Alfred Eckhard Zimmern

Nationality

United Kingdom

Date of Birth

1879

Date of Death

1957

Political
Preference

Labour

Sir Alfred Eckhard Zimmern was an English scholar, historian and political scientist. Born in Surbiton, England, Zimmern lectured at Oxford, Wales and Cornell University on topics ranging from Ancient History to International Relations, and was a member of the British Foreign Office Political Intelligence Department from 1918 to 1919. Considered a utopian and idealist thinker, Zimmern played a role in the foundation of the League of Nations Society and UNESCO. Zimmern attended the Oxford conference of 1937, where he delivered a paper in the section on ‘The Universal Church and the World of Nations’. He was also part of the Royal Institute of International Affairs (RIIA), now known as Chatham House, a non-governmental think tank on international relations based in London. He believed that no international order could survive without a strong sense of common spirituality and ethos, holding that spiritual values were at the core of a world order. During the Second World War, Zimmern participated in the Peace Aims Group talks and he later also joined the CCIA, created in 1946.