Funding activities

Culture

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In the cultural environment, we focus on selected institutions and projects in the fields of classical music, spoken language and literature.

Another focus is on the culture of remembrance in coming to terms with the crimes of the Nazi dictatorship. International understanding and democracy are also important to us. This is why we are also involved in various fellowship programs.

Classical music

Spoken language and literature

Culture of remembrance

Relations between different peoples and democracy

Classical music

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Classical music

Many cultural institutions are pursuing new approaches to expand their target groups. This is done, for example, through new educational programmes, digitalization or cooperation with other institutions. We support our cooperation partners on this path into the future. Our funding projects have a regional focus on Stuttgart and the region. Below we present selected projects that we have supported over several years.

Podium Esslingen

Having the courage to try out new things, to experiment and to tell pertinent stories through music – this is what matters most to the young PODIUM musicians. PODIUM Esslingen was established by young people in 2009 as an alternative chamber music festival. In just a few years, it has developed into a versatile, multiple award-winning platform for innovations in the area of classical and contemporary music.

Internationale Bachakademie

A lively presentation of Johann Sebastian Bach's music is the hallmark of the International Bach Academy Stuttgart. The program includes subscription series, the Bach Week for professional young musicians from all over the world and the Stuttgart Music Festival. In addition, young people are given access to musical masterpieces through dance and singing in the "BachBewegt!" project.

Internationale Hugo-Wolf-Akademie

The Internationale Hugo-Wolf-Akademie für Gesang, Dichtung und Liedkunst (International Hugo Wolf Academy for Singing, Poetry and Art Song, IHWA) looks back on a rich and varied history as one of the world’s oldest institutions dedicated to the promotion and preservation of the art song.

Stuttgarter Kammerorchester

The Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra is one of the oldest chamber orchestras in the world. Its repertoire ranges from baroque works to contemporary music. A particular focus is on the research and artistic use of new technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI), in order to expand the orchestra's artistic spectrum of expression.

Stiftsmusik Stuttgart

In around 100 concerts each year, Stiftsmusik Stuttgart presents the entire spectrum of contemporary church music: the program includes the concert series "Stunde der Kirchenmusik" (Hour of Church Music), the "International Organ Summer and the major cycle |:Mendelssohn:|.

Submit a funding request

We are open to new projects, especially if their content affects several of our funding areas at the same time or if they open up topics for new target groups.

Before submitting your funding request, please contact us at
+49 7042 2607 004


Your application must contain the following information:

Applicant (person/institution)
Brief description of the project (maximum 3 A4 pages)
Objectives of the project
Naming of possible co-sponsors
Cost and financing plan
Time frame of the project
Reference to the focal points of the Berthold Leibinger Stiftung
Your bank details (IBAN & BIC)

Contact

If you have any questions about funding in the field of classical music within our cultural funding activities, please contact:

Markus Wener
Send email

Spoken language and literature

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Spoken language and literature

Human language is fundamentally different from the communication of other living beings: It not only puts our thoughts and feelings into words, but also influences them. It also reflects constant social change.

We therefore promote projects in the field of spoken language and support this genre in particular with our "Theater in Public Space" funding line. In the field of literature, we are committed to the preservation of literary legacies. We also award the annual Comic Book Prize.

Below are some of the projects and institutions supported by the Berthold Leibiger Stiftung over several years.

Berthold Leibinger Professorship for Applied Rhetoric

Prof. Dr. Kerstin Kipp has held the endowed professorship at the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Stuttgart since 2021. In the Applied Rhetoric and Speech Studies program, students learn to expand their own rhetorical skills, but also to teach people - from politics and business to radio and television.

Deutsches Literaturarchiv Marbach

The Berthold Leibinger Stiftung supported the German Literature Archive Marbach in acquiring important estates and documents from Erich Kästner, Franz Kafka and Siegfried Lenz, among others. In November 2022, the estate of Rainer Maria Rilke was purchased. This means that one of the most important author archives of the 20th century is now available to international researchers and the public.

LOKSTOFF!

