Prof. Dr Wolfgang Sandberger was appointed as Chair of the Possehl Foundation in Lübeck on 1 January 2025. Along with Birgit Reichel, the Deputy Chair who was also appointed as of the start of the year, he will represent the Foundation externally and advance its many projects in a wide variety of fields. Sandberger and Reichel succeed Max Schön and Prof. Dr Klaus-Peter Wolf-Regett, who will remain with the Possehl Foundation as members of the Board of Trustees.

“2025 will be a challenging year in many respects”, said Wolfgang Sandberger. “For this reason the Possehl Foundation intends to be a dependable partner for the people and organisations in Lübeck and is ready to listen to their concerns, whatever they may be.” The Possehl Foundation’s core activity is its funding work, with around 500 requests for sponsorship submitted annually by private individuals and organisations in Lübeck. It also has operating activities as the shareholder of two museums.
The Board of Trustees is particularly looking forward to the following highlights in the year ahead: March will see the KOLK 17 Puppet Theatre & Museum reopen after extensive building work. The European Hansemuseum in Lübeck is celebrating its 10th anniversary in May. Projects and events centring on young people are another focus of the activities in 2025, because this target group is one that the founder Emil Possehl was particularly attached to. They include the award ceremonies for the Possehl Music Prize, the Possehl Architecture Scholarships and the Possehl Engineering Prize. Other sponsorship projects for young people include the Apprentices College, which is organised in cooperation with the Joachim Herz Foundation from Hamburg, and the competition hosted by the German Foundation for Musical Life, which is taking place in Lübeck for the first time in February. Both of these are directed at the particular potential of young people. In September the celebrated Indian artist Shilpa Gupta will receive the Possehl Prize for International Art 2025 in the Kunsthalle St. Annen.
“The range of the Foundation’s charitable purposes offers great potential”, explains Wolfgang Sandberger, who has been involved here since 2014. “We can provide help quickly and efficiently where needs are acute, via our regular sponsorship activities or projects like the Lübeck Education Fund and ‘Smart budgeting when money’s tight!’. And we can also develop and finance innovative and attractive activities, which in collaboration with partners can also extend beyond Lübeck. I look forward to working with Birgit Reichel and the entire Board of Trustees to advance the Foundation’s mission successfully in the spirit of Emil Possehl in the years ahead”.

Prof. Dr Wolfgang Sandberger (*1961) is the Chair of the Possehl Foundation as of 2025. From 1999 to 2024 he was Professor of Music and Director of the Brahms Institute at Lübeck College of Music. He has also worked as an author and presenter for various public broadcasters in Germany, including the NDR and SWR, and currently the WDR. For more than ten years he led the Brahms Festival at Lübeck College of Music. Sandberger is a member of various committees, has advised music events like the Göttingen Handel Festival, and has organised numerous symposiums and conferences. He has been a member of the renowned Academia Europaea since 2022. Wolfgang Sandberger has been a member of the Board of Trustees since 2014 and of the Foundation’s Working Committee since 2016.

Birgit Reichel (*1962) was born in Lübeck, studied Sociology and Social Management and until the end of 2024 was Head of the Lübeck Council Department for Youth Work, Community Work, Child and Adolescent Protection, Child and Adolescent Participation and Community Prevention. For many years she was also a member and Deputy Chair of the Supervisory Board of Lübecker Bauverein, a housing association, and on the Management Board of Reso-Hilfe Lübeck. Birgit Reichel has been a member of the Possehl Foundation’s Board of Trustees since 2016.