Otto Pick - WW II veteran, political scientist and former diplomat - has died at the age of 91, foreign minister reveals

Acclaimed political scientist, former diplomat and head of the Czechoslovak section of Radio Free Europe in Munich in the 1980s Otto Pick died on Sunday at the age of 91. The news was revealed on Monday evening by the Foreign Minister Lubomír Zaorálek. The minister paid tribute to Mr Pick, calling him “the wise man of Czech Foreign affairs”. During WW II, Mr Pick, who was Jewish and had been one of the Winton children (saved by Nicholas Winton on transport trains to Great Britain), completed his high school education in Great Britain and studied at Oxford University before he joined the Czechoslovak Army. As a soldier he took part in the Normandy landings on D-Day in 1944. After the Velvet Revolution, Mr Pick headed Prague’s Institute of International Relations and served as first deputy foreign minister,with a focus on the Czech Republic joining NATO.