Walter Hallstein

Walter Hallstein

Walter Peter Hallstein (17 November 1901 – 29 March 1982) was a German academic, politician, and diplomat who played a key role in German foreign policy, in particular in West Germany's integration into the West in the post-war period, and in European integration.

He started his career before World War II, becoming Germany's youngest law professor. During the War, he served in the military but in 1944 he was captured and spent the rest of the War in a prisoner-of-war camp in America. After the War, he returned to Germany and continued his academic career, until he was recruited to a diplomatic career, becoming the leading civil servant at the German Foreign Office, where he gave his name to the Hallstein Doctrine, West Germany's policy of isolating East Germany diplomatically in order to establish the West German government as the sole international representative of Germany.

He was a keen advocate of a federal Europe and was the first President of the Commission of the European Economic Community, which later became the European Union, serving from 1958 to 1967. He left this post following a clash with the French president, Charles de Gaulle and returned to German politics as a member of parliament.