Press. His book, Transcend and Transform, was translated to 25 languages. He has published more than 1700 articles and book chapters and over 500 Editorials for TRANSCEND Media Service. More information about Prof. Galtung and all of his publications can be found at transcend.org/galtung.
Tags: Obituary
This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 28 Oct 2019.
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