LOKSTOFF! makes theater visible, brings it to the people and arouses their curiosity. The open and committed collective not only plays in public space, but also thematizes it and involves its audience. This also addresses target groups that are less inferior to theater art.

Submit a funding request

We are open to new projects, especially if their content affects several of our funding areas at the same time or if they open up topics for new target groups.

Please contact us by phone before submitting an application at
+49 7042 2607 004


Your application must include the following information:

Applicant (person/institution)
Brief description of the project (maximum 3 A4 pages)
Objectives of the project
Naming of possible co-sponsors
Cost and financing plan
Time frame of the project
Reference to the focal points of the Berthold Leibinger Stiftung
Your bank details (IBAN & BIC)

Contact

If you have any questions about funding in the area of spoken language / literature within our cultural funding activities, please contact:

Markus Wener
Send email

Culture of remembrance

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Culture of remembrance

Germany's cultural heritage includes its history, including its darker facets. We support charitable activities that are dedicated to remembering the Holocaust so that these anti-Semitic and fascist acts of violence never happen again in our country. As part of our activities in the field of remembrance culture, we are a cooperation partner of the Rahel-Straus (Youth) Prize, which we award annually together with the Baden-Württemberg state working group of the "Against Forgetting - For Democracy" association.

The following is a selection of projects supported by the Berthold Leibinger Stiftung.

GEGEN DAS VERGESSEN

The project "AGAINST FORGETTING" by photographer Luigi Toscano shows portraits of survivors of Nazi persecution in order to contribute to an active culture of remembrance. In addition to the traveling exhibitions, an educational program is also part of the project. In schoolyard exhibitions and breakyard discussions, young people are introduced to the topic and have the opportunity to deal intensively with the biographies and stories of the people.

Friends of Yad Vashem Sixteen objects. Seventy years of Yad Vashem

To mark the 70th anniversary of the international Holocaust memorial Yad Vashem, 16 objects from the Yad Vashem collections are returning to Germany for the first time. The 16 objects each come from a German state and are representative of countless lives and communities that were destroyed in the Holocaust. The exhibits will be on display in an exhibition curated by Ruth Ur and Michael Tal in the German Bundestag from January 25 to February 17, 2023. The exhibition will be accompanied by a year-round Germany-wide program on the topic of "Cities and Remembrance".

Submit a funding request

We are open to ideas for new projects, particularly if the outcome is relevant to more than one of our funding areas or if the project makes content accessible to new target groups.

Please contact us by telephone before submitting an application.

Your application must contain the following information:

Applicant (person/institution)
Brief description of the project (maximum 3 A4 pages)
Objectives of the project
Naming of possible co-sponsors
Cost and financing plan
Time frame of the project
Reference to the focal points of the Berthold Leibinger Stiftung
Your bank details (IBAN & BIC)

Submit funding request

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Your contact person

If you have any questions about funding in the area of remembrance culture within our cultural funding activities, please contact:

Isabel Schwab
Send email

Relations between different peoples and democracy

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Democracy is the cornerstone of our social order and thrives on dialog between different opinions and value preferences. This can reduce prejudices and defuse impending conflicts. In a globalized world, direct encounters, intercultural learning and scientific exchange help to create a more peaceful world.
The following is a list of some of the partners that the Berthold Leibinger Stiftung supports.

Thomas Mann House

During his California exile in 1942, Thomas Mann built a house in Pacific Palisades / Los Angeles that was to become a place of artistic creation and intellectual exchange on the great questions of his time for ten years.

In November 2016, the German Foreign Office acquired the property and converted it into a residence of the Federal Republic of Germany.

The Thomas Mann House aims to create a lively transatlantic debate venue where outstanding personalities explore fundamental contemporary and future political, social, and cultural issues in exchange with each other and with the host country.

The Berthold Leibinger Stiftung supported the furnishing of the house and annually sponsors the fellowship program.

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The Thomas Mann Fellowships enable scholars as well as thought leaders and intellectuals who live or have lived in Germany to address the pressing challenges of our time and to foster intellectual and cultural exchange between Germany and the USA.

