Abraham Lincoln Foundation

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The Abraham Lincoln Foundation (ALS) in Berlin was a secret sub-organization of the Rockefeller Foundation , which tried from 1927 to 1934 in the Weimar Republic to strengthen the bourgeois democratic forces. Carl Heinrich Becker was president in 1927 , and Reinhold Schairer and Hans Simons were managing directors from 1928 . In 1928 there were over 100 personalities on the advisory board.

The name of the foundation goes back to the thoughts and efforts of Geoffrey Winthrop Young . This intended to enable young Germans to develop their special gifts and abilities in the artistic, scientific or general human field.

Work of the foundation

The foundation worked primarily through grants and bonuses. The ALS awarded grants to around 60 candidates from the fields of art, journalism and science. The Foundation's work focused on education and journalism. The former Professor Hans Simons and the education expert Reinhold Schairer served as managing directors of the foundation. The Rockefeller Foundation tried to keep the ALS funding sources secret.

A study by the educational scientist Robert Ulich to check the effectiveness of the selection process of the German National Academic Foundation was co-financed with money from the ALS . Giselher Wirsing , the then young conservative author and long-time traveler for journalistic reasons, traveled through the USA on an ALS grant in 1930. The author Stefan Andres received a bonus from the ALS for his novel Brother Lucifer in 1932 and traveled to Rome with it.

The ALS president Becker died in 1933 and the managing directors of the foundation, Simons and Schairer, emigrated abroad in 1934. The foundation then quasi stopped its work. However, until 1935 the foundation financed the twin research of Otmar Freiherr von Verschuer at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Anthropology, Human Heredity and Eugenics in Berlin.

Many documents relating to the work of the ALS have been lost.

Advisory Board (selection)

Scholarship holders (selection)

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Malcolm Richardson: A Search for Genius in Weimar Germany: The Abraham Lincoln Stiftung and American Philanthropy ( Memento of May 22, 2013 in the Internet Archive ), in: Bulletin of the German Historical Institute , Vol. 26 (Spring 2000 ) ( Memento from November 11, 2011 in the Internet Archive ).
  2. ↑ Heide Helwig: "Whether nobody calls me": the life of Paula Ludwig . Langewiesche-Brandt, Ebenhausen near Munich 2004, ISBN 3-406-61067-6 , p. 149 (318 p., Limited preview in Google Book search).
  3. ^ Christian Tilitzki: The German University Philosophy in the Weimar Republic and in the Third Reich , Walter de Gruyter: Munich / New York / London / Paris, 2002, p. 792.
  4. ↑ Werner Röder / Herbert A. Strauss (ed.): Biographical Handbook of German-Speaking Emigration after 1933–1945 , Walter de Gruyter: Munich / New York / London / Paris, 1980, p. 639.
  5. ^ Jens Wegener: "An Organization, European in Character" - European Agency and American Control at the Center Européen, 1925–1940. In: John Krige / Helke Rausch (eds.): American Foundations and the Coproduction of World Order in the Twentieth Century , Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2012, pp. 37–60 (here: p. 38).
  6. ↑ Dietmar Waterkamp: Introduction. In: Dietmar Waterkamp / Erich Wohlfahrt / Robert Ulich (eds.): On the sociology of education of the next generation of academics in Germany: Relationships between origin, previous school education and studies, proven by the members of the German National Academic Foundation 1925–1933 , Münster / New York: Waxmann Verlag, 2000, pp. 9-27 (here: p. 10).
  7. ↑ Christopher Andres / Michael Braun (eds.): "Rome's Name Has Magic": Stefan Andres' Rom. In: Anna Fattori / Ralf Georg Czapla: The immortalized city: Rome in German-language literature after 1945 , Berlin et.al: Peter Lang Verlag, 2008, p. 127–144 (here: p. 129).
  8. ↑ Benno Müller-Hill: The blood of Auschwitz and the silence of the scholars. In: Doris Kaufmann (Hrsg.): History of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society in National Socialism , Volume 1: History of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society in National Socialism - Inventory and Perspectives of Research , Part 1, Göttingen: Wallstein, 2007, p. 189 –227 (here: p. 190). ISBN 3-89244-423-4