Desiderius-Erasmus-Stiftung

Desiderius Erasmus Foundation
Abbreviation	DES
Purpose	Promotion of democracy, promotion of science, International understanding, Development cooperation, Promotion of culture
Location	Lübeck ;
Chair	Erika Steinbach
Website	https://erasmus-stiftung.de

Last updated February 01, 2024

The Desiderius Erasmus Stiftung e.V. (DES; English: Desiderius Erasmus Foundation) is a German political party foundation. It is politically associated with but independent of the right-wing party Alternative for Germany (AfD). The foundation's headquarters are located in Berlin. Its current chairwoman is the former Christian-democratic Member of Parliament Erika Steinbach.

Establishment and mission

The DES was registered in November 2017 in Lübeck. It was converted into a federal foundation from a foundation in the regional state of Schleswig-Holstein that had been established two years earlier.

It is named after the great European Renaissance humanistic Christian thinker and writer Erasmus of Rotterdam. This provoked ironic comments as the AfD has been extremely critical of the European Union and the Euro currency since its foundation in 2013 by the economist Bernd Lucke. "The name stands for a pro-European but Eurosceptic position of the party", a party spokesperson explained in 2015.^[3] The first chairman of the DES was Konrad Adam, a well-known former journalist.

In 2018, there was an intense competition and power struggle among several foundations to become the officially recognized foundation of the AfD. Party chairman Alexander Gauland preferred to have a foundation named after Gustav Stresemann, a national liberal politician who served as Foreign Minister and briefly Chancellor. Other party grandees like Alice Weidel, the party whip in the Bundestag, supported DES. In April 2018, the national board of the party decided to accept the association of the Erasmus Foundation. The party convention in June 2018 held a vote and a two thirds majority agreed to adopt the DES as officially associated foundation.^[4]

The DES describes their mission as providing civic-democratic political educational programs and the promotion of science and scholarly education.^[5]

In accordance with AfD political orientation, the DES has a right-wing orientation. It has held several conferences and political seminars.

In June 2019 they held a large public conference in Berlin on the "growing threats to freedom of speech". Among the speakers where the party chairman Jörg Meuthen, Member of the European Parliament, the media scientist Norbert Bolz and the former GDR dissident and later CDU MP Vera Lengsfeld. The speeches are documented in the first issue of the foundations journal Faktum.^[6]

Leadership and board

Since March 2018, former MP Erika Steinbach is president of the DES. She had left Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union party (CDU) in 2017 in protest over the chancellor's open door migration policy.^[7]

Financing

DES finances their operations with private donations and membership fees.

In their party program, the AfD criticizes that the other parties represented in the Bundestag have given their affiliated foundations now more than 600 million Euro funding from the federal budget per year. This, they claim, is a breach of the Federal Constitutional Courts cap's on state financing for parties.^[8] The newcomer party wants to limit state financing of parties and their foundations. Party chairman Alexander Gauland claimed it was his "political end goal" to abolish the system of state financed political foundations.^[9]

So far, the DES has not received public funds, since it is sitting in the German parliament, the Bundestag, only since 2017, one term. It is expected that the DES will get a share of the other party's foundations public financing if the AfD gets elected into the Bundestag a second time. In 2017 the German weekly newspaper ’’Die Zeit’’ estimated that the foundation could ultimately get as much as 80 million Euros of public funds.^[10] Funding is likely to be substantially lower. After a first funding request of 1.4 million Euros was rejected by the Ministry of the Interior, the foundation has started legal action.^[11]

Related Research Articles

The Christian Democratic Union of Germany is a Christian democratic centrist and liberal conservative political party in Germany. It is the major catch-all party of the centre-right in German politics.

Erika Steinbach is a German right-wing politician. She previously served as a member of the Bundestag from 1990 until 2017.

Kurt Hans Biedenkopf was a German jurist, academic teacher and politician of the Christian-Democratic Union (CDU) party. He was rector of the Ruhr University Bochum.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wolfgang Schäuble</span> German politician (1942–2023)

Wolfgang Schäuble was a German politician whose political career spanned more than five decades. A member of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), he was the longest-serving member of any democratic German parliament. Schäuble served as the 13th president of the Bundestag from 2017 to 2021.

The Konrad Adenauer Foundation is a German political party foundation associated with but independent of the centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU). The foundation's headquarters are located in Sankt Augustin near Bonn, as well as in Berlin. Globally, the KAS has 78 offices and runs programs in over 100 countries. Its current chairman is the former President of the German parliament Deutscher Bundestag, Norbert Lammert. It is a member of the Martens Centre, the official foundation and think tank of the European People's Party (EPP). In 2020, it ranked 15th amongst think tanks globally.

The CSU-associated Hanns Seidel Foundation is a German party-associated and taxpayer-money funded political research foundation. It was founded in November 1966 after most of the other party-associated foundations in Germany were already established. It is headquartered in Munich. The conference centre in the Banz Abbey is the foundation's main location. It is a member of the Centre for European Studies, the official foundation and think tank of the European People's Party. It is named after the CSU politician Hanns Seidel.

Norbert Lammert is a German politician of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). He served as the 12th president of the Bundestag from 2005 to 2017.

Hermann Otto Solms is a German politician of the Free Democratic Party (FDP).

Niels Annen is a German politician of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) who has been serving as Parliamentary State Secretary at the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development in the coalition government of Chancellor Olaf Scholz since 2021. He served as Minister of State at the Federal Foreign Office from 2018 to 2021 in the government of Chancellor Angela Merkel.

The Friedrich Ebert Foundation is a German political party foundation associated with, but independent from, the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). 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 Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, named in recognition of Rosa Luxemburg, occasionally referred to as Rosa-Lux, is a transnational alternative policy lobby group and educational institution, centered in Germany and affiliated to the democratic socialist Left Party. The foundation was established in Berlin in 1990. In 2018, the German state subsidized the work of the foundation with 64 million euros.