On the occasion of the announcement of the first Fellows, Berthold Leibinger emphasized his close ties with the U.S., which, like his love of Thomas Mann as a writer and critical homo politicus, was a major reason for the Berthold Leibinger Stiftung's strong commitment.

Thomas Mann House Fellows

  • Dr. Kai Hinrich Müller | Musicologist
  • Dr. Sophie-Charlotte Opitz | Curator and Media Scientist
  • René Aguigah | Journalist
  • Prof. Dr. María do Mar Castro Varela | Political Scientist, Professor of General Education and Social Work
  • Prof. Dr. Nikita Dhawan | Political Scientist
  • Dr. Carolin Görgen | Americanist
  • Ghayath Almadhoun | Writer
  • Maria Exner | Journalist
  • Marlene Grunert | Journalist
  • Alice Hasters | Author
  • Felix Rohrbeck | Business Journalist
  • Prof. Dr. Andreas Reckwitz | Sociologist
  • Rosario Talevi | Architect, Curator, Editor
  • Swenja Zaremba | Literature and Cultural Studies, Research Associate Interculturality and Globalization
  • Dr. Rubina Zern-Breuer | Historian and Innovation Researcher
  • Prof. Dr. Ulrich Johannes Schneider | Librarian and Historian of Knowledge
  • Prof. Dr. Christoph Bieber | Political Scientist
  • Dipl.-Ing. Doris Kleilein | Architect, Author
  • Dipl.-Ing. Friederike Meyer | Architectural Journalist, Editor and Author
  • Prof. Dr. Christine Landfried | Political Scientist
  • Dipl.-Ing. Andreas Nitsche | Computer Scientist
  • Prof. Dr. Claus Pias | Media Scientist
  • Prof. Dr. Bernhard Schölkopf | Computer Scientist
  • Prof. Sunhild Kleingärtner | Archaeologist
  • Mohamed Amjahid | Journalist
  • Magdalena Kröner | art journalist
  • Birte Meier | Journalist
  • Prof. Dr. Claus Leggewie | Sociologist
  • Prof. Dr. Heike Paul | Americanist
  • Prof. Dr. Rainer Forst | Professor of Political Theory and Philosophy
  • Prof. Dr. Christoph Möllers | Lawyer
  • Prof. Dr. Michael Zürn | Political Scientist
  • Prof. Dr. Bernhard Pörksen | Media Scientist
  • Prof. Dr. Friedhelm Marx | Literary scholar
  • Mohamed Amjahid, author and journalist
  • Prof. Dr. Rainer Forst, Political Scientist
  • Doris Kleilein, architectural journalist
  • Friederike Meyer, architectural journalist
  • Prof. Dr. Friedhelm Marx, literary scholar
  • Birte Meier, television journalist
  • Prof. Dr. Christoph Möllers, Lawyer
  • Prof. Dr. Heike Paul, Americanist
  • Prof. Dr. Claus Pias, media scientist and historian
  • Prof. Dr. Bernhard Pörksen, media scientist
  • Prof. Dr. Katharina Sykora, art historian
  • Prof. Dr. Michael Zürn, Political Scientist
  • Prof. Dr. Katharina Sykora | Art Historian
  • Dr. Armen Avanessian, Philosopher
  • Dr. Damian Borth, Director of the Competence Center Deep Learning, German Research Institute for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI)
  • Prof. Dr. Ilse Helbrecht, Geographer, Director of the Georg Simmel Center for Metropolitan Research (GSZ)
  • Prof. Dr. Stefan Keppler-Tasaki, literary scholar
  • Burghart Klaußner, actor and author
  • Andreas Platthaus, journalist and author
  • Prof. Dr. Andreas Reckwitz, Sociologist
  • Dr. Lisa Riedner, Social Scientist

Honorary Fellow

  • Prof. Dr. Frido Mann, psychologist and author

Frido Mann reports on his website about his time as Honorary Fellow at the Thomas Mann House, where he lived with his grandparents for a long time: fridomann.de

