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The Foundation and it's activities - download
- Die Preisträger 2006-2010 (v.l.n.r.): Prof. Dr. h.c. mult. Berthold Beitz (2010); Daniel Barenboim (2009); Dr. h.c. Charlotte Knobloch (2008); Dr. Dr. h.c. Hans Keilson (2007); Prof. Manfred Lahnstein (2006).
Training, education, science and research
Partner of the Group of Companies is the Moses Mendelssohn Foundation, which was founded by descendents of Moses Mendelssohn and by members of the Mendelssohn-Bartholdy family association. It considers itself as Holding company for the Moses Mendelssohn Academy in the town of Halberstadt, already working successfully for several years, and also the Moses Mendelssohn Centre in Potsdam. The Foundation, anchored in the tradition of the ‘Moses Mendelssohn Foundation for the Promotion of Humane Sciences’ founded in 1929, sponsors training, education, science and research in the area of European-Jewish history and culture. In addition, it will become active as operator and investor for charitable construction projects serving German-Jewish understanding.
The Moses Mendelssohn Vermögensverwaltungs GmbH & Co. KG comprises the company and property investments which secure assets and revenue to the Foundation on a long-term basis.
Professor Julius H. Schoeps
Foundation Chairman
- Die Laudatoren (v.l.n.r.): Bundestagspäsident Prof. Dr. Norbert Lammert, 2009; Dr. Günther Beckstein, Bayerischer Mnisterpräsident (bis 2008), 2008; sowie 2009 u.a. Klaus Wowereit (Regierender Bürgermeister von Berlin) und Walter Momper (Präsident des Abgeordnetenhauses).
Moses Mendelssohn Medal
Since 1993, The Moses Mendelssohn Medal is being awarded to meritorious public figures committed to tolerance and understanding among the nations and against xenophobia – very much in the tradition and spirit of the great philosopher Moses Mendelssohn. The personalities upon whom the medal is bestowed, by spreading the idea of tolerance in society, are in harmony with the purpose of our foundation.
Laureate 2011: Dr. Dr. h. c. Hildegard Hamm-Brücher
In the large assembly room of the Munich Town Hall on 16 June 2011, Hildegard Hamm-Brücher received the Moses Mendelssohn Medal. Professor Julius H. Schoeps in his laudation praised the “Grand Dame of Politics” as a “courageous politician, women rights and civil rights campaigner”
“It is for me an emotionally moving moment – a moment of joy, but also a challenge to be awarded a medal bearing the name of Moses Mendelssohn, a man who at his time was the most outstanding Jewish philosopher on German and European soil. Some 250 years ago he dared to practise what we define as enlightenment, i.e. the overcoming of rigid spiritual and confessional dogmatism, the emergence from dependency and lack of freedom. He instead based his ideas and his acting on openness, freedom of thought and tolerance.”
It was exactly what had to be focussed on after the inferno of the persecution of the Jews and the holocaust under the Nazi dictatorship: the attempt of breaking free from guilt and fatal complicity, exert self-reflection and enlightenment, and first and foremost: ostracise that murderous anti-Semitism.
This mental new beginning had proved at times to be more difficult and tedious than the material reconstruction our country. Actually, a mountain of historical, social and intellectual errors had to be put on the test before a new start could be made. This called for the willingness not to ignore and suppress our burdensome legacy, but to define it very clearly and face up to it. (excerpt from the acceptance speech of Frau Hildegard Hamm-Brücher)
Laureate 2010: Professor Berthold Beitz
On 25 February 2010, in the Hirschland Hall of the Essen Folkwang Museum, the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the charitable Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach Foundation, Berthold Beitz, was awarded the Moses Mendelssohn Medal. With this distinction, the Moses Mendelssohn Centre for European-Jewish Studies honoured Berthold Beitz, born 1913, who, as the commercial director of the oil company Karpaten-Öl AG in the Nazi-occupied Ukraine, saved numerous Jews from deportation into the Nazi death camps by declaring them “indispensable workers”. The Prime Minister of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, Jürgen Rüttgers, noted happily in his laudatory speech: “This is a wonderful presence to the current ‘European Capital of Culture’, a wonderful presence to the people of the City of Essen. As a matter of fact, it is not the first one.”
For decades, the honouree had kept silent about his dramatic life experience. Asked for the reason, the former head of Krupp, the industrial giant, said he had not saved the people with a view of ‘benefitting from his action’ at a later time. In 1973, the Israeli Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial Place had honoured Beitz with the title of a “Righteous among the Nations.” Later on, his wife Else Beitz, too, was bestowed with the title of honour. Supporting her husband, she had hidden in her home children of persecuted Jews.
