Walter Hallstein

His Excellency Walter Hallstein
Hallstein in 1957
President of the European Commission
In office 7 January 1958 – 30 June 1967
First Vice-President	Sicco Mansholt
Preceded by	Position established
Succeeded by	Jean Rey
State Secretary at the Federal Foreign Office
In office 2 April 1951 – 7 January 1958
Preceded by	Position established
Succeeded by	Hilger van Scherpenberg
Member of the Bundestag
In office 28 September 1969 – 19 November 1972
Constituency	Neuwied
Personal details
Born	Walther [sic] Peter Hallstein[a] (1901-11-17)17 November 1901 Mainz, German Empire
Died	29 March 1982(1982-03-29) (aged 80) Stuttgart, West Germany
Resting place	Waldfriedhof Cemetery, Stuttgart, Germany
Political party	Christian Democratic Union
Alma mater	Friedrich Wilhelm University
Military service
Allegiance	Nazi Germany
Branch/service	Wehrmacht
Years of service	1942–1945
Rank	Oberleutnant
Battles/wars	World War II German occupation of France Normandy Campaign Battle of Cherbourg

Walter Hallstein (17 November 1901 – 29 March 1982) was a German academic, diplomat and statesman who was the first president of the Commission of the European Economic Community and one of the founding fathers of the European Union.

Hallstein began his academic career in the 1920s Weimar Republic and became Germany's youngest law professor in 1930, at the age of 29. During World War II he served as a First Lieutenant in the German Army in France. Captured by American troops in 1944, he spent the rest of the war in a prisoner-of-war camp in the United States, where he organised a "camp university" for his fellow soldiers. After the war he returned to Germany and continued his academic career; he became rector of the University of Frankfurt in 1946 and spent a year as a visiting professor at Georgetown University from 1948. In 1950 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.

A keen advocate of a federal Europe, Hallstein played a key role in West German foreign policy and then in European integration. He was one of the architects of the European Coal and Steel Community and the first President of the Commission of the European Economic Community, which would later become the European Union. He held the office from 1958 to 1967 and was the only German to be selected as president of the European Commission or its predecessors until the selection of Ursula von der Leyen in 2019.^[1] Hallstein famously described his role as "a kind of European prime minister" and dismissed national sovereignty as a "doctrine of yesteryear."^[2][3]

Hallstein left office following a clash with the President of France, Charles de Gaulle; he turned to German politics as a member of the Bundestag, also serving as President of the European Movement from 1968 to 1974. He is the author of books and numerous articles and speeches on European integration and on the European Communities.

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