  • Prof. Dr. h.c. Ph.D. Jutta Allmendinger, President of the Social Science Research Center Berlin (WZB)
  • Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Heinrich Detering, Professor of Modern German Literature and Comparative Literature
  • Burghart Klaußner, actor and author (postponed to 2019)
  • Prof. Dr.-Ing. Yiannos Manoli, holder of the Fritz Hüttinger Professorship for Microelectronics and Director of the Hahn-Schickard Institute for Micro- and Information Technology
  • Dr. phil. Sylke Tempel (†), journalist and book author

American Academy

Founded in 1994 on the initiative of then U.S. Ambassador Richard C. Holbrooke and Henry Kissinger and Richard von Weizsäcker, the American Academy has set itself the goal of creating knowledge and challenging existing views through exchange. The Fellowship Program, funded by the Berthold Leibinger Stiftung since 2006, is at the heart of the Academy's work. Since 1998, it has made possible approximately 20 to 25 semester-long residencies each year for fellows from the fields of science, art and politics who work on academic and artistic projects in Berlin.

American Academy Fellows

  • Mabel O. Wilson, Nancy and George Rupp Professor of Architecture, Planning, and Historic Preservation; Professor of African American and African Diaspora Studies, Columbia University.
  • Alma Steingart, assistant professor of history, Columbia University
  • Bertrall Ross, Justice Thurgood Marshall Professor of Law at the University of Virginia Law School.
  • Nathalie Peutz, Associate Professor of Anthropology, New York University Abu Dhabi
  • Dr. Armen Avanessian, Philosopher
  • Dr. Damian Borth, Director of the Competence Center Deep Learning, German Research Institute for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI)
  • Prof. Dr. Ilse Helbrecht, Geographer, Director of the Georg Simmel Center for Metropolitan Research (GSZ)
  • Prof. Dr. Stefan Keppler-Tasaki, literary scholar
  • Burghart Klaußner, actor and author
  • Andreas Platthaus, journalist and author
  • Prof. Dr. Andreas Reckwitz, Sociologist
  • Dr. Lisa Riedner, Social Scientist

Honorary Fellow

  • Prof. Dr. Frido Mann, psychologist and author

Frido Mann reports on his website about his time as Honorary Fellow at the Thomas Mann House, where he lived with his grandparents for a long time: fridomann.de

  • Prof. Dr. h.c. Ph.D. Jutta Allmendinger, President of the Social Science Research Center Berlin (WZB)
  • Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Heinrich Detering, Professor of Modern German Literature and Comparative Literature
  • Burghart Klaußner, actor and author (postponed to 2019)
  • Prof. Dr.-Ing. Yiannos Manoli, holder of the Fritz Hüttinger Professorship for Microelectronics and Director of the Hahn-Schickard Institute for Micro- and Information Technology
  • Dr. phil. Sylke Tempel (†), journalist and book author

Global Ethic Foundation

The Tübingen Global Ethic Foundation was founded in 1995 by the Swiss theologian Hans Küng to further develop and practically implement the Global Ethic project he conceived. The goals of the foundation are the teaching of ethical and intercultural competence as well as dialogue and cooperation between religions. To this end, it carries out a wide variety of projects - also internationally - in the areas of schools and education, religion, politics, culture and society. Since 2012, it has been running a Global Ethic Institute at the University of Tübingen with a focus on business, corporate and globalization ethics.

Submit a funding request

We are open to ideas for new projects, particularly if the outcome is relevant to more than one of our funding areas or if the project makes content accessible to new target groups.

Please contact us by phone before submitting an application at +49 7042 2607 004

Your application must include the following information:

Applicant (person/institution)
Brief description of the project (maximum 3 A4 pages)
Objectives of the project
Naming of possible co-sponsors
Cost and financing plan
Time frame of the project
Reference to the focal points of the Berthold Leibinger Stiftung
Your bank details (IBAN & BIC)

Submit funding request

Thank you! Your submission has been received!
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.

Contact

If you have any questions about funding in the area of international understanding and democracy within our culture funding activities, please contact:

Markus Wener
Send email