Remembering Walter Hallstein

Abstract

Our lives crossed several times in Germany and America between 1950 and 1958. After he was appointed to head the delegation to the Schuman Plan negotiations, Hallstein repeatedly appeared before a Bundestag committee. I always attended these meetings and in so doing became witness to the emergence of the United Europe which in the following years developed from the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) and its entirely novel institutions. From the beginning, Hallstein was one of the inventors and main architects of the ECSC. Following his explanations was a pure pleasure. There was a feeling that his explanations could be given to the Federal Printing Office and printed immediately, without even having to check the text! This feeling was also prevalent later on, when he would lecture a group of selected journalists, which famously became the ‘Hallstein Group’.