50th Anniversary of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom

Freedom as the Programme

Fifty years ago, on 19 May 1958, at Villa Hammerschmidt in Bonn, a group of committed Liberals met with the then Federal President, Theodor Heuss, to establish the Friedrich Naumann Foundation. In so doing they acted with precisely the sort of civic involvement that a vibrant democracy requires. If those founders were still with us today, they would be proud of what they started.

Theodor Heuss

Over the last fifty years the activities of the Foundation have expanded beyond their original civic education task in the young Federal Republic. This is reflected in the various anniversaries we celebrate this year. The Liberal Archive, the memory of German Liberalism, is forty years old. Our scholarship programme is thirty five. Our work abroad - promoting a liberal state based on the rule of law - began forty-five years ago and has become a major part of our activity through the Foundation’s presence in over sixty countries worldwide.

We encourage the development of structures that are democratic, market-oriented and based on the rule of law so that more and more people can live in liberal and democratic societies. The main thrust of the Foundation’s domestic and foreign work is the promotion of freedom and responsibility. Thus we support our partners´ efforts to find specific solutions to their own problems.

This year we are celebrating our 50th anniversary. The highlight will be the event to be held on 19 May 2008, at the former Federal Parliament assembly hall, in Bonn, where key speakers include the current Federal President Prof. Dr. Horst Köhler and Lord Ralph Dahrendorf, former chairman of the Foundation. On the following two days, at Berlin’s historic Tempelhof airport, takes place a high-level international experts conference on "Masterplan 2050: Strategies for a Free World". In the framework of our 50th anniversary, this conference will provide further inspiration and momentum to our work for freedom throughout the world.