Hanns Seidel Foundation

History

The CSU began planning to create its own institution for political education in 1964. At that time, the other parties with faction status in the German Bundestag already had comparable institutions. In April 1965, the CSU state executive decided to establish the Hanns Seidel Foundation, named after the former CSU chairman and Bavarian Prime Minister Hanns Seidel. Fritz Pirkl, Bavarian Minister of State for Labour and Social Affairs, was elected as the first chairman.

In 1975, the foundation opened the educational centre in Kreuth as a tenant of the Wittelsbach family. The lease for this conference building expired at the end of March 2016. In 1983, the educational centre at the Banz Abbey in Bad Staffelstein followed, and in 2001, a conference centre was opened next to the headquarters in Munich.

In 1981, the foundation began awarding scholarships for foreign students in Germany through its funding agency. Since 1982, domestic students have also received scholarships. The foundation also has a PhD scholarship program, where recipients who are working on their doctoral thesis receive additional funding for research and receive a monthly payment of 1,450 EUR. Students and doctoral candidates that are funded by the foundation scholarships are those with above-average academic achievements both socially and politically.

After Fritz Pirkl's death, Alfred Bayer was elected chairman in 1994, followed by former Bavarian Minister of Education Hans Zehetmair in 2004. In 2014, CSU chairman Horst Seehofer proposed the deputy chairwoman Ursula Männle as Zehetmair's successor. She was elected chairwoman by the general meeting on 12 May 2014 and was re-elected on 30 July 2018. In September 2019, she announced her resignation. Her successor in 2020 was Markus Ferber, a long-standing CSU MEP.

The foundation has around 270 employees and an annual budget of around 66 million euros. It is active in over 60 countries and provides funding to almost 1,300 students from Germany and abroad every year.

Awards

The foundation awards prizes to promote special achievements in various fields. The sponsorship award for young songwriters has been presented to songwriters since 1987. In addition, the Franz Josef Strauß Prize is awarded at irregular intervals to 'personalities who have made an outstanding contribution to peace, freedom and justice, to democracy and international understanding, or who have rendered outstanding services in the fields of economics, science and technology, literature and art'. Previous winners include Mikhail Gorbachev, Jean-Claude Juncker, José María Aznar, Helmut Kohl, Roman Herzog, George Bush Sr., Henry Kissinger, and German Democratic Republic dissident Reiner Kunze.

In 2015, the Bavarian SPD parliamentary group leader Markus Rinderspacher called for the Franz Josef Strauss Prize to be revoked from Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. Rinderspacher cited Orbán's attacks on fundamental democratic principles and the principles of solidarity of the European community of values as the reason. Orbán had been awarded the prize in 2001. In 2020, Rinderspacher renewed his demand. The reason was Orbán's controversial law restricting the rights of the Hungarian parliament in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

From 1984 to 2012, the Folk Music Prize was awarded 428 times as part of the 'Folk Music Day' in Wildbad Kreuth and the Banz Abbey. The award was discontinued in mid-November 2012 after media reports revealed that the prize's founders, Maria and Max Wutz, were National Socialists. The foundation was made aware of this in 2001 but failed to disclose it. After the media reports, the foundation then commissioned the Institute for Contemporary History to conduct an independent investigation. The result was so clear that the foundation, which had 'accepted the legacy in good faith', divided the total inheritance of around 1.4 million euros as follows: 1.25 million went to the Bayerischer Jugendring to support Bavarian-Israeli youth and school exchanges, and 150,000 euros went to the Stiftung Bayerische Gedenkstätten to establish a memorial site at the former Dachau concentration camp subcamp Mühldorfer Hart.

References

References

1. (21 April 2025). "Генпрокуратура признала «нежелательной» организацией немецкий фонд Hanns-Seidel-Stiftung". OVD-Info.
2. "Hanns-Seidel-Stiftung (HSS)".
3. "Fritz Pirkl - Munzinger Biographie".
4. Effern, Heiner. (2015-07-13). "Mietstreit über Tagungshaus - CSU zieht aus Kreuth aus".
5. (2023-07-19). "Bildungsort im Banzer Barock".
6. "Tagen, wo die Wissenschaft zu Hause ist {{!}} einfach München".
7. "Hanns-Seidel-Stiftung – Historisches Lexikon Bayerns".
8. "Hanns Seidel Foundation: PhD scholarships - DAAD - Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst".
9. Öffentlichkeitsarbeit, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen-. "Hanns Seidel Foundation - Georg-August-University Göttingen".
10. "Hanns Seidel Scholarships {{!}} RWTH Aachen University {{!}} EN".
11. (1994-02-02). "Billig und politisch". Die Tageszeitung: taz.
12. Beck, Sebastian. (2022-11-28). "Hans Zehetmair ist tot".
13. (2014-02-03). "Männle soll Hanns-Seidel-Stiftung führen".
14. "Vorstandswahlen".
15. dpa. (2022-06-24). "CSU-Politiker: Markus Ferber bleibt Chef der Hanns-Seidel-Stiftung". Die Zeit.
16. (2024-05-29). "Institution {{!}} Förderpreis für junge Liedermacher -".
17. e.V, Hanns-Seidel-Stiftung. "Franz Josef Strauß-Preis".
18. (2011-12-11). ""Sie haben wahrhaft Geschichte geschrieben"".
19. "Politik: Kohl erzählt, Stoiber verwirrt". Der Tagesspiegel Online.
20. (2015-05-04). "FJS-Preis für Reiner Kunze".
21. "SPD: Orban soll Franz-Josef-Strauß-Preis aberkannt werden - WELT".
22. (2020-03-31). "Orban den Franz-Josef-Strauß-Preis aberkennen".
23. (2013-05-29). "Hanns-Seidel-Stiftung gibt Nazi-Erbe ab".
24. (2012-11-10). "CSU-nahe Stiftung finanziert Preis aus Nazi-Vermögen". Der Spiegel.
25. "Nachlassvermögen Wutz findet neue Zweckbestimmung".