On the Biography of Prof. Dr. Kurt Hirche

The link between Prof. Dr. Kurt Hirche and the Friedrich Ebert Foundation dates back to the early years of the foundation's existence. Prof. Dr. Hirche was one of the very first persons to receive a scholarship under the umbrella of assistance to gifted students, which was brought into being after the death of the first President of Germany. Born in Magdeburg in 1904, the son of a unionised porcelain painter and elementary school pupil earned access to a university education on his own merit. In 1932, helped by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, he successfully finished his studies with his doctoral thesis on the topic of "Problems of an expenditure-related financial management".

From 1945 to 1953, Dr. Hirche worked in Berlin as a financial journalist. In 1953, he assumed a managing position with the German Trade Union Federation, and from 1955 onwards, he was head of its Parliamentary Liaison Office in Bonn. Kurt Hirche passed away in Bonn in 1999.

He had acquired his love of literature, books, writings and paintings in his class-conscious parental home. Here, the aphorisms "an education sets you free" and "knowledge is power" were not considered empty phrases but an invitation, even the demand, to increase one's knowledge in order to win the battle for a just social order. Even as a young man, he used his first salary as a clerk to purchase the classics of socialist and economic theory. His collector's enthusiasm and his infallible instinct for enduring greatness helped him amass an unusually valuable collection of books, periodicals and graphic plates of socially critical literature and art of the 20th century in the course of his life.

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