Sandra Myers
A Man For All Seasons: Claus Moser, My Hero

Sandra Myers | A Man For All Seasons: Claus Moser, My Hero

- Good afternoon everybody. It’s Sandra Myers here, as I’m sure most of you know, and I’m going to be speaking to you today about Claus Moser. He became Sir Claus Moser, and then Lord Moser. Claus Adolf Moser was a refugee from Nazi Germany, and he went on to become one of the towering figures in Britain’s cultural and public life. He was forever indebted to Great Britain, forgiving him and his family refuge, and he just about spent his whole life, his business career, his academic career, repaying Britain for the privilege as he saw it, of living here. He was born in Berlin in 1922, and he died in 2015 in Switzerland while on holiday. Claus, as everybody called him. You can see from this photograph had the most congenial smile. He had brown eyes, he had laughing eyes, and it truly was a privilege to have known him and his wife, Mary, and the family. He was, in turn, he was a statistician, he was an academic, he was a banker. Although by his own admission, not a very good one, he became chairman of the Royal Opera House. He became a member of the House of Lords, but over and above everything, his first love was music, which he channeled in every direction. So, Hannah, could we have the first clip, please? I would like you to hear Claus’s voice, and bear in mind that he came to the UK as a refugee age 13 from Germany. Thank you, Hannah.

• [Claus] Why the family?

• [Sue] But then of course, the shadow of Nazism fell across this very happy and cultured household as you describe.

• [Claus] Yes, that is remarkably clear in my mind. The torchlight procession, the 30th of January, 1933, and Hitler came to power.

• [Sue] You were 11 years old at the time.

• [Claus] Yes, I was 11. I can see myself standing at the window and watching it. Of course, I can’t honestly pretend with my memory at any rate that the years when we remained in Germany, 33 to 36, that they were miserable years for me. I can’t say.

• Thank you,

• [Claus] Except every morning going to school. There were 30 boys, I think roughly in my class, and two of us were Jews. And the teacher came and said, “Hail Hitler.” All the boys stood up and said, “Hail Hitler” with a Hitler sign. And the two Jewish boys were not, me and the other one were not allowed to stand up. Now, of course, we didn’t want to stand up and say “Hail Hitler”, but it was a daily humiliation, and then one had fights in the breaks between us.

• [Sue] But how much did you understand, you must…

• Thank you. Now you’ve got a feeling of what Claus sounded like, anything but a German refugee. He spoke impeccable English, as you obviously heard, basically because when he lived in Germany, he had an English nanny. And when the family came here, he already spoke English. His father was Dr. Ernest Moser. He was the owner of a private bank, which bore his name, and he was very successful. And his mother was a lady named Lot Ne Goldberg, who was a pianist. And Claus tells the story that music was totally part of his life as a child, as a 5-year-old, his parents used to take him to concerts, but never let him hear the whole concert. They used to leave at halftime, so he was always left wanting more. He started to play the piano when he was five years old, and he continued right through to old age. And to my ear, he was as good as a concert pianist, but obviously in his own eyes he was anything but. We heard him play several times, and I will come on to tell you a little bit about that. His father had already identified in 1929 that Germany would not be a good place for Jews, but didn’t leave actually until 1936, when Claus was already 13, because his mother, Claus’s grandmother, was very sick and couldn’t travel. But in actually, by 1936, she passed away. So the camp family came to Britain. Claus did say that he thinks that they probably wanted to go to the United States, as did a lot of families, but he was very glad that they settled in Britain. His father was able to bring a fair amount of money with him because it was quite early.

They got out quite easily. There was no restrictions. And his father also brought his Stein piano with him, which he kept all of his life. When they arrived in England, Claus was sent to school here with his brother. He had an older brother. He went to French and Heights boarding school, which was in Farham, Surrey, where it was a co-ed boarding school with a large emphasis on music and he was very, very happy there. Unfortunately, by 1940, enemy aliens, as they were perceived by the British government, were interned. He and his family were interned in Huyton in the hiking camp in Liverpool. For three days before they went to the camp, they actually slept on the Lingfield race course, and he said he’d never been to a race course before, so it was quite an adventure. But obviously he was a young boy. Claus himself was released after four months as he was underage. He was still only 17 at the time, and he finished his schooling. And then after that, after the end of schooling, he actually went to the LSE, took a course at LSE, did very well. And then in 1943 after he’d finished his degree at LSE, he actually joined the RAF. His tutor had suggested that he volunteer for the RAF because it would be to his advantage when he applied for naturalization. He was naturalized in 1946. But anyway, Claus wanted to join the RAF, and he wanted to fly, but they wouldn’t let him fly on the basis that if he was shot down over enemy territory, over German territory, his German roots would be problematic for him.

