Gerd Bucerius


Gerd Bucerius was a German politician, publisher and journalist, one of the founding members of Die Zeit. He is the namesake of the Bucerius Law School in Hamburg and of the Bucerius Kunst Forum, an art gallery.

Life and career

Bucerius was born in Westphalia, and studied law in Freiburg, Berlin, and Hamburg. Upon completion of his university studies, he was named a judge in Kiel. With the rise to power of the Nazis in 1933, his first wife, a Jew, took refuge in the United Kingdom. Bucerius for his part became a lawyer, defending numerous Jewish clients.
With the Allied victory in World War II, Bucerius became a politician and journalist. The British tasked him with the reorganization of the senate in Hamburg; in 1949 he was elected as a deputy to the first post-war Bundestag. A member of the CDU, he retained his seat until 1962. In 1946, with Lovis H. Lorenz, Richard Tüngel, and Ewald Schmidt di Simoni he created Die Zeit, with which they hoped to found a great newspaper for the north of Germany. Even though the emblem of Bremen was placed on its cover by way of a logo, the newspaper's city of origin was Hamburg. Hamburg refused the use of its city arms for the publication, and so those of another nearby municipality were used instead.
Bucerius's villa overlooking Lake Maggiore in Switzerland, the Ebelin Bucerius House, was designed by the modernist architect Richard Neutra, and named for Bucerius's second wife, Ebelin. It was constructed between 1962 and 1966.

Honors and awards

Bucerius is considered an important benefactor to Hamburg; upon the centenary of his birth, chancellor Helmut Schmidt called him among the most influential citizens of the city. His large fortune was handed over to the ZEIT-Stiftung Ebelin und Gerd Bucerius which Bucerius had created in 1971. The funds held by this foundation are used for the promotion of scientific, educational, cultural and artistic projects; the Bucerius Law School and the Bucerius Kunst Forum are its most important projects. In 2001, the Bucerius Institute for Research of Contemporary German History and Society at the University of Haifa was established by the ZEIT-Stiftung Ebelin und Gerd Bucerius and its chairman, Professor Dres. h.c. Manfred Lahnstein.
In 1986 Bucerius was given the Honorary Citizenship of Hamburg.

Other activities

In 1983, Bucerius became a member of the Advisory Board of the Bertelsmann Stiftung and was a honorary member since 1993.