Walter Zander

Walter Zander (born 8 June 1898 in Erfurt, died 7 April 1993 in South Croydon) was a German-British lawyer, scholar and writer. He was Secretary of the British Friends of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem 1944-71, Governor of the University 1972-93, Senior Associate Fellow at St Antony's College, Oxford 1971-88 and author of several books and articles, many of them about Israel and its international relations.

The son of a prominent Erfurt lawyer, he studied at the Gymnasium, before being called up for military service in 1916. During World War I, he served as a non-commissioned officer in the German Army and was awarded the Iron Cross. After the war, he went on to study law, philosophy and economics in Jena and Berlin. After a brief period as an assistant to one of the leading lawyers in Berlin, he set up his own practice in the city. In 1929, he took a one-year leave from his practice to study economics at the London School of Economics and the Sorbonne University.

He married Gretl Magnus in Berlin in 1931, and they had three sons and a daughter, among them legal scholar Michael Zander and conductor Benjamin Zander.

Of Jewish heritage, he emigrated with his family to the United Kingdom in 1937. Still a German citizen, he was interned for ten months as an enemy alien on the Isle of Man during World War II.

Books

 * Soviet Jewry, Palestine and the West, 1947
 * Is This The Way?, 1948
 * Israel and the Holy Places of Christendom, 1971