The Federal President as Protector of the Order

The Order Pour le Mérite for Sciences and the Arts was re-established in 1952 by Federal President Theodor Heuss. Ever since then, the Federal President in office has been the Protector, or patron, of the Order. The Protector ensures the continuation of the Order, which numbers some eighty selected scientists and artists from Germany and around the world. Once a year, the Federal President attends a public meeting of the Order. In his presence, a member of the Order gives a speech, eulogies are given for members who have passed away, and new members are presented. By tradition, the Federal President then hosts a banquet at Schloss Bellevue for the members in attendance.

History of the Order

The history of the Order Pour le Mérite (French for "For merit") stretches back to the 19th century. King Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia founded the Order in 1842 as the civil class of the military order of the same name which had been established in 1740. The realisation of the civil class of conferrals for science and the arts was the responsibility of German natural scientist Alexander von Humboldt (1769–1859), the Order’s first Chancellor. The Order was to bring together leading intellectuals, from Germany and abroad, from the most diverse disciplines and arts. A mere glance at some of its former members will demonstrate both their diversity and breadth of achievements and the grand tradition on which the Order can look back today: Johannes Brahms, Otto von Bismarck, Charles Darwin, Albert Einstein, Käthe Kollwitz, Werner von Siemens and Giuseppe Verdi.

Current members include the conductor and pianist Daniel Barenboim, art historian Hans Belting, authors Hans Magnus Enzensberger and Martin Walser, architect Lord Foster, photographer Barbara Klemm, biologist Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard, economist Robert M. Solow and film director Wim Wenders. Some of the current members are Nobel laureates.

The Order’s vision

The Order Pour le Mérite for Sciences and the Arts regards itself – as its 2015 statutes say – as a cross-disciplinary association of scientists and artists who have made an outstanding name for themselves through the widespread recognition of their achievements in science or the arts. This understanding of the Order as a free association of scholars and artists goes back to the 1920s, when the Order reconstituted following the end of the First World War and the German Empire.

In the wake of the Second World War, Theodor Heuss was instrumental in ensuring the continuation of the tradition of the Order. He picked up the form of free association of artists and scientists that had been established in the Weimar Republic. At the same time, he made the Order a public institution by himself acting as its Protector and by participating in the newly-introduced public conferences.

Further information about the Order Pour le Mérite and its members can be found on the Order’s website (in German).