So he actually finished up cleaning the planes. He was what he described as being a grease monkey, which he actually enjoyed in the end because he mixed with people that he had never mixed with before. He came from a very wealthy family in Germany, as you could imagine. His father was a successful merchant banker and they were cultured, and his life revolved around music and culture. And he actually said that he came from the land of culture to the land of the Philistines. When he got here, he was quite shocked. But his experiences in the RAF, not, he didn’t say humbled him, but gave him more of a perspective on dealing with people that he wouldn’t have normally dealt with, which he said came in in normalcy useful during his subsequent career. After he finished in the RAF at 1946, he managed to get himself de mobbed early because he’d been offered a slot at LSE as a lecturer. He became an assistant lecturer in statistics. Now, he wasn’t a mathematician, by his own admission he was nowhere near a mathematician, but he had learn statistics merely by being in the Huyton detention camp. And he said, you know, if you get 4,000, 5,000, I think there were Jewish people in the camp, they’ll always find something to do. And what he did was he assisted a lot of the academics there because they were all different sorts, obviously different classes of people, but most of them were academics in counting the residents or the internees and what they did and how they did it, et cetera, et cetera. He also tells the story that the guards, of course, didn’t know who they were, they just took them as being enemy aliens.

But the detention camp had all the facilities of normal life. They had a bank, and he said he can’t imagine what they did with the bank because there was no money there. They had a Viennese cafe, with cakes and Viennese coffee, which he had no idea where it came from. And he took that as being a wonderful experience as part of his life. He stayed at the LSE from 1946 to 1955, and by 1955, he became a reader in social statistics. And then in 1961, he became a professor there. He left the LSE in 1967, and from 19, but previously from 1961, he was invited to join the Robbins Committee. And I dunno if anybody listens, would remember the days of Harold Wilson and the Robins Committee. Lionel Robbins at that time was a professor of economics at LSE, and the whole concept of this committee was to inquire into the future of education in the United Kingdom, which probably is quite, would be quite relevant now as well. And what they did was, they took surveys on how likely the demand for higher education was going to be in the future, how could enough good quality teachers be provided, and how should it be financed? And also, they surveyed all students over 21, whether they were in higher education or not, to find out their career paths. So where are we at? Okay, could we have the photograph with Harold Wilson, please? Okay, so for the British people, you might remember our Prime Minister Harold Wilson with his traditional pipe. That’s the photograph of Claus with him. In 1967, Claus was appointed director of the Central Statistical office for the government, which was quite ironic because he had applied previously for a position there, but was turned down as being an enemy alien. Now of course, being the director, he was at the top straightaway, which was quite an interesting, quite an interesting venture for him.

He stayed, he stayed there until 1978. In 1973, he was knighted by Harold Wilson in the New Year’s Honors List. And in 1974, not long after, he became Chairman of the Royal Opera House. Lord Droider, who had been chairman previously, he followed Lord Droider. Lord Drogheda, excuse me, was a very hard act to follow and Claus took enormous pride in that role. This was his ideal world. He loved music, he loved the interaction of the people there. He was very much involved in the programs and the finances, et cetera, et cetera. But he spent a lot of time getting to know the staff, getting to know their concerns. And I said, financially things were very hard then obviously, there was a constant reduction of state subsidy, and that was eroded by inflation. If anyone remembers 1973 was very much, 74 was very much the time when we went decimal and things changed dramatically overnight here in England, this is to say. The grant to the Royal Opera House was actually that a third of that given to the Garnet in Paris, a fifth of the grant given to Lascala in Italy, or the stats, the Stats Opera in Vienna. He found great difficulty balancing the books, the board meetings, debated wages, even one and a half percent increase for the staff. But he kept going and he succeeded.

