Anthony Charles Albrecht, Sr., age 94, of Bethesda, Maryland, died on March 15th, 2025, after a brief illness.
He will be remembered as a wise and loving husband, father, grandfather and a skilled diplomat and foreign affairs consultant.
Anthony was born on August 8th, 1930, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to Miriam Sensenig Albrecht and Otto Edwin Albrecht, a professor of Musicology at Pennsylvania University.
He attended Germantown Friends High School, graduating in 1948, and Oberlin College, graduating in 1952 (BA, French). Soon after, he acquired an MA in Political Science from Columbia University.
In 1956, he began a successful career with the US State Department, involving a wide range of diplomatic assignments in countries such as Spain, Nicaragua, and Belgium, as well as the USA. At the end of his career, he achieved the rank of Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs. After his retirement from the State Department, he worked as a foreign affairs consultant in his own business, Albrecht Inc., and in the US-Asian Business Council.
Anthony was also a poet, a painter, and a faithful Catholic who served over 20 years with the Ignatian Volunteer Corps, along with his wife, Julia. His greatest happiness in this life was being with his wife and family at Windy Trees, the family vacation home in West Virginia, a home which he planned and built with the expert aid of his architect son, Anthony, Jr.
He was predeceased by his loving wife Julia (née Von Szeliski) of 68 years, and daughter-in-law Catherine "Kitty" Kelly of Chestnut Hill. He is survived by two brothers, John and Carl (wives Suzanne and Laurie), four sons, Anthony Jr. (wife Cynthia), Christopher, Michael (wife Sarah Browning), and Daniel (ex-wife Nora Senecal), grandson Jamie, granddaughters Charlotte, Anna, Mara and Grace, brother-in-law John von Szeliski, and sister-in-law Margaret Connolly (née von Szeliski).
A funeral mass will be held at 10:00 a.m. on Saturday, March 29 at Our Mother of Consolation Church.
In lieu of flowers, memorial donations can be made to Catholic Relief Services by calling 877-435-7277 or online at https://www.crs.org. On the Donate Now page, be sure to check the box that states “I’d like to make this gift in honor or memory of Anthony C. Albrecht, Sr.”
