Michael Gotthelf

Michael A. Gotthelf was born in 1953 in Frankfurt am Main to a Jewish father from Berlin and a Bavarian Catholic mother.

In remembrance of the German foreign policymaker Walther Rathenau the institute supports political education and annually awards the Walther-Rathenau-Preis standing for human rights and tolerance.

[10] In 2014/15 Gotthelf, together with Mathias Döpfner and Martin Meyer among others, founded the "Frank-Schirrmacher-Stiftung" following the surprising death of his friend Schirrmacher in June 2014.

Schirrmacher was one of the leading German intellectuals and editor in chief of the cultural section of the "Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung".

The prize money of 20,000 Swiss Francs for the annual Schirrmacher award which honours work to further the understanding of current affairs, was received by Hans Magnus Enzensberger in 2015, followed by Michel Houellebecq, Jonathan Franzen, Daniel Kehlmann and Peter Thiel.