Robert Rothschild

Baron Robert Rothschild (16 December 1911, in Brussels – 3 December 1998, in London) was a Belgian diplomat. He helped to draft the Treaty of Rome of 1957, the foundation of the European Economic Community (EEC) in 1958.

His father, a businessman of German-Jewish descent, descended from Moses Amschel Bauer, of Frankfurt am Main, whose son Mayer Amschel Rothschild, together with his five sons, founded the Rothschild banking dynasty. Robert decided to become a diplomat. Luckily his father was a friend of Paul Spaak, whose son Paul-Henri Spaak became foreign minister of Belgium in 1936. Robert passed the diplomatic service examination in 1936 and joined the private office of Paul-Henri Spaak in April 1937.

As an officer in the Belgian army reserve on the outbreak of World War II, Robert Rothschild returned to his regiment and his brother Marcel started his service at the Brigade Piron. In May 1940, he was captured by the Germans and sent to Colditz Castle as a Prisoner of war (POW). In 1941 he was sent back to Brussels and released. With the help of underground organisations and the Special Operations Executive (SOE) he escaped to Vichy France. He obtained an exit visa from a pro-Belgian French official and travelled to neutral Spain. He made his way to London to join the Belgian government in exile of Hubert Pierlot, which posted him to the diplomatic legation in Lisbon (Portugal). Lisbon was crawling with spies, all of whom knew one another's identity. They lunched at the same restaurants, peering at one another over their menus.

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