And after his tenure, it transpired that the Royal Opera House tickets in the 15 years of his tenure had failed to keep pace with the cost of a bottle of milk, a pint of beer, or a loaf of bread, or a packet of cigarettes. And that was all down to Claus’s belief that the best should be available to everybody, and it shouldn’t be elitist. I don’t know if anyone still goes to the opera now, but the prices are phenomenally expensive. So I don’t quite know how people manage now. He chose Colin Davis as music director and rejoiced in landing Bernard Hintink as the conductor. And he was very, very proud of his tenure there. Now, as I said in the beginning, his life took so many different stages. He had so many different roles. During his tenure at the Royal Opera House, he had, he celebrated his 60th birthday. Could we go onto the next photograph, Hannah, please? Right, no, no, the next one after that. Sorry, not that one. I’m on the wrong one. Next, next, another one. Another one. No, next one. This is my fault, I apologize. Next one. Okay, this is a photograph of a gentleman by the name of Louise Kentner. He was a Hungarian Jewish refugee, settled in the UK, and he was a concert pianist. He specialized, Bartok was his specialty, now for Claus’s 60th birthday and we were there, we were highly, my husband and I were there, we were highly honored to be part of it. He put two grand pianos in the crush bar of the old Opera house, if anyone remembers before it was renovated with the Floral Hall. And he played a duet with Louis Kentner. And he tells the story, Kentner was his maestro, taught him to play piano or improved his technique. And Kentner kept on saying to him, “Claus, I can’t understand why you keep playing the wrong note when the right one is just next door.” And Claus took all this on board and he was perfectly, totally in his element, in that part. So Kentner, in actual fact, his second wife was actually the sister of Yehudi Manuen’s wife.

So it was all very part of the same, the same group of people, very much these German Jewish or European Jewish refugees, I shouldn’t say German, because Kentner was actually Hungarian. He was a great pianist. I mean, if anyone has the opportunity to listen to any of his recordings, they were really quite something going back. Can we go back a little bit? I’m sorry. Back one more, back one more. Okay, this is a photograph of Claus with Princess Margaret, and they were some sort of masked ball. But why I’m showing Princess Margaret, who was the sister of our late queen, Elizabeth II. Claus was a great party man. And you can imagine, as I said, his 60th birthday. He celebrated giving this wonderful concert recording in the Opera House with Kentner and reception afterwards. But what he actually did, Claus some years later, was when Margot Fontey, the great ballerina, was nearing the end of her life. She’d spent most of her life and all of her money caring for her husband, Roberto Arias, who was shot and paralyzed. He was a paraplegic. He spent, she spent most of her life looking after him. And when she became sick, she had ovarian cancer. She had absolutely no money. And Claus organized a fundraising evening in her honor at the Royal Opera House with Noreiv, who was still alive, and who was a great partner of Margot Fonteyn, and Placido Domingo and Michael Soms, who was also one of her great dancing partners. She danced until she was 69, really, because she needed the money more than anything else to support her husband.

But he put on this wonderful, wonderful gala evening, there were 2000 people there, and she was there herself. She was very, very sick. But she wore the most beautiful beaded encrusted, Balenciaga dress with short sleeve. That must have weighed 10 times more than she did, because she was like a little bird. They raised a course of a million pounds, which in the 1990s was a lot of money, obviously. But sadly, she passed away about six months later. But he was very proactive, Claus, you know, anything that he saw that needed doing, he did. He did that. So he was knighted, as I said, in Harold Wilson’s government. And then he was given a period later on, we can have the next, one of the other photographs, sorry. He was given a period, subsequently, this is a photograph as he got a little bit older. When he, or while he was at the Royal Opera House actually, he left the Royal Upper House as chairman in 1987. But in 1978, he actually joined NM Rothchild as a Vice Chairman. And it was rather lovely because my husband, Bernie, if anybody listens, knows him, actually was a student of Claus’s at the LSE when he did stats, going back all those years ago. And of course, when Claus became the Vice Chairman of Rothschild, my husband was there as well, and he reconnected with him. And Claus was really a man for all seasons. He could turn his hand at virtually anything, but he wasn’t a very good merchant banker. But the one thing that he did do was he managed to persuade the president of Singapore to nominate Rothschild as their representatives for a trial period of six months. He actually went out to Singapore himself to speak to him, and he managed to do that. But he was a great asset to the bank.

He was a total people person. Everybody called him Claus. He had, he didn’t stand on ceremony with anybody, but he was so totally, totally congenial. And you can see he’s got wonderful sparkling, sparkling eyes. In 1992, when it was his 70th birthday, he put on another concert at the Ashmolian Library in Oxford. Now, he was up there at Oxford at this time as Warden of Wadham. This was a concert where he played, and in fact, one of his, the members of his group was actually Rafael Wallfisch. And if any of you know, Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, Rafael is her son who plays the cello. Claus gave the most beautiful, beautiful presentation, wonderful piano concert there at the time. And again, a wonderful party in the Great Hall at Wadham. He had a super wife married, he married her in 1949. He had three children, two daughters and a son. And his son actually entertained us all as hurdy-gurdy man. Now, I don’t know if you all know what a hurdy-gurdy man was or is. It was a musician dressed as a jester who had every musician, every musical instrument on him, cymbals between his knees, an accordion in his hand, drum on his back, and mouth organ somewhere. And he played for us all, which was enormous, enormous fun. Going back to Claus’s parents, his father never particularly adapted to life in England. And that was one of Claus’s regrets because his father was only 52 when he came here. But he never could work again. He couldn’t adapt to the life here. And Claus actually says that there were, although this didn’t, wasn’t his father, there were many suicides in the Huyton camp. People just couldn’t deal with it. And obviously once they realized that, the authorities realized that the people were Jewish, they were released. I want to go on please, Hannah, to the next, not this clip, the next audio clip, please. That’s one, thank you. Okay, you can see this was Claus Moser. He was interviewed by Sue Lawley in 1988 on “Desert Island Discs.” If anyone would like to hear the whole presentation, you can get it either on the BBC channel or actually on YouTube. It’s very good.

