Nobel Peace Prize

The Nobel Peace Prize

“The said interest shall be divided into five equal parts, which shall be apportioned as follows: /- - -/ one part to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.”

(Excerpt from the will of Alfred Nobel)

Alfred Nobel was interested in social issues. He developed a special engagement in the peace movement. An important factor in Nobel’s interest in peace was his acquaintance with Bertha von Suttner. Perhaps his interest in peace was also due to the use of his inventions in warfare and assassination attempts? Peace was the fifth and final prize area that Nobel mentioned in his will.

Henry Dunant, founder of the Red Cross, shared the first Nobel Peace Prize in 1901 with Frédéric Passy, a leading international pacifist of the time. In addition to humanitarian efforts and peace movements, the Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded for work in a wide range of fields including advocacy of human rights, mediation of international conflicts, and arms control.

The Nobel Peace Prize is awarded by a committee of five persons who are chosen by the Norwegian Storting.

Nobel Peace Center at Oslo, Norway

DO YOU KNOW:

• Alfred Nobel wrote the final draft of his Nobel Prize bequest on a torn piece of paper at the Swedish Club in Paris in front of four witnesses because he distrusted lawyers.

• Sweden was home to Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite and other explosives.

• The names of the nominees cannot be revealed for 50 years.

• The Red Cross won Nobel Peace Prizes during both World War I (1917) and World War II (1944) for its work in caring for the casualties of war.

• Vietnamese politician and general Le Duc is the only person to have declined the Nobel Peace Prize. He was awarded the prize in 1973 jointly with US secretary of state Henry Kissinger. But he declined to accept citing the situation in Vietnam.

• Joseph Stalin, the Soviet dictator, was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1945 and 1948 for his efforts to end World War II.

• The oldest winner was Joseph Rotblat, a British physicist, who won it aged 87 in 1995.

• The youngest peace prize winner was a woman, Mairead Corrigan, who won at the age of 32 in 1976.

• Prize was not awarded between 1914 and 1918 and between 1939 and 1943 because of the two world wars.

• In world war II, Norway was under Nazi occupation from 1940 to 1945, the red cross was named but the prize was awarded.

• Adolf Hitler was nominated once in 1939 by a Swedish member of parliament. But the nomination was withdrawn by a letter Feb 1, 1939.

• Prizes can only be awarded to individuals, except the Peace Prize.

• Mother Teresa, who won the Nobel Peace Prize winner in 1979 was ethnically Albanian (born in what was then the Ottoman Empire, and her real name is Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu

• The Nobel Prize has been criticised for not always choosing the best candidates, the lack of a Nobel Peace prize for Mahatma Gandhi being a prime example.

• Each year there are 100 to 250 nominees for each prize.

• The Nobel Peace Prize medal depicts three naked men with their hands on each other’s shoulders

• Last time no one was present to accept the peace medal was in 1936, when the German journalist and pacifist Carl von Ossietzky, who had been awarded the prize in 1935 was not allowed to leave Nazi Germany in either year.