During his studies, he was involved in establishing the Jeunesses Musicales Internationalles festival from 1951,[2] and the music centre at Schloss Weikersheim.
It was developed to the Tage der Neuen Musik Hannover, a festival held from 1958 to 1998 in collaboration with broadcasters NDR and Radio Bremen, the Musikhochschule and the Staatsoper.
In 1995 he joined a Wählergruppe [de] (voters group) Arbeit für Bremen und Bremerhaven (AfB) as a candidate, a group of both dissatisfied SPD members and committed citizens who had not belonged to any party, led by the former savings bank director Friedrich Rebers [de].
The AfB immediately achieved 10.7% of the votes and 12 seats in parliament for the 14th election period [de], including Bernbacher.
[7] In 2011, Bernbacher was awarded the Bremische Medaille für Kunst und Wissenschaft (Bremen Medal for Art and Science) for his decades of influential work for the music scene in Germany.