History

In 1894 the Hermann and Elise (nee Heckmann) Wentzel Foundation was created by Maria Elisabeth Wentzel (nee Heckmann, 20.03.1833 - 05.02.1914), known as Elise, the youngest daughter of the copper magnate Carl Justus and Mathilde Heckmann. The childless widow inherited millions and therefore set up a foundation, which was established, according to its charter, ‘for her own sake and in fulfilment of the wishes of her late husband and to honour the memory of her father’ for the benefit of the Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences in Berlin. In 1894 the purpose of the Foundation was fixed as follows: ‘by providing the necessary resources and assistance for the same, to enable or support the execution of important scientific research and investigations and to publish in the interest of science the results of the work carried out with the assistance of the Foundation’s resources.’ The Foundation pursues these goals to this day.

At the turn of the century, the Foundation was an important source of financial resources for the Academy. For years it provided the only funding for large research projects such as the Kirchenväter-Kommission (‘Church Fathers Commission’) and the Deutsche Rechtswörterbuch (‘German Legal Dictionary’). It also supported scientific expeditions. After the death of the founder in 1914, the annual funding rose to 60,000 Reichsmark, but it was only possible to enjoy this financial good fortune for a short period. The First World War and the world-wide financial crisis significantly depleted the Foundation’s capital. It was only thanks to its investments in mortgages that the Foundation survived the financial crisis at all. The period up to the Second World War were lean times for the Heckmann Wentzel Foundation. The capital first had to be re-stocked, and there was little or no fundung available for research.

After the Second World War and the division of Germany, the Foundation continued to exist on both sides of the Wall, though with drastically reduced assets: in East Berlin the incomes from mortgages were used for the benefit of the German Academy of Sciences, while in West Berlin the Foundation was incorporated into a collective foundation for the Prussian Academy of Sciences. In this way, the Foundation continued to support science and scholarship in both East and West.

At reunification it was finally possible to bring the divided wealth of the Foundation back together. And not only that: all elements of the former West Berlin collective foundation were now transferred to the Heckmann Wentzel Foundation. With a new charter and continually increasing wealth, the Hermann and Elise (nee Heckmann) Wentzel Foundation is today once again a suitable support organ for the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities as reconstituted in 1992.