Social engagement

‘We Hamburgers won’t let any of us go overboard.’ This citation by Max M. Warburg from 1913 was the inspiration for the founding of the Hamburgische Gesellschaft – today Hamburgische Brücke. It intermediated between charitable private persons, associations and trusts on the one hand and those seeking help on the other. The needy were helped without consideration of social status, type of need or confession of faith.  

Now as then, helping people is at the centre of our activities. Hamburgische Brücke works to arrange individual assistance, supports mentally ill people, provides domestic care and is confronting the new social challenge of dementia.

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The Warburg-Melchior-Olearius Foundation emerged from the Warburg Foundation, which was established in order to support employees and their families in old age and urgent need.

The foundation promotes selected cultural and monument preservation projects in northern Germany and the new federal states, including the Elbe Philharmonic Foundation, the Hamburg State Opera and the Thalia Theatre.

We also promote the social engagement of our employees.

Our shareholders and Executive Board are active in many areas by taking on honorary mandates for social causes.

We have the future of Hamburg at heart, because we have our origins and our headquarters here. We therefore support the cultural life of the Hanseatic City. We are especially proud to be a classic sponsor of the ‘Rising Star Festival’ of the Elbe Philharmonic, which gives a stage to young musical talent.  

At this festival, today’s visitors to the Elbe Philharmonic can experience tomorrow’s stars of the classical music scene. The talented young musicians are selected and sent on tour by the European Concert Hall Organisation (ECHO), a coalition of the great concert halls of the continent. The chosen musicians all appear within a week at the Elbe Philharmonic during the ‘Rising Star Festival’.