Klaus Schlichtmann interviewed in New Delhi April 3rd 2012. Klaus was an early adopter of Buddhism, deciding at the age of sixteen to leave Germany & head East, which he did eventually when he was eighteen, in 1962. In 1964 he arrived at the Sanskrit University Banaras &, remarkably, obtained the post of Lecturer in German, at the age of twenty.
Here he talks about what it was like in Banaras in the early 1960s; later he made a kayak of his own construction and rode it from Banaras to Dhaka, then Calcutta to Puri. Marriage, children, study in Germany & now twenty years teaching Peace Studies (and German) and learning Buddhism & Japanese in Japan, Dr Klaus Schlichtmann is a true renaissance man. His overriding interests these days are his two year old daughter Irena & the development of World Peace & World Federation.
Listen to his interview now.
Publications:
Japan in the World: Shidehara Kijuro, Pacifism, and the Abolition of War. (by Klaus Schlichtmann, Asiaworld, [2 vols.], April 2009) Amazon.com
Article Nine in Context “… limitations of National Sovereignty and the Abolition of War in Constitutional Law.” (by Klaus Schlichtmann).
Peace Studies lectures in peace (Movement for UN Reform [UNFOR]).
Photos:
Irena & Klaus (Facebook – login required). Klaus with his young daughter, February 2012.
Klaus in Banaras 1965 “In Banaras on the river Ganges at one of the ghats.”
Buku & Klaus in Banaras 1965 “At the Bauddh Kaksh, Sanskrit University.”
Tashijong – ‘Cosynook’ 1976 “I think this picture of Peter Cooper, Ngawang Tendup, the English Lama, is in front of “Cosynook” near Tashijong.”
Rutherford, Zimels, Abrams “in Klaus Schlichtmann’s room at the Bauddh Kaksh, Banaras, 1965.”
Links:
Japan in the World: (online) read Klaus’ book on Shidehara Kijuro online at Google Books.
Historian seeks clear U.N. mandate for peace (The Japan Times 15 March 2003) “German-born Klaus Schlichtmann is a peace historian. An academic who found his way late in life — a “seeker” in every sense of the word.”
World Peace Movement for the Abolition of War.
World Federation World Government (Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy).
The three of us had been trekking for 6 days from the Chinese road where we had been hauled in a elaborately painted truck featuring mostly strangely endowed women in what might pass for 1930′s bathing suits surrounded by lotuses and dhorjis. On the trail we were not roughing it, in addition to seven Sherpa porters, a cook and a guide, Nema Chorta, who spoke a sort of English and who assured us daily that, “we are not afraid”.
I did have the opportunity in 1974 to hear His Holiness the Dalai Lama, when he spoke to a small audience at the TROEPEN MUSEUM in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. His talk was ecumenical and to me much like a visit with a friend, needless to say, I was very impressed. A year later after returning to New York City thanks to my friend Loren, I followed his suggestion to take refuge as a Buddhist from a Tibetan lama named Kalu Rinpoche. 
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