Kurt Hahn and the United World Colleges with Other Founding Figures

Atlantic College in Wales, founded in 1962, was Britain’s first international Sixth Form College. Subsequently renamed The United World College of the Atlantic, it is the alma mater of the UWC movement which currently has 13 member colleges and schools. This book has been written to mark the 50th and 30th anniversaries respectively of the UWC Atlantic and of the Italian United World College of the Adriatic (1982). The educator who inspired the creation of this movement was Kurt Hahn, of Salem, Gordonstoun, Outward Bound, the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award and Round Square Conference fame. In addition to the early history of the two colleges, the book contains a detailed biographical essay on Hahn featuring much previously unpublished material drawn from sources made available to the author by Hahn’s family, together with essays on other significant figures whose contributions were vital in the pioneering days of this major organization in international education. The essay on Hahn covers his early family life, his remarkable and largely unknown role in German politics on the First World War, his founding of Salem School in South Germany, his 1933 escape to Great Britain where he set up Gordonstoun School in Scotland, his attempts to alert British public opinion to the growing menace and cruelties of Nazism, the moral challenges he faced in standing up in his country of exile for “the better Germany”, his post-Gordonstoun activities in the nuclear warfare debate of the 1950’s and 1960’s, his achievements on behalf of Outward Bound and the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award Scheme, and the establishment of the Atlantic College.