23rd Karlsruhe Dialogues - Speakers

Prof. Dr. Olaf Schwencke was born in Pinneberg in 1936. He trained as a ship machinist and then went on to study German Studies, Educational Science, Theology and Sociology at the Universities of Hamburg, Cleveland (USA) and Berlin. In 1967 Schwencke gained his PhD at the University of Hamburg with a work on the history of theology. From 1972 to 1984 he was a member of the Bundestag and the European Parliament and from 1992 to 1996 president of the Berlin University of the Arts (Hochschule der Künste, HdK). He founded the Loccumer Kulturpolitisches Kolloquium (Loccum Cultural Policy Colloquium) and was the founding president of the Kulturpolitische Gesellschaft e.V., the presidency of which he held until 1997. Schwencke is the chair of the Advisory Board of the Institut für Kulturpolitik (IfK) of the Kulturpolitische Gesellschaft e.V. and president of the German Association of the European Cultural Foundation (ECF) for cultural cooperation in Europe. He has numerous publications on cultural policy to his name.