Roland Berger receives Prize for Understanding and Tolerance from the Jewish Museum Berlin

Prof. Dr. h. c. Roland Berger, Founder and Chairman of the international consulting firm Roland Berger Strategy Consultants, also Founder and Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Roland Berger Foundation, will be awarded the "Prize for Understanding and Tolerance" from the Jewish Museum Berlin. Prof. Berger is receiving the award for his commitment for human rights and more equal opportunities in education. This prize is given every year to people who have made outstanding efforts on behalf of more tolerance and understanding. Along with Berger, Imre Kertész, the Hungarian Nobel Prize Laureate in Literature, will be honored at the awards ceremony.

Regarding its decision, the jury said of Roland Berger: "The Chairman of Roland Berger Strategy Consultants sits on the Board of Trustees of the Roland Berger Foundation. The Foundation, which he also founded, bestows its international "Human Dignity Award" every year. In addition, the Foundation, which was initially endowed with EUR 50 million of Roland Berger's private assets, will be awarding 160 scholarships in its first year alone. These scholarships will go to young people with poor access to education, to counteract their disadvantages within the German education system. Roland Berger also explains his commitment to human rights and education with the experiences of his family under the Nazi regime – his father publicly distanced himself from the NSDAP and was arrested in 1944."

Along with Prof. Werner Michael Blumenthal, Director of the Jewish Museum and former US Secretary of the Treasury, the jury members are former German Secretary of Culture Michael Naumann and his wife, arts patron Maria Warburg, as well as entrepreneurs Klaus Mangold, Klaus Krone and Walter Kuna.

Former Minister of State Hildegard Hamm-Brücher will be giving the speech honoring Roland Berger, where she will emphasize his efforts to promote education. In his acceptance speech, Berger refers to the prize as his "greatest public honor" that he has received to date. "Since my early childhood, tolerance and understanding have been the core of my values system and the way I have lived my life," says Berger. "My profession is also characterized by the values of tolerance and understanding. This is because Roland Berger Strategy Consultants today has over 160 Partners and employs more than 2,000 consultants from nearly 50 countries around the world – with widely diverse backgrounds, cultures, races and religions. And yet they all adhere to the same goals and values."

Roland Berger emphasizes that the prize also motivated him to become even more involved in promoting tolerance and understanding, and thanks the founders of the Jewish Museum for their commitment. "Native Berliners such as myself owe Professor Blumenthal and the other founders, initiators and employees special thanks for establishing the Jewish Museum in Germany's capital. But we are not the only ones. This is because Berlin is quite simply the best city to communicate the values of understanding and tolerance and can do so credibly. And the Jewish Museum in Berlin has set itself the top goal of communicating and defending understanding and tolerance."

The awards ceremony will take place as part of a traditional annual dinner at the Jewish Museum Berlin. The evening begins with a formal reception in the rooms next to the special exhibit "Looting and Restitution: Jewish-Owned Cultural Artifacts from 1933 to the Present," followed by the award ceremony itself in the Museum's glass courtyard. The following dinner is also for a good cause, in that donations will be collected for the Museum's education programs for children and teenagers.

As at previous award ceremonies, prominent names from politics, business, culture and media are expected. For example, the business world will be represented by Peter Löscher, CEO of Siemens AG; Johannes Ludewig, former Secretary of State and Director of CER Brussels; René Obermann, CEO of Deutsche Telekom AG; Hanns-Eberhard Schleyer, General Secretary of the German Confederation of Skilled Crafts and banker Max Warburg. From the world of politics, Minister of State Bernd Neumann (Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media), Federal Minister of the Interior Wolfgang Schäuble and Bavaria's Minister-President Horst Seehofer will also attend.