• [Sue] Gardner, you’ve been here in Britain now for more than 50 years, as we’ve said. Do you feel yourself to be British or are you in your heart still German?

• No, not German. I am British as we like to say, but deep down, I still regard myself as not totally English. I’m not after all, I’m not saying anything very significant in saying that, I’m partly foreign, and I’m not neither proud of it, nor ashamed of it. I mean, I’m a European, above all, I’m a Jew. I don’t regard myself now as a refugee. I don’t regard myself as without roots. I don’t regard myself as insecure. If I said any of those things, it would be false. I think the fact though is, that when I became head of a major government department, the Central Statistical Office within a Top Security office, the Cabinet office, I was rather proud to be so appointed. And part of my pride was that this happened to somebody who hadn’t come up the straight, not exactly eaten Oxford route, but you know what I mean? And I must confess that when I was knighted, again that gave me an extra little bit of pleasure.

• It just lovely to hear. This is a photograph of Claus in later years. It just, I can’t even sort of begin to tell you what an amazing man he was. When I said he was a man for all seasons. He adapted to any role that he was put in and in his time, in his career, when he retired from Wadham, he actually went on to become a vice chancellor of the University of Oxford. He became deputy chairman, he became chairman, sorry, of the British Museum Development Trust from 1993 to 2003. And then he became the Chairman Emeritus. He came the chancellor of the Open University of Israel. He didn’t even ever sit on his laurels. And right through to old age, he was active, he was engaging, he was interested in people, he was interested in his students. He appreciated everything that life here in England could give him. And if anybody is interested in reading more about him, you can pick it up on some of the obituaries t that he was given. Jeremy Isaacs on Claus’s 50th wedding anniversary. Can we go to the photograph with his wife, please? That’s the photograph of Mary Oxlin. As I said, Claus passed away age 92 in Switzerland in 2015. Mary died in 2022, she was a hundred, and they were just a wonderful couple together. He was just lovely with her. And they had a 50th wedding anniversary. They were married in 1949, they had a 50th wedding anniversary at the Opera House in the new Floral Halls that they dedicated. And Jeremy Isaacs, who was then director of the Opera House, actually made the speech to Claus and Mary. And it was just so wonderful to hear how people spoke about him, because he never lost his humility. As you heard, he said he was incredibly proud of being knighted and of course, and then being made… He had the name of Lord Moser of Regents Park in the borough of Camden. He lived in Regents Park.

He had a home in the country, which he went to frequently. He also had a home in Switzerland. So although by his standards, they weren’t, he said they weren’t wealthy, not as the family had been in Germany. He certainly was not poor. But he never, I don’t quite how to say it. Never used his position or anything to put anybody down. He just had the most wonderful, congenial, grateful, for everyone who took interest in him or took interest in everything that he did. He also became chancellor of Keel University. He was a trustee of the London Philharmonica Orchestra. He was president of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. He was a visiting fellow of Nuffield College. He was, as I said, he was vice chair of NM Rothschild. He was president of the Royal Statistical Society. He was chairman of the Economic Intelligence Unit and also for a while of the Economist, he was Warden of Wadham, as I mentioned to you. And probably a dozen other offices that he held. He never, ever stopped. And as I said, his entire career was more or less giving back to Britain as a thank you for the life and the refuge that it gave to him and his family. So I hope you’ve enjoyed this presentation. If anybody has any questions or comments, I’d be happy to take them. Thank you, Hannah, for your help. Hello, anybody there?

Q&A and Comments:

• [Hannah] So there are, do you know how to open the Q&A?

• Q&A, yep.

• Yeah. If you need any assistance, just let me know.

• Marian, I don’t know if he was related to Herzl Moza. I honestly couldn’t tell you. They immigrated from Germany. I truly, I actually don’t know.