Manfred Lahnstein is a German politician of the Social Democratic Party (SPD). In 1982 he was German Federal Minister of Finance as well as Federal Minister of Economics and until 2004 worked for the media conglomerate Bertelsmann.

Christian Freiherr von Stetten is a Swiss-German businessman and politician of the Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU). He has served as Member of the Parliament of Germany, the Bundestag, since 2002. He represents the constituency of Schwäbisch Hall-Hohenlohe, and succeeded his father Wolfgang von Stetten as the Member of Parliament from that constituency.

Federal elections were held in Germany on 24 September 2017 to elect the members of the 19th Bundestag. At stake were at least 598 seats in the Bundestag, as well as 111 overhang and leveling seats determined thereafter.

Alice Elisabeth Weidel is a German politician who has been serving as co-chairwoman of the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) party alongside Tino Chrupalla since June 2022. Since October 2017, she has held the position of leader of the AfD parliamentary group in the Bundestag. Weidel became a member of the Bundestag (MdB) in the 2017 federal election, where she was the AfD's lead candidate alongside Alexander Gauland. In the 2021 federal election, she once again served as their lead candidate, alongside Tino Chrupalla. From February 2020 to July 2022, Weidel held the position of chairwoman of the AfD state association in Baden-Württemberg.

Helge Reinhold Braun is a German physician and politician of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). Between 2018 and 2021, he served as Head of the Chancellery and Federal Minister for Special Affairs in the fourth coalition government of Chancellor Angela Merkel. He was the Parliamentary Secretary of State for Bureaucracy Reduction and Federal-State Relations at the Chancellery between 2013 and 2018.

Tino Chrupalla is a German politician of the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, and Member of the Bundestag since 2017. In November 2019, he was nominated by Alexander Gauland to replace him as co-chairman and later elected to the position. Since 2019, Chrupalla has served as chairman and lead spokesman for the AfD.

Michael Meister is a German mathematician and politician of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) who has been serving as a member of the Bundestag from the state Hesse since 1994. From 2018 until 2021 he also served as Parliamentary State Secretary at the Federal Ministry of Education and Research in the government of Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Joachim Starbatty is a German professor of economics and politician.

Konrad Adam is a German journalist, publicist and former politician who co-founded the Alternative for Germany party. He served as one of three federal spokesmen for the party until 2015.

References

↑ "STATES of the DESIDERIUS-ERASMUS-STIFTUNG e.V. as of September 15, 2018". erasmus-stiftung.de. 2019-09-15. Retrieved 2020-12-23.
↑ "Stiftungsverein – Erasmus-Stiftung". erasmus-stiftung.de. Retrieved 2023-02-23.
↑ "AfD gründet Erasmus-Stiftung mit Konrad Adam an der Spitze – DER SPIEGEL – Politik". Der Spiegel. 23 March 2015.
↑ Steffen, Tilman (30 June 2018). "AfD-Parteitag stimmt für eigene Parteistiftung". Die Zeit (in German). Hamburg. Retrieved 26 April 2020.
↑ "Unser Auftrag – Erasmus Stiftung" . Retrieved 8 April 2022.
↑ "Magazin: Faktum No. 01 – Erasmus Stiftung". Archived from the original on 30 June 2020. Retrieved 8 April 2022.
↑ "Erika Steinbach attackiert Merkel". n-tv.de.
↑ Grundsatzprogramm der AfD, pp. 21–22.
↑ "Erika Steinbach will Millionen für AfD-nahe Stiftung einklagen". Die Welt. 25 March 2019 – via www.welt.de.
↑ Steffen, Tilman (6 January 2017). "AfD will mit Stiftung an Steuergeld". Die Zeit (in German). Hamburg. Retrieved 26 April 2020.
↑ "AfD-nahe Stiftung will staatliche Förderung gerichtlich erzwingen". Die Zeit (in German). Hamburg. dpa, AFP, rl. 25 March 2019. Retrieved 26 April 2020.

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.

[satzung-1] "STATES of the DESIDERIUS-ERASMUS-STIFTUNG e.V. as of September 15, 2018". erasmus-stiftung.de. 2019-09-15. Retrieved 2020-12-23.

[2] "Stiftungsverein – Erasmus-Stiftung". erasmus-stiftung.de. Retrieved 2023-02-23.

[3] "AfD gründet Erasmus-Stiftung mit Konrad Adam an der Spitze – DER SPIEGEL – Politik". Der Spiegel. 23 March 2015.

[4] Steffen, Tilman (30 June 2018). "AfD-Parteitag stimmt für eigene Parteistiftung". Die Zeit (in German). Hamburg. Retrieved 26 April 2020.

[5] "Unser Auftrag – Erasmus Stiftung" . Retrieved 8 April 2022.

[6] "Magazin: Faktum No. 01 – Erasmus Stiftung". Archived from the original on 30 June 2020. Retrieved 8 April 2022.

[7] "Erika Steinbach attackiert Merkel". n-tv.de.

[8] Grundsatzprogramm der AfD, pp. 21–22.

[9] "Erika Steinbach will Millionen für AfD-nahe Stiftung einklagen". Die Welt. 25 March 2019 – via www.welt.de.

[10] Steffen, Tilman (6 January 2017). "AfD will mit Stiftung an Steuergeld". Die Zeit (in German). Hamburg. Retrieved 26 April 2020.

[11] "AfD-nahe Stiftung will staatliche Förderung gerichtlich erzwingen". Die Zeit (in German). Hamburg. dpa, AFP, rl. 25 March 2019. Retrieved 26 April 2020.

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]

[7]

[8]

[9]

[10]

[11]