Dr. Klaus Schlichtmann was born in Hamburg, Germany in 1944, before the end of World War II. As a teenager he developed an interest in philosophy, Asian culture, Buddhism, the arts, politics and peace. He left Germany at the age of 18 and soon after started his Yatra to India, travelling overland through Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Iran and Pakistan. From 1962 to 1964 he taught German at the Sanskrit University in Benares. In 1976, after several more years of private research in India, he returned to Germany, and a few years later enrolled in Kiel University to study Asian History, International Law and Political Science. In 1992 he obtained a scholarship to go to Japan to work on his doctoral dissertation about the Japanese diplomat and post-World War II Prime Minister Kijuro Shidehara (1872-1951) who is credited with having suggested the war-renouncing Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution to General Douglas MacArthur in January 1946. He has published books and numerous articles in German, English and Japanese. Dr. Schlichtmann has two sons and a daughter.