Long before he became a face of the German government, David A. Murdoch was a traveling student when he watched workers raise the Berlin Wall in 1961. He was visiting again as the wall crumbled in 1989.
For Murdoch, who became an honorary German consul and bankruptcy attorney in Pittsburgh, the historic moments turned personal, said his wife, Joan.
“He was so happy. He didn’t like to see people divided by walls and misunderstanding of each other,” Murdoch said. She called cross-cultural understanding “one of the main goals of everything he did.”
Murdoch died Tuesday of pancreatic cancer at his family’s home in Aleppo, Pennsylvania. He was 73.
Born in Braddock, Pennsylvania, he grew up in Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania, and graduated from high school there in 1960. He had earned bachelor’s and law degrees from Harvard University by 1967, working a variety of jobs to make ends meet, according to his family.
The Vietnam War-era military draft soon landed him back in Germany, where he spent time as a Harvard student in the Experiment in International Living program, Joan Murdoch recalled. His three years in the Medical Service Corps deepened his ties to the country, where he found a profound connection to German history, culture and people, friends said.
“It was some of those initial experiences he had with Germany that made him realize there was a world out there,” said Steven Sokol, president at the American Council on Germany in New York City.
Sokol worked with Murdoch in New York and at the World Affairs Council of Pittsburgh, where Murdoch was chairman emeritus.
After his Army service, Murdoch returned to southwestern Pennsylvania with a job at a predecessor firm of K&L Gates. He was a K&L equity partner for 33 years and took “of counsel” status in 2012, but he did not officially retire, Joan Murdoch said.
For just more than a decade, David Murdoch also held his unpaid role as honorary consul, assisting German citizens in the area with passport applications and other official documents, said Paul Overby, who took over from Murdoch as the local consul in 2013.
The voluntary job involves greeting German government and business delegations and acting as an unofficial German spokesman in the region, too, Overby said. German-Americans in the region recommended Murdoch for the position.
“David was very much a global citizen. He understood the importance of international understanding,” Overby said. “I think he became a very strong advocate for something that had been important in his own life and that he saw as critical in today’s world.”
Associates credited Murdoch for his contributions to the World Affairs Council, where he helped spark an international travel program for local students. His nonprofit leadership roles included a chairmanship at Washington, D.C.-based World Learning Inc.
“He believed firmly that having a strong, inquisitive nature just made you a better person,” Sokol said.
He said Murdoch felt that experiences abroad “made people a little tougher, a little more resilient and certainly helped in giving them a little more empathy” for local and global challenges.
In addition to his wife, Murdoch is survived by two daughters, Christina Murdoch of Chicago and Deborah Murdoch of Pittsburgh; a son, Timothy Murdoch of Aleppo; and two grandsons.
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