The Shakespeare Prize was an annual prize for writing or performance awarded to a British citizen by the Hamburg Alfred Toepfer Foundation. First given by Alfred Toepfer in 1937 as an expression of his Anglophilia in the face of tense international conditions, the prize was awarded only twice before the outbreak of World War II, to composer Ralph Vaughan Williams and poet John Masefield. The award resumed in 1967 following the visit of Queen Elizabeth to Germany[1] and the last prize was awarded in 2006.