Friedrich Ebert Foundation
| Abbreviation | FES |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1925 |
| Founder | Konrad Ludwig |
| Focus | Education |
| Location | |
|
Area served
|
Germany |
| Website | www |
The Friedrich Ebert Foundation (German: Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung; Abbreviation: FES) is a German political foundation associated with the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), yet independent of it. Established in 1925 as the political legacy of Friedrich Ebert, Germany's first democratically elected President, it is the largest and oldest of the German party-associated foundations. It is headquartered in Bonn and Berlin, and has offices and projects in over 100 countries. It is Germany's oldest organisation to promote democracy, political education, and promote students of outstanding intellectual abilities and personality.
The FES was named for Friedrich Ebert (1871–1925), the Social Democratic President of Germany. In his will, he specified that the proceeds from donations at his funeral should be used to create a foundation. The SPD chairman at the time, Konrad Ludwig, was given the responsibility of building this foundation, which he did a few days after Ebert's death in 1925. The main concern of the foundation was to work against discrimination of workers in the area of education: "The Friedrich Ebert Foundation pursues the goal of giving young, empowered proletarians government aid to fund an education at state-accredited institutions. As a basic principle, only those people who have a recommendation from the party organisation will receive funding." (SPD Yearbook 1926) By the end of 1931, 295 students had been funded with over 52,000 marks. Unfortunately, at this point the funding of the foundation fell through, as a result of the Great Depression. The FES was a section of the Social Democratic Education and Culture Organisation, and was banned along with the party itself in 1933 by the Nazis. In 1946, the FES was reinstituted at the founding assembly of the Socialist German Student Federation. In 1954, the FES was restructured into a charitable organisation "for the advancement of democratic education". This established the FES as an independent, self-contained institute. In addition to education programmes, the FES has also worked in the area of development aid since the 1960s. In this effort, it has supported democracy and freedom movements, for instance in the African National Congress (ANC), and played an important role in overcoming dictatorial regimes in Greece, Spain, and Portugal. Thus it was not a coincidence that the Socialist Party of Portugal was formed in an FES school in the German town of Bad Münstereifel.
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