Michael, no, it’s not, it wasn’t LSD, it was LSE. I’m so sorry. It was the London School of Economics, Michael, which was the place for statistics. I don’t know if it still is. I presume it’s still pretty well regarded in that direction. But during the war, it certainly was, and Claus actually came away with a first class degree. And given of course that English was not his mother tongue, he coped very well. But as I said, he had an English nanny in Berlin. So he already came to this country speaking English.

Q: You asked as well, did he do much for the Jewish community and Israel?

A: He was very active. He became chair of the Open University in Israel and he did work for Jewish charities. But I actually couldn’t tell you which ones he worked for.

Myrna, you were fortunate to be one of his students at LSE many years ago. Met him at Guleborn. Oh, that’s so nice, you can confirm what I said. That’s very lovely. I’m pleased. I don’t know anybody who had ever come across Claus who didn’t actually was captivated by him in a moment.

Oh, thank you. On my father was intern at Huyton and told stories of Howard Jeffries worked to gain the system. I met Joan in Israel. Yes, there are very cheap seats to the royal house, sides of the sides of the . Thank you very much, yes.

Q: Okay, Shelly, you’ve asked, maybe it’s because I’m an American, but I don’t understand how central European Jewish refugees would be detained by Britain as enemy aliens. After all, if they stay in their home countries living under Hitler, they’re persecuted or dead. Was this just British antisemitism?

A: That’s a very good question. Would I say it wasn’t British antisemitism? That I couldn’t say because I wasn’t there and didn’t know. But the general consensus at the time was, that amongst the German Jewish emigres that came, there were German spies and it was a bit like not quite throwing out the baby with the bath water, but the concept the other way around to that. They interned them all to route out any of those that might have been spies. So I get your point that locking them up in a detention camp was probably, you know, not the right thing to do. But they accepted that this was British government policy because they knew that there were spies in the camp, so to speak. But it was very hard to find out exactly who they were.

Okay, Nitza, I met Claus with mutual friends, Dolph and Talia Pollack. Dolph was a wonderful violist. They played together in some of their musical parties near Portsmouth, lovely. I seem to remember he performed with his family and they all played music.

Alan, yes, they were all musical. And in fact, Claus says quite emphatically that even as a small child, his parents in their home in Berlin had musicians in regularly. And he also says that it wasn’t unusual. Every family in Germany at that time had music lessons. All the children played musical instruments, whether they were good or bad or not. They all played musical instruments. And his family constantly had musicians in, not just friends who were playing, but well-known musicians to play. I mean, his father was a very important man in Berlin. He was a very successful merchant banker, as I’ve said. So they were very affluent and they lived in a part of Berlin that was a sort of equivalent to the mall here in London, if you know where it is, like right in the center of town.

Q: Did Claus Moser wrote, write?

A: No, he didn’t. Betty, he didn’t write an autobiography. Not as far, I think he wrote a textbook on statistics if you are interested in that. But I think it was very dry.

Esther, thank you for your comments. Claus was one of, I won’t say an unsung hero because he was quite recognized, but there was so many of these German Jewish refugees that gave so much to English life, to British life. And I’m sure every life in the countries in which they settled, that is not unsung because he was well recognized. That hasn’t been sort of highly publicized. And he became, as you heard him say, he didn’t feel totally British because he was European, but he was very much part of British society and very much accepted as part of the society. Fostina, you work for Claus when he was at the British Museum and he was the best boss ever. I adored and respected him, he was divine.

Thank you Fostina. Michael, thank you for such an interesting talk, Stefan Michael, hi guys.

Okay, love the bits on the Royal Opera House about current ticket prices. Yes, they are a little bit.

Q: Was his family connected to the renowned Moser glass company in the Czech Republic?

A: Nemi, I honestly don’t know. He doesn’t talk a lot about his family, although he did say he had a large extended family, but he doesn’t talk a lot. Claus continue playing, have music tutors lately.

He worked with Imogen Cooper. Yes he did, Francois, he did indeed. He worked with her. But he really, as I say, he spent his whole life repaying a debt as he saw it to British society for having given him and his family refuge here when they needed it.

So thank you everybody for your attention. I hope you enjoyed it. And we love Claus. And I’ll tell you one, just one more little story on the evening that he gave for Margot Fonteyn as the benefit evening, one of the very known, very well known opera singers was there. And I was desperate, desperate to meet this man. And I won’t tell you who it was, ‘cause it’s a little bit indiscreet. And I said to Claus, “Please introduce me.” And he said, “My dear Sandra”, he said, “He has enough nieces already, he doesn’t need anymore.” I’ll leave you with that thought. So thank you everybody. Have a good week. And thank you so much for your attention, bye.

• [Hannah] Thank you so much, be well.

• [Sandra] Thank you.