1945

Father of the United Nations

In 1945, the year of Norway's liberation from Nazi-German occupation, the Nobel Committee wished to show its support for the establishment of the new world organization, the United Nations. This was done by awarding the Peace Prize to Cordell Hull, the man known as the father of the United Nations. The decision has a parallel in 1920, when President Woodrow Wilson received the same distinction as the chief architect behind the League of Nations. The lawyer and Democrat from Tennessee was US Secretary of State from 1933 to 1944. Hull was nominated for the Peace Prize several times in the second half of the 1930s for having conducted a policy of fraternization with Latin America and for having negotiated free trade agreements with a number of states. During World War II he played a prominent part in the planning of the United Nations, which replaced the League of Nations in 1945.