Haus Rissen Hamburg - Institute for International Politics and Economics

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Haus Rissen Hamburg
Institute for International Politics and Economics
legal form non-profit association
founding April 23, 1954
founder Helmut Thielicke , Erik Blumenfeld , Ernst Schrewe ,
Gerhard Merzyn
Seat Hamburg , Germany
motto Knowledge that will help you
main emphasis Globalization , European Union , security policy ,
United Nations
method Political education
Action space Germany
people Ralf Meurer , Michael Otto , Philipp-Christian Wachs
owner Society for Politics and Economy V.
Employees 28
Website www.hausrissen.org

Haus Rissen Hamburg - Institute for International Politics and Economics is a non-profit, independent and non-partisan training institute based in the Hamburg district of Rissen . Founded in 1954 by Erik Blumenfeld and other Hamburg personalities from business, politics, media and science, the institute offers seminars, workshops and other advanced training products on current issues from business, politics and society. It is a recognized institution of political education by the Federal Agency for Political Education .

Organization and financing

Main building, 2012

The current director of the house has been Philipp-Christian Wachs since 2008 . The institute employs 11 other subject specialists. External experts are also called in for the events and seminars. A total of 200 seminars and events for different target groups from companies, schools, the armed forces and other institutions are carried out each year.

A board of trustees made up of personalities from politics and business, chaired by Michael Otto, provides advice . The institute is supported by the non-profit society for politics and economics. V.

The organization sees itself as a product of active civil society and has no permanent state, church, political or other sponsor. It is financed to more than 70 percent from participation fees for the seminars and the in-house conference operation is supported for the remaining part by a group of sponsors, cooperation partners and donors. The seminars and events mainly take place in the institute building in Hamburg-Rissen, but also in other locations throughout Germany.

History and tasks

Haus Rissen as an educational institute

Main building, 2012

The institution was founded in 1954 by Hamburg personalities from business, politics, science and the media in order to support the democratic reorientation of the young Federal Republic after the Second World War and to help integrate the country into the West. This founding impulse is set out in the institute's statutory purpose: “To win young people for democracy and a market economy and to promote international understanding”. To this day, one of the institute's priorities is political education work with schools from all over Germany. The founder of the Atlantik-Brücke , Erik Blumenfeld , was actively involved in building up Haus Rissen and headed the institute's board of trustees until 1981. This is why maintaining transatlantic relations is still one of the institute's main focuses.

On the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the association in 1979, Federal President Karl Carstens paid tribute to the company's work in a letter to the institute's director, Gerhard Merzyn:

“25 years of Haus Rissen, that means 25 years of broad-based educational work at a high level, which includes all questions of the economy and society, domestic and foreign policy. The association is not committed to any political party, denomination, interest group or ideology. It is a hub of free opinions, where different opinions can have their say and independent judgment is required. "

- Karl Carstens, in : Jürgen Hagenmeyer: 50 years of "Haus Rissen". Political education in Hamburg 1954 - 2004. Hamburg 2004, p. 180

The institute has always kept a geopolitical perspective on current global developments and addressed them in its seminars and events.

In the 1950s this included u. a. opening up to America by dealing with transatlantic issues, discussing the future of the newly formed European Community, developments in Central and Eastern Europe and turning to third world countries such as India.

In the 1960s, intensive preoccupation with the German question, the first steps in détente and questions about politics and strategy in the atomic age supplemented the range of topics at the institute, as did the development of the post-colonial world in Africa, the Middle and Far East. In 1965 seminars for officers of the western armed forces took place for the first time in cooperation with the Atlantik-Brücke, in which over 12,000 officers have taken part to date. The futurologist and founder of the Hudson Institute , Herman Kahn , has held his European summer school in Haus Rissen for several years since 1966, and its directors Eduard Pestel and Gerhard Merzyn were among the German founding members of the Club of Rome in April 1968 .

In the 1970s, the newly emerging questions of sustainable global economic growth, the opening of China and the geopolitical changes in Europe were at the core of the institute's work. In 1978 the German section of the Club of Rome was founded by Eduard Pestel at the institute and was based there until 2005. The then head Uwe Möller was chairman of the German section from 1992 to 1998 and from 1999 to 2007 global secretary general of the Club of Rome.

In the 1980s, the institute dealt with employment policy issues on a national level, such as the impact of modern technologies on the world of work, and on an international level. a. the upheavals in Eastern Europe. The change and peaceful revolution in the GDR in 1989/90 accompanied the institute with numerous German-German seminars, round tables, workshops, closed conferences and other formats.

Up to the turn of the millennium, the institute concentrated on the development of a united and enlarged Europe as well as selected regions of the world and set a focus in its journalistic work through numerous publications.

Since 2008, the association has been operating again as a non-profit training company in line with its founding mandate and, with around 100 seminars, workshops, lectures and events every year, it offers orientation knowledge on current issues in a changing global world. The institute supplies its customers from companies, administration and the armed forces with seminars and training courses of all kinds tailored to their individual needs, either in the institute's own training center in Hamburg-Rissen or at the respective customers' premises. Until October 1, 2014 the name was Haus Rissen Hamburg - International Institute for Politics and Economics . In the course of the realignment, the institute took on its current name.

As part of its youth work, the institute imparts economic and political orientation knowledge to schoolchildren and young people with the aim of understanding and classifying current national and global events in order to be able to develop possible solutions and courses of action on this basis. Since 2017, this has also included training young first-time voters as election workers in the current federal and state elections as well as in European elections as part of the first-time election workers program .

In keeping with the founding mandate from 1954, Haus Rissen contributes with its offers to sharpen the political judgment of young people and thus to strengthen the cohesion of society from the center.

The rooms of the Villa Rissen

The rooms that are available to Haus Rissen have not been used exclusively for the institute's own events since 2012. Under the VILLA RISSEN brand it is possible to rent the rooms for seminars, meetings and celebrations. After the fundamental modernization of the main building in 2012 and the construction of the other seminar rooms in 2016, the rooms are equipped with the latest technology. Since January 2019, overnight accommodation has also been offered in the institute's newly built HAUS RISSEN guest house with 46 rooms and 84 beds.

Prehistory of the building

In 1921 the main building was built as a bourgeois country house for the merchant Albert Ernst Vesper by the architects Krenzki and Wille, Hamburg, on the area of ​​a previous building that had burned down. In the same year, the house was sold during the inflationary period, followed by frequent changes in ownership and usage.

From 1934 to 1945 the "Gauführerschule" of the German Labor Front , a sub-organization of the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP), was located on the site . It was called "Gau-Betriebsgemeinschaftsschule Carl Heinzelmann" and was headed by Rudolf Habedank . The school was opened in 1934 by the then Gauleiter in Hamburg, Karl Kaufmann (1900–1969).

After the end of National Socialism , the house was used from 1946 to 1954 as a training center for prison staff in the three western occupation zones, with prisoners accommodated in the basement of the main house and neighboring buildings. 1952–1954 the building was empty. Then it was taken over by the sponsoring association of today's educational institute and transformed into a place of political education.

Directors

Chair of the Board of Trustees

Members of the Board of Trustees (as of February 2020)

Memberships

Web links

literature

  • Jürgen Hagenmeyer: 50 years of "Haus Rissen". Political education in Hamburg 1954–2004. editiononline.de, Hamburg 2004, ISBN 3-9809508-4-0 .
  • Jürgen Hagenmeyer: Gerhard Merzyn. In: Franklin Kopitzsch , Dirk Brietzke (Hrsg.): Hamburgische Biographie . Lexicon of persons. Volume 2. Christians, Hamburg 2003, ISBN 3-7672-1366-4 , pp. 282-284.
  • Britta Hentrich: House Rissen, International Institute for Politics and Economics. 50 personalities from business, politics and culture congratulate Haus Rissen on its 50th birthday. (1954–2004, anniversary notes). House Rissen, Hamburg 2004, ISBN 3-9809508-5-9 .
  • Uwe Möller : 50 years of Haus Rissen. Orientation for the citizen. A workshop report. (1954-2004). Verlag Michael Weidmann, Hamburg 2004, ISBN 3-935100-13-2 .

Footnotes

  1. ↑ http://www.bpb.de/partner/foerderung/160750/haus-rissen-hamburg-internationales-institut-fuer-politik-und-wirtschaft
  2. ↑ Members of the Board of Trustees , hausrissen.org (accessed February 13, 2020)

Coordinates: 53 ° 34 ′ 34.7 "  N , 9 ° 46 ′